Q 20:18 in the tafsīr of Shaykh Ibrāhīm Niasse

هِيَ عَلَيْهَا بِهَا عَلَيٰ وَلِيَ فِيهَا

He said: This is my staff whereon I lean, and wherewith I bear down branches for my sheep, and wherein I find other uses — 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 Ṭāhā begins at vol. 6, p. 69 (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

3 of 4

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 32, ¶111 · numbered by Ḥafṣ · lesson opens at vol. 6, p. 40 · the annual Ramaḍān cycle

وما تلك؟ تفهم من السؤال أنه سؤال رجل مغمي عليه أو غائب عن حسه «وَمَا تِلْكَ بِيَمِينِكَ» موسى نسي العصا ونسي أن العصا في يده اليمنى حتى قيل له بيمينك - نسي موسى - يا موسى «وَمَا تِلْكَ بِيَمِينِكَ يَمُوسِى» فانتبه تذكر موسى، وتذكر يده اليمنى، ورأى عصا في يده (قَالَ هِي عَصَاىَ أَتَوَكَّؤا أعتمد عَلَيْهَا) عند الوثوب والمشي (وَأَهْشُ بِهَا عَلَى غَنَهِ فتأكل (وَلِيَ فِيهَا مَـَٔارِبُ أُخْر۪يٰۖ) بسط الجواب تلذذا واختصره أيضا تأدبا (قَالَ أَلْقِهَا يَمُوسِى لما قال هي عصاي أمره الحق تبارك وتعالى بإلقائها، فلهذا المريد كل ما يضيفه إلى نفسه تخاطبه الحضرة أن «أَلْقِهَا يَمُوسِى» (بَأَلْفِيْهَا وَإِذَا هِيى حَيَّةٌ تَسْعِىْ) وكل ما يضيفه المريد إلى نفسه فهو حية «بَأَلْفِيْهَا» فصارت حية ه قَالَ خُذْهَا وَلَا تَخَفْ فأخذها {سَنُعِيدُهَا سِيرَتَهَا الاولى وكان موسى جزعا مرتعدا

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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. 4 · held at students’ request

Not yet ingested. hiya ʿaṣāya — al-ʿaṣā and al-maʿṣiya are cognate in the lafẓ: what the servant ascribes to himself becomes a living thing against him. Then Moses' tongue, the coal, and why the miracle required the earlier defect.

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 48, ¶52 · numbered by Ḥafṣ · lesson opens at vol. 9, p. 108 · the annual Ramaḍān cycle

مشهد: رأى الشيخ الأكبر مشهدا اجتمع جميع الأنبياء والمرسلين في صعيد واحد وهناك كرسي من الذهب طويل ينتظرون أن يأتي محمد صلى اللّه عليه وسلم فيجلس عليه فصار يتفكر سبحان الله، إبراهيم الخليل، موسى الكليم، عيسى روح اللّٰه كلهم جلوس على الأرض والمصطفى صلى اللّه عليه وسلم هو وحده الذي يجلس على هذا الكرسي؟ قال:

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Lesson 48 is titled by sūra rather than by āya, and its bounds (Q 51:28–Q 54:55) 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.

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

في رياض التفسير للقرآن الكريمproof-textunbracketed quotation

1383 / 1964 · Arabic · Lesson 48, ¶57 · numbered by Ḥafṣ · lesson opens at vol. 9, p. 108 · the annual Ramaḍān cycle

(1744). تقدم في الدرس 24.

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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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