Q 2:186 in the tafsīr of Shaykh Ibrāhīm Niasse

وَإِذَا عَنِّے فَإِنِّے إِذَا لِے بِيَ لَعَلَّهُمْ

And when My servants question thee concerning Me, then surely I am nigh. I answer the prayer of the suppliant when he crieth unto Me. So let them hear My call and let them trust in Me, in order that they may be led aright — 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-Baqara begins at vol. 1, p. 54 (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

2 of 2

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 5, ¶113 · numbered by Ḥafṣ · lesson opens at vol. 1, p. 120 · the annual Ramaḍān cycle

سَفَرِ فَعِدَّةٌ مِنَ أيَّامِ أخْرَ تقدم مثله (يُرِيدُ اُ۬للَّهُ بِكُمُ اُ۬لْيُسْرَ وَلَا يُرِيدُ بِكُمُ اُ۬لْعُسْرَۖ وَلِتُكْمِلُواْ اُ۬لْعِدَّةَ وَلِتُكَبِّرُواْ اُ۬للَّهَ عَلَيٰ مَا هَد۪يٰكُمْ وَلَعَلَّكُمْ تَشْكُرُونَۖ وَإِذَا سَأَلَكَ عِبَادِے عَنِّے فَإِنِّے قَرِيبٌۖ) سئل النبي صلى اللّٰه عليه وسلم: اللَّه قريب فنناجيه أم بعيد فناديه جهارا؟ قل إن قريب[52] {أحيبُ دَعْوَةَ التَّاعِ" إِذَا دَعَابٍ» جَلْيَسْتَجِيبُوا لِ وَلْيَومِنُوأ بِىَ لَعَلَّهُمْ يَرْشَدُونٌ أجلَّ لَكُمْ لَيْلَةَ الصِيَامِ الرَّجَتْ نزل لما كان في صدر الإسلام من تحريم الجماع ليلا وقت رمضان «أُحِلَّ لَكُمْ لَيْلَةَ اَ۬لصِّيَامِ اِ۬لرَّفَثُ» الإفضاء (إِلَى نِسَآئِكُمْ)) بالجماع (هَرَّ لِبَاس لَكُمْ وَأَنتَمْ لِبَاسٌ لَهَنَّ كناية عن تعانقهما (عَلِمَ اَ۬للَّهُ أَنَّكُمْ كُنتُمْ تَخْتَانُونَ أَنفُسَكُمْ)

Read in context →

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 44, ¶71 · numbered by Ḥafṣ · lesson opens at vol. 8, p. 159 · the annual Ramaḍān cycle

قَرِيبٌ اجِيبُ دَعْوَةَ ألدَّاعِ إِذَا دَعَابٌ"، والدعاء أفضل العبادة، الدعاء مخ العبادة . العارف في بذايته يرى أن لا موجب للدعاء لأن الله تبارك وتعالى فرغ من أمره، رفعت الأقلام وجفت الصحف، كل شيء مضى، فهذا حال إبراهيم حينما كان في البداية وألقي في النار وتعرض له جبريل وقال ألك حاجة؟ قال أما إليك فلا، قال: فاسأل ربك ادع اللّٰه أن ينجيك، قال: علمه بحالي يغني عن سؤالي. هذه حالة إبراهيم في بدايته، وإبراهيم هو الكامل، الأخير من أمره هو الأكمل، وإبراهيم أخيرا هو الذي يقول: "رَبِّ إجْعَلْ هَٰذَا ألْبَلَدَ ءَامِناً وَاجْنُبْنِي وَبَنِيَّ أَن نَعْبُدَ الاَصْنَامُ" إلى آخر دعواته. فالعارف إذا كمل يرجع إلى الدعاء والتضرع إلى اللّٰه والطلب منه، أدبا معه تبارك وتعالى. هذا لا ينافي أن دعوتك الحادثة الآن لا تكون سببا لشيء سبق في الأزل. شيء أزلي لا يؤثر فيه شيء حادث الآن، ولكن اللّٰه تبارك وتعالى أمرنا بالدعاء والرسول صلى اللّٰه عليه وسلم سأله صحابي قال له: نحن نسأل اللّه تبارك وتعالى في أي شيء؟ فيما …

Read in context →

Lesson 44 is titled by sūra rather than by āya, and its bounds (Q 40:1–Q 41:46) 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 to1–286