Tafsir al-Qurtubi – Vol. 7 Sūrat al-An‘ām – Cattle & Sūrat al-A‘rāf – The Ramparts

Title: Tafsir al-Qurtubi – Vol. 7 Sūrat al-An‘ām – Cattle & Sūrat al-A‘rāf – The Ramparts
Author: Abū ‘Abdullāh Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad ibn Abī Bakr ibn Farḥ al-Anṣārī al-Khazrajī al-Andalusī al-Qurṭubī / Translated by Aisha Bewley
ISBN: 9781914397226
Publisher: Diwan Press (UK)

The tafsīr of al-Qurṭubī is perhaps one of the most compendious of them all and is certainly among the most famous. As its title, al-Jāmi‘ li Aḥkām al-Qur’ān – The General Judgments of the Qur’an, suggests, its main focus is on the rulings and judgments to be found in the Qur’ān. However, in the course of doing that, al-Qurṭubī examines all the relevant sciences necessary, such as the ḥadīth pertaining to the āyahs, events in the sīrah, what the Companions, their Followers and other noted people of knowledge said about the āyahs, essential aspects of Arabic etymology, syntax and usage, copiously illustrated by examples, and much more.

This volume covers Sūrat al-An‘ām – Cattle & Sūrat al-A‘rāf – The Ramparts. Sūrat al-An‘ām was revealed all at once except for six āyats – because it constitutes a single argument – and it was accompanied by seventy thousand angels. It provides the basic premises for arguing against many false positions. Uṣūl ad-dīn is founded on it because it contains clear āyats that refute the Qadariyyah proponents of free will who deny the Decree.

Sūrat al-A‘rāf tells the stories of many of the Prophets and then treats the account of Mūsā and Hārūn with Fir‘awn and the Egyptians and then with Bani Israel at some length. 

About the Author:

Abū ‘Abdullāh Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad ibn Abī Bakr ibn Farḥ al-Anṣārī al-Khazrajī al-Andalusī al-Qurṭubī (610-11 AH/1214 CE – 671 AH/1273 CE) was born in Cordoba in Spain, but moved in 1236 to Cairo in Egypt, where he lived until his death. He was Mālikī in fiqh, and although he composed other works, he is most famous for this tafsīr.

About the Translator:

Aisha Bewley is the translator of a large number of classical works of Islam and Sufism, often in collaboration with Abdalhaqq Bewley, notably The Noble Qur’an – a New Rendering of Its Meanings in English; Muhammad, Messenger of Allah – the translation of Qāḍī ‘Iyāḍ’s ash-Shifā’; the Muwaṭṭa’ of Imam Mālik ibn Anas; and Imam an-Nawawī’s Riyāḍ aṣ-Ṣāliḥīn.