Q 109:1 in the tafsīr of Shaykh Ibrāhīm Niasse

Say: O disbelievers — Pickthall

Shaykh Ibrāhīm Niasse (d. 1975) read the whole Qurʾān aloud at Medina Baye over fifty-six sessions between ẓuhr and ʿaṣr in Ramaḍān 1383/1964, and his students wrote those sessions down as Fī Riyāḍ al-Tafsīr. He comes back to the same āya elsewhere — in the fatwās, the Ḥikam, the poetry — decades apart. About the tafsīr →

In the printed edition: Sūrat Al-Kāfirūn begins at vol. 10, p. 220 (Tūnis 2022, 10 vols.)

The āya above is Warsh ʿan Nāfiʿ, the rasm of the printed edition. The root behind each underlined word comes from a Ḥafṣ ʿan ʿĀṣim corpus, realigned to this Warsh text word by word; 125 of the 6,236 āyāt differ in word count between the two riwāyāt, and those were aligned rather than assumed. A word carries no underline where the corpus supplies no root. Lexicon entries are a reading aid and carry no page reference; the edition does not cite them. Page references elsewhere on this site follow the ten-volume Tunis 2022 printing this site was transcribed from; published scholarship on this text cites the six-volume Tunis 2010 printing, whose pagination is different.

loci in the corpus

distinct acts

1956 – 1964

attested span

2 of 3

text available

This verse across his life

Each mark is one work in which Shaykh Ibrāhīm engages this verse, placed by date of composition. Hollow marks are loci we know of but cannot yet show.

1960

March–April 1956al-Ḥikam al-quṭbiyya

1964Fī riyāḍ

Exegesis of the verse

Sustained interpretation of the verse as a verse — lemma, gloss, expansion.

Fī riyāḍ al-tafsīr li-l-Qurʾān al-karīm

في رياض التفسير للقرآن الكريمtafsīr

1383 / 1964 · Arabic · Lesson 55, ¶211 · numbered by Ḥafṣ · lesson opens at vol. 10, p. 167 · the annual Ramaḍān cycle

اللّٰه أكبرك (بِسْمِ اللَّهِ الرَّحْمَنِ اِلرَّحِيمِ فُلْ يَأَيُّهَا الْكَاهِرُونَ) قالوا للنبي صلى اللّه عليه وسلم اعبد آلهتنا سنة ونعبد إلهك سنة\! قال تعالى: «قُل يَأَيُّهَا الْكَفِرُونَ» (لَا أَعْبَدْ مَا تَعْبدُونَ) من الأصنام (وَلَا أَنتُمْ عَبِدُونَ مَا أَعْبَذْ وهو اللّٰه (وَلَا أَنَا عَابِدٌ) في المستقبل (مَّا عَبَدتُّمْ وَلَآ أَنتُمْ عَٰبِدُونَ مَآ أَعْبُدُۖ لَكُمْ دِينُكُمْ وَلِيَ دِينِۖ) الإسلام. هذه السورة تساوي ربع القرآن 2 والحكمة في ذلك أن القرآن أمر ونهي. أمر يتعلق بالقلوب وبالجوارح ونهي يتعلق بالقلوب وبالجوارح وهذه السورة أتت بالمنهي الذي يكون في القلب فصارت ربعا.

Read in context →

Glossed in passing

A single interpretive equivalence, often a received one, rather than commentary proper.

al-Ḥikam al-quṭbiyya al-maʾkhūdha min al-qalam al-Sīrīnbiyya

الحكم القطبية المأخوذة من القلم السيرينبيةgloss

Shaʿbān 1375 / March–April 1956 · Arabic · al-Ḥikam al-quṭbiyya (ed. AK), p. 9 · held at students’ request

Not yet ingested. al-Ikhlāṣ is a third of the Qurʾān because the Qurʾān is command and prohibition, outward and inward, and ikhlāṣ is tawḥīd entire; al-Kāfirūn a quarter, negating worship of any other.

The verse used, not interpreted

Here the verse warrants a claim argued from other authorities. It is not the object of commentary.

Fī riyāḍ al-tafsīr li-l-Qurʾān al-karīm

في رياض التفسير للقرآن الكريمproof-textunbracketed quotation

1383 / 1964 · Arabic · Lesson 56, ¶18 · numbered by Ḥafṣ · lesson opens at vol. 10, p. 223 · the annual Ramaḍān cycle

«فُلْ» يا محمد صرَّحَ بقلْ في أول السورة لنعرف أن القرآن جاءه هكذا هو يبلغ لنا القرآن كما ينزل عليه لا ينقص ولا يزيد، حتى كلمة "فَلْ" إن قيل له قل هو اللّٰه أحد يقرؤه كما نزل عليه. ومعلوم أن قل يا أيها الكافرون في رأسها قل، وقل هو اللّٰه أحد والمعوذتين في رأس كل منها قل. وهذه السورة "تَبَّتْ يَدَآ أَبِى لَهَبِ" ليس فيها قلْ، وإنا أعطيناك الكوثر وإذا جاء نصر اللّٰه كذلك ليس فيها قلْ، لأن في سورة الكوثر تكلموا في جانب النبي صلى اللّٰه عليه وسلم عابوه بأنه ليس له ولد، فلما عابوا النبي صلى اللّٰه عليه وسلم تكلم اللّٰه في الذب عن النبي صلى اللّٰه عليه وسلم "إِنَّا أَعْطَيْنَكَ الْكَوْثَرَ بَصَلِّ لِرَبِّكَ وَانْحَرِ إنَّ شَانِيُّكَ هُوَ الْأَبْتَرُ" لأن النبي صلى اللّٰه عليه وسلم لا يرد عن نفسه رد اللّه عنه، ولما دَعَوْا إلى عبادة غير اللّٰه تبارك وتعالى أُمِر بأن يقول "فُلْ يَأَيُّهَا الْكَبِرُونَ". لما تكلموا في النبي أجاب الحق تبارك وتعالى، فإذا تكلموا في اللّٰه فالرسول هو الذي يجيب "فُلْ …

Read in context →

Lesson 56 is titled by sūra rather than by āya, and its bounds (Q 112:1–Q 114:6) are inferred from where the neighbouring sessions begin, so they are soft at the edges. This āya falls outside it. He quotes it here inside the commentary on another verse, which is why it is not filed as exegesis of this one.

The printing brackets no quotation here. A run of consecutive words in this paragraph — three at the shortest — occurs in one place in the muṣḥaf and nowhere else, and every āya lying inside that run is credited, so a run crossing a boundary attests both. Matching folds together the letter shapes the scan confuses, so the words need not stand in the āya exactly as printed.

Entries are grouped by what Shaykh Ibrāhīm is doing with the verse, then ordered oldest first inside each group, so the same words can be seen carrying different work across a career. Every entry names the witness it comes from. Passages that are known but not yet available are listed rather than hidden. Beyond Fī Riyāḍ al-Tafsīr, 156 āyāt have so far been indexed from his other writings — the Ḥikam, the fatwās, Kāshif al-Ilbās, theQanābīl, the Tafsīr Maʿānī cassettes. A verse with nothing under this heading has not been searched in them and found wanting; it has not been searched.

Go to1–6