Q 21:107 in the tafsīr of Shaykh Ibrāhīm Niasse

وَمَآ إِلَّا

We sent thee not save as a mercy for the peoples — 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-Anbiyāʾ begins at vol. 6, p. 107 (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 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 34 — vol. 6, p. 122 · numbered by Ḥafṣ · Muḥammad b. al-Shaykh ʿAbd Allāh al-Tijānī · the annual Ramaḍān cycle

In this session, not yet located. Lesson 34 is titled by sūra rather than by āya; its bounds (Q 21:64–Q 22:78) are inferred from where the neighbouring sessions begin, so they are soft at the edges. Of the 127 āyāt in that span, as many as 90 are quoted where the session reaches them; this one is not, so whether he takes it up here is not established. The page given is where the lesson opens — start there and read on.

Most of Shaykh Ibrāhīm’s Qurʾānic commentary is oral. Sixty-two cassettes of Wolof exegesis covering the whole Qurʾān have never been transcribed, and this index reaches only what the written sessions quote. An absence here belongs to the index, not to the corpus.

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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 2, ¶9 · numbered by Ḥafṣ · lesson opens at vol. 1, p. 59 · the annual Ramaḍān cycle

عليه وسلم وعدم إنذاره فلا يؤمنون، لم يقل سواء عليك أنذرتهم أم لم تنذرهم، فإن الإنذار وعدم الإنذار ليسا سواء في حق النبي صلى اللّٰه عليه وسلم، فهو يجب عليه التبليغ فإن بلغ سواء من آمن ومن لم يؤمن فهو مثاب، ولكن الكفار الذين لا يؤمنون سواء عليهم إنذار النبي صلى اللّٰه عليه وسلم وعدم إنذاره فهم لا يؤمنون أبدا. علم اللّٰه نبيه مقدما أن هؤلاء لا يؤمنون ليقطع طمعه في إيمانهم فلا يقع له مثل ما وقع لنوح عليه السلام بعدما مكث آلفا إلا خمسين عاما أوحى إليه "انَّهُ لَنْ يُومِن مِن قَوْمِكٌ إِلَّا مَن قَدَ امَنّ" بعد مقاسات الشدائد أخبره اللّه تبارك وتعالى بهذا، فالنبي صلى اللّٰه عليه وسلم مقدما أخبره الحق أن هؤلاء لا يؤمنون لئلا يطمع في إيمانهم. ونوح لما علمه اللّه تبارك وتعالى أن قومه لا يؤمنون دعا عليهم بالهلاك، والنبي صلى اللّه عليه وسلم لما علم أن قومه لا يؤمنون ما دعا عليهم لأنه نبي الرحمة "وَمَآ أَرْسَلْنَٰكَ إِلاَّ رَحْمَةً لِلْعَلَمِينَ". اللّٰه تبارك وتعالى أثبت في هذه الآية أن إنذارهم …

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Lesson 2 runs Q 2:6–Q 2:25. 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 7, ¶1 · numbered by Ḥafṣ · lesson opens at vol. 2, p. 3 · the annual Ramaḍān cycle

تِلْك} الجماعة( ألرُّسُلُ) هي الرسل مبتدأ وخبر، أو تلك الرسل {فَضَّلْنَا بَعْضَهُم عَلَىٰ بَعْضٌ) فضل اللّٰه بعض الأنبياء على بعض بتخصيصه بمنقبة ليست لغيره {مِنْهُم مَن كَلَّمَ الله} كموسى {وَرَفَعَ بَعْضَهُمْ} وهو محمد صلى اللّٰه عليه وسلم{ دَرَجَتٍ} على غيره بعموم الدعوة وختم النبوة وتفضيل أمته على سائر الأمم والمعجزات المتكاثرة والخصائص العديدة. ذكر في هذه الآية أن الأنبياء فضل اللّٰه بعضهم على بعض، اتفقوا على أن الأنبياء بعضهم أفضل من بعض، وأجمعوا على أن محمدا صلى اللّٰه عليه وسلم أفضل الأنبياء والمرسلين وذلك بوجوه عديدة منها أن اللّٰه تبارك وتعالى أخبر في القرآن أن النبي صلى اللّٰه عليه وسلم أرسله رحمة للعالمين بقوله: " وَمَآ أَرْسَلْنَٰكَ إِلاَّ رَحْمَةً لِلْعَلَمِينَ" لما كان رحمة للعالمين جميعا ثبت أن يكون أفضل العالمين جميعا. لأن كل واحد من العالم مرحوم بسبب محمد صلى اللّٰه عليه وسلم فصار محمد أفضل من الجميع. والله تبارك وتعالى قرن طاعته بطاعته، ومبايعته بمبايعته، ورضاه برضاه، …

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Lesson 7 runs Q 2:253–Q 3:14. 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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