Microsoft Word Al Jalalain Eng with introduction docx

Strategies and Methods not employed in the 
Tafs
ī
r al-Jal
ā
layn, but used in other Commentaries
 
In order to better understand and situate the 
Tafs
ī
r al-Jal
ā
layn — and, indeed, tafs
ī
r in general — 
mention must be now made of all the Commentary strategies and methods the 
Tafs
ī
r al-Jal
ā
layn does not 
use. These are:
(1) There is no 
Tafs
ī
r bil-Ra’y of the kind just mentioned: the two authors never give their personal 
opinions, never speculate, never give their thoughts and reactions, never cite poetry, adages or popular 
sayings to illustrate a point, and always stick to what they understand of transmitted tradition.
(2) There are no mystical inspirations or spiritual insights about passages in the Qur’an of the kind 
also just mentioned (notwithstanding a vision by Ma
ḥ
all
ī
’s brother, related at the end of the 
S
ū
rat al-Isr
ā
', 
wherein the two authors discuss their work after Ma
ḥ
all
ī
’s death).

---

vii
(3) There are no theological discussions of God’s Names, Qualities, Attributes, Words or 
Sunan (such 
as those great discussions to be found in R
ā
z
ī
’s 
Maf
ā
t
īḥ
al-Ghayb), and in fact there is no Theology as such 
at all to be found in the 
Tafs
ī
r al-Jal
ā
layn.
(4) There are no philosophical discussions based on the laws of logic, on syllogisms, induction, 
deduction, and dialectic; equally there are no didactic and rhetorical questions and answers sessions of the 
kind even 
Ṭ
abar
ī
uses.
(5) There are no discussions of symbolism in the Qur’an of the kind described above: neither 
microcosmic, nor anagogical nor even allegorical or moral. In fact, the very issue of symbolism is not even 
broached, despite the 
ḥ
ad
ī
th and the Qur’anic verses mentioned earlier.
(6) There are no semantic investigations of Arabic words, and no citations of
J
ā
hiliyya poetry as 
semantic references and guarantees of the connotations, implications and nuances of the words in the 
Qur’an.
(7) There is no etymological study of the roots of Arabic words and letters and their basic meanings: 
every Arabic word can be traced to a tri-letteral or quadri-letteral root, and these roots have a basic meaning 
which is usually connected to some natural (and hence desert) phenomenon; from these ‘root words’ dozens 
of forms and hundreds of derivatives are produced, such that once the root word is known the form and the 
meaning of any derivative word can be deduced. Thus etymology in Arabic, more than in modern languages, 
is extremely useful in understanding the exact meaning and behaviour of any indigenous word. The 
Tafs
ī
r 
al-Jal
ā
layn, however, does not delve into this.
(8) Anterior to even the meaning of root words in Arabic is the archetypal meaning of the 28 Arabic 
letters themselves which make up every word in the Arabic language (and ultimately their root meanings), 
and each one of which has a form, a sound, a behaviour, and even a corresponding number that exactly 
reflects its archetypal meaning. These archetypal meanings in turn translate into universal principles and 
thus into lunar house (there are 28 or 29 traditional lunar houses), so that all existent things can ultimately 
be associated with one of them. This idea — the idea that there is a perfect symbolism and exact meaning 
to every aspect of the Arabic letters — is evidently a difficult and esoteric idea, but it is precisely the 
foundation of a number of arcane but sacred sciences in Islam. Moreover, more importantly for 
Tafs
ī
r, 29 of 
the Qur’an’s 114 
S
ū
ras or Chapters start with Arabic letters enunciated on their own without forming words 
(e.g. 
Alif, L
ā
m, M
ī
m; N
ū
n; Q
ā
f; 
Ṣā
d, and so on). The Tafs
ī
r al-Jal
ā
layn, however, completely ignores this 
issue, and when it comes to these letters at the beginning of 
S
ū
ras merely remarks: “God knows better what 
is meant by this”.
(9) The 
Tafs
ī
r al-Jal
ā
layn does not explore the traditional Ghar
ā
'ib al-Qur’
ā
n (‘the wondrous-strange 
features of the Qur’an’), and does not address or explain the more complex linguistic tropes to be found in 
it: it does not explain possible meanings clothed by rhetoric, hyperbole and tautology; it does not delve into 
puzzling juxtapositions and zeugmas; and does not resolve apparent antinomies and dialectics. It passes 
over these mines of secret wisdom with very little gloss.
(10) More unusually for a 
tafs
ī
r bil-ma'th
ū
r, the Tafs
ī
r al-Jal
ā
layn gives no isn
ā
ds (chains of 
transmission) for any of the 
hadiths it quotes, and mentions earlier Tafs
ī
rs to which it is heavily indebted 
(primarily 
Ṭ
abar
ī
) only rarely. This is evidently, as mentioned earlier, in order to keep the 
Tafs
ī
r as simple as 
possible, since in Suy
ūṭī
’s 
al-Durr al-Manth
ū
r, all isn
ā
ds are given.
(11) With the occasional exception (e.g. the last verses of 
S
ū
rat al-Isr
ā
' and S
ū
rat al-Sajda) the 
Tafs
ī
r al-Jal
ā
layn — and this too is unusual for a tafs
ī
r bil-ma'th
ū
r — does not relate the Fa
ḍā
'il al-Qur'
ā
n: in 
many of the traditional collections of 
hadith there are specific sections devoted to what Prophet (p.b.u.h.) 
related about the merits of certain verses of the Qur’an and about effects of reciting them at certain times. 
These are known as ‘
Fa
ḍā
'il al-Qur'
ā
n’ — literally, ‘the bounties or excellences of the Qur’an’ — and 
constitute the basis of Islamic supererogatory prayer litanies. They are thus extremely important to 
practising Muslims, and thus constitute perhaps the strangest omission in the 
Tafs
ī
r al-Jal
ā
layn, since they 
are relatively brief and few, and would have been easy to relate.
(12) There is, in the 
Tafs
ī
r al-Jal
ā
layn, no calling attention to the ‘inner architecture’ of the Qur’an, 
showing exactly why certain words and near-synonyms are used in given contexts and not others, in the 
fashion made so famous by the late popular 
Azhar
ī
Sheikh and Commentator Mu
ḥ
ammad Mitwall
ī
Al-
Sha'r
ā
w
ī
(but which has existed since the first centuries of Islam — witness for example al-
Ḥā
kim al-
Tirmidh
ī
’s third-century AH 
Bay
ā
n al-Farq bayn al-
Ṣ
adr wal-Qalb wal-Fu'
ā
d wal-Lubb
[15]
).

---

viii
(13-14) There are obviously no modern political musings on Qur’anic verses, of the kind to be found 
in Seyyed Qu
ṭ
b’s 
F
ī
Ẓ
il
ā
l al-Qur'
ā
n. Nor are there any modern scientific interpretations of Qur’anic verses 
about cosmological, biological or even historical principles or facts — in order to show that the Qur’an 
miraculously anticipated/agrees with modern science and research despite being over 1,000 years older than 
them — of the kind to be found for example in the writings of the late Maurice Bucaille, Dr Zaghlul Najjar, or 
in the 
Tafs
ī
r of Tan
ṭā
w
ī
Jawhar
ī
. 
(15) Finally, the 
Tafs
ī
r al-Jal
ā
layn usually (that is, over 95% of the time) only gives one meaning for 
the Qur’anic text (and at most, three alternate meanings) unlike, for example, Al-
Ṭ
abar
ī
who so often gives 
many possible different meanings and then sometimes gives preponderance to one or two of these. This it 
does despite the existence of different 
hadiths and reports from the Companions confirming more than one 
meaning of many verses, and despite (as discussed earlier) verses of the Qur’an enjoining meditation upon 
the Qur’an, and 
hadiths indicating many possible meanings of at least the Qur’an’s ‘allegorical’ verses. This is 
the 
Tafs
ī
r al-Jal
ā
layn greatest weakness, but perhaps also its greatest strength for it is precisely what makes 
the work so accessible.
In summary then, it can be said that despite the great erudition and wide range of Commentary 
strategies employed in the 
Tafs
ī
r al-Jal
ā
layn, there are even more strategies which the Tafs
ī
r has in general 
deliberately not employed. Living as they did, more or less after the end of the Classical Tradition of 
Commentary, its two authors had the advantage of having easy access to the great works of Classical 
Tafs
ī
rs 
and to their methods, but they deliberately summarized, streamlined or simplified these in order to stay 
focused on their one overriding aim: to make the literal meaning of the Holy Qur’an completely intelligible in 
the simplest possible way!