Q 17:88 in the tafsīr of Shaykh Ibrāhīm Niasse

لَّئِنِ عَلَيٰٓ أَنْ هَٰذَا لَا وَلَوْ

Say: Verily, though mankind and the jinn should assemble to produce the like of this Qur'an, they could not produce the like thereof though they were helpers one of another — 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-Isrāʾ begins at vol. 5, p. 165 (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

3 of 3

text available

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 30, ¶193 · numbered by Ḥafṣ · lesson opens at vol. 5, p. 144 · the annual Ramaḍān cycle

الحيواني فيبقى متحركا وهو نائم، ويبقى متنفسا وهو نائم لأن الروح الحقيقي موجود، وإذا أخذ اللّٰه هذا الروح بأن أماته يبقى لا حركة له ولا نفس ولا حس ولا شيء، مات. الموت موتان: موت هو النوم فقط، وموت هو الموت الحقيقي، إذا سلب هذا الروح الحيواني يكون نائما، وإذا سلب الروح الحقيقي يكون ميتا. "قُلِ ٱلرُّوحُ مِنَ آمْرِ رَبِّي وَمَآ أُوتِيتُم مِنَ العلم إلا قلِيلا" (وَلَسِ شِئْنَا لَنَذْهَبَنَّ بِالذِي أَوْحَيْنَا إِلَيْكَ) القرآن بأن نمحوه من الصدور والمصاحف (ثُمَّ لا تَجِدُ لَكَ بِهِ، عَلَيْنَا وَكِيلًا إِلَّا لكن أبقيناه القرآن (رَحْمَةࣰ مِّن رَّبِّكَۖ إِنَّ فَضْلَهُۥ كَانَ عَلَيْكَ كَبِيراࣰۖ) عظيما حيث أنزله عليك وأعطاك المقام المحمود وغير ذلك (قل لَيِنِ إجْتَمَعَتِ الانسُ وَالْجِرُّ عَلَى أَنْ يَاتُواْ بِمِثْلِ هَذَا الْقُرْءَانِ) في الفصاحة والبلاغة (لا يَاتُونَ بِمِثْلِهِ وَلَوْ كَانَ بَعْضُهُمْ لِبَعْضٍ ظَهِيرًا)) أي معينا نزل ردا على قولهم

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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 25, ¶19 · numbered by Ḥafṣ · lesson opens at vol. 4, p. 196 · the annual Ramaḍān cycle

( وَاللهُ عَلَى كُلِّ شَيْءٍ وَكِيل حفيظ فيجازيهم به. لا يَعْظم عند أبناء الدنيا إلا أمر المال حتى يظنون أن النبي لا يستحق الرسالة إلا بكثرة المال، والنبي جاء ليزهد الناس في الدنيا ليقبلوا على الآخرة، فهو لا يبالي بالمال أصلا وهم يريدون أن يجد المال ليكون كبيرا له رئاسة وجاه فيستحق النبوة (آمْ يَفُولُونَ إجْتَرِيةُ) أم يقولون إن النبي صلى اللّٰه عليه وسلم هو الذي أتى بالقرآن من عنده ( قُلْ فَاتُواْ بِعَشْرِ سُوَرٍ مِثْلِهِ) في الفصاحة والبلاغة ( مُبْتَرَيَتٍ) فإنكم عرب فصحاء مثلي، تحداهم بها أولا ثم بسورة، هذا هو التحدي، النبي يأتي بشيء يعجز المخلوقات جميعا ويقول آتوا بمثل هذا ولا يأتون بمثله. تحداهم أولا بالقرآن جميعا " قُل لَيِنِ إجْتَمَعَتِ الانس وَالْجِنُّ عَلَىَ أَنْ يَاتُواْ بِمِثْلِ هَذَا الْقُرْءَانِ لاَ يَاتُونَ بِمِثْلِهِ، وَلَوْ كَانَ بَعْضُهُمْ لِبَعْضٍ ظَهِيرا" أقروا بعجزهم عن الإتيان بمثل القرآن. فتحداهم ثانيا «قُلْ بَانُواْ بِعَشْرِ سُوَرٍ مِثْلِهِ، مُفْتَرَيَتٍ» آتوا …

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Lesson 25 runs Q 11:6–Q 11:83. 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.

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

في رياض التفسير للقرآن الكريمproof-textunbracketed quotation

1383 / 1964 · Arabic · Lesson 56, ¶64 · numbered by Ḥafṣ · lesson opens at vol. 10, p. 223 · the annual Ramaḍān cycle

الختم

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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.

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.

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