Maṭālib al-Qurʾān: An Introduction and Analysis

مطالب القرآن: تعارف و تجزیہ

Abstract

The history of Ulūm al-Qurʾān reveals something far greater than the unfolding of a mere intellectual discipline. It discloses the longing of a whole civilization, a caravan of centuries journeying ceaselessly through the illumination of Qurʾān, never halting nor exhausted. In the age of the Companions (may Allah be pleased with them) this knowledge passed from one generation to other like a sacred trust, where the purpose was less the exposition of words than the cultivation of souls. Then, as the great tree of Islamic civilization extended its branches across the horizons of human thoughts, its boughs grew heavy with the blossoms of Fiqhī, Kalāmī, Adabī and Ishārī Tafāsīr. In every age, the great Mufassirīn (exegetes) read the thirst of their times and drew from the wellspring of Quranic wisdom precisely that water which could slake the spirit of their era. Thus, the tradition of tafsīr never settled into a still and stagnant pool, it remained a flowing river, gathering with each new valley it traversed a deeper life, a richer resonance, a fuller meaning, and at every bend of its course leaving behind a sign for those who followed, pointing toward a horizon yet unseen.

It is from this boundless river that Tafsīr: Maṭālib al-Qurʾān by Dr. Ḥabib Allah Chishti, rises as one of its most luminous waves, emerging upon the horizon of contemporary tafasīr (exegesis) as a star appears after a long night, radiant with its full and unhurried light. The most distinguished quality of this work is that its author has gazed upon the Qurʾān as one gaze upon a garden, where every blossom, though singular in its form, is nourished by the same breeze and watered by the same spring. The connection of Āyah to Āyah, the coherence of Sūrah to Sūrah, and the unbroken continuity of meaning that shimmers from beginning to end like pearls threaded upon a single cord, it is precisely this quality of vision that has set this tafsīr apart within the landscape of contemporary Quranic literature. Through its sustained attention to Naẓm-i Qurʾān, this work has unveiled the inner unity of the Qurʾān as a master craftsman unveils a work of intricate art, making those who behold it understand, with sudden and serene certainty, that these lines were never scattered, they were always a single image, awaiting only the eye trained enough to see them whole. Moreover, Imdād al-Karam and Maṭālib al-Qurʾān are themselves additions/ elaborations and extensions of Ziāʾ al-Qurʾān