Sūrat Ghāfir · 40 : 44

Q 40:44 in the tafsīr of Shaykh Ibrāhīm Niasse

مَآ لَكُمْۖ إِلَي إِنَّ

And ye will remember what I say unto you. I confide my cause unto Allah. Lo! Allah is Seer of (His) slaves — 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 Ghāfir begins at vol. 8, p. 159 (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.

6
loci in the corpus
3
distinct acts
1959 – 1964
attested span
3 of 6
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
before 1959al-Dawāwīn al-sitt
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 44, ¶61 · numbered by Ḥafṣ · lesson opens at vol. 8, p. 159 · the annual Ramaḍān cycle

استجابة دعوة فى الدُّنْيِا وَلا فِي الآخِرَةِ وَأَلَّ مَرَدَّنَآ إِلَى اللَّهِ وَأَنَّ الْمُسْرِجِينَ) الكافرين (هُمُۥٓ أَصْحَٰبُ اُ۬لنّ۪ارِۖ فَسَتَذْكُرُونَ مَآ أَقُولُ لَكُمْۖ) إذا عاينتم العذاب سترون، فهددوه بالقتل فخرج إلى الفلاة وطلع على جبل يتعبد فوقه فأرسل فرعون جنودا ليقتلوه فلما دنوا من الجبل حال بينهم وبينه أسد ضار فخافوا ورجعوا وهو يتعبد فوق الجبل ما أحس بخبرهم !

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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 10, ¶10 · numbered by Ḥafṣ · lesson opens at vol. 2, p. 124 · the annual Ramaḍān cycle

واحد من الصالحين يقول: عجبت من شخص توعده رجل أو خاف من شيء وهو يعلم حسبنا الله ونعم الوكيل وهو يسمع كلام اللّٰه تبارك وتعالى "حَسْبُنَا أللَّهُ وَنِعْمَ أَلْوَكِيلٌ بَانْقَلَبَا بنِعْمَةِ صِ أْللَّهِ وَفَضْلٍ لَمْ يَمْسَسْهُمْ سُوَءً"، وأحد نزل به غم وهو يعلم "لاَّ إِلَةَ إِلَّ أَنتَ سُبْحَنَكَ إِنِّي كُنتْ صِنَ الظِّلِمِينَ" وهو يسمع اللّه يقول "قَاسْتَجَبْنَا لَهُ وَنَجَّيْنَهُ مِسَ ألْعَمٌّ، وأحد تُوعد بالقتل وهو يعرف "وَأْقَوِّضْ أَمْرِىَ إِلَى اللَّهِ إِنَّ أْللَّهَ بَصِيرٌ بِالْعِبَادِ" وهو يسمع اللّٰه يقول: " بَوَفِيهُ أَللَّهُ سَيِّئَاتِ مَا مَكَرُواْ وَحَاقَ بِئَالِ مِرْعَوْنَ سُوءُ الْعَذَابِ". هذه الكلمة من لازمها عدد حروفها أربعمائة وخمسين كل صباح ومساء لا يضره شيء مما خلق الله. يقول الرسول صلى اللّٰه عليه وسلم (رجعنا من الجهاد الأصغر إلى الجهاد الأكبر)1 الجهاد الأصغر الجهاد بالسيف والجهاد الأكبر جهاد النفس والهوى والشيطان. شهيد الجهاد الأصغر شهيد وقتيل الجهاد الأكبر صدّيق …

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Lesson 10 runs Q 3:176–Q 4:23. 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 34, ¶39 · numbered by Ḥafṣ · lesson opens at vol. 6, p. 122 · the annual Ramaḍān cycle

"ذَا النُّوبِ"، هو ملك الحوت هنا، والحوت كبر حتى صار نونا. وفي سورة "ت وَالْفَلَمِ" حوت فقط وكاد الحوت أن يملكه. صاحب الحوت كأنه تابع للحوت صاحب له فقط. هذا ذكر عظيم "لَاَّ إِلَةَ إِلَّ أَنتَ سُبْحَنَكَ إِنِّى كُنتُ مِنَ الظِّلِمِينُ" من مرض وذكره أربعين مرة، إن مات مات شهيدا أي دخل الجنة، ومن كان في غم وذكر هذه الكلمات إن اللّٰه ينجيه من غمه. قال أحد الصالحين: عجبت من أحد نزل به غم وهو يعرف "لاَّ إِلَةَ إِلَّ أَنتَ سُبْحَنَكَ إِنِّي كُنتُ مِنَ الظَّلِمِينُ" ولم يذكرها وهو يسمع كلام الله "بَاسْتَجَبْنَا لَهُو وَنَجَّيْنَٰهُ مِنَ أُلْعَمّ ، وأحد تُوُعّد بالعذاب وهو يعرف "وَأُجَوِضٌ أَمْرِىَ إِلَى اللَّهُ إِنَّ اللَّهَ بَصِيرٌ بِالْعِبَادِ" ولم يذكرها وهو يسمع اللّٰه تبارك وتعالى يقول: " جَوَفِيْهُ اللَّهُ سَيِّئَاتِ مَا مَكَرُوا"، وأحد هدده أعداؤه وهو يعرف "حَسْبُنَا اللَّهُ وَنِعْمَ ٱلْوَكِيل" ولم يقلها وهو يسمع اللّٰه يقول "وَقَالُواْ حَسْبُنَا اللَّهُ وَنَعْمَ ألْوَكِيلٌ جَانقَلَبُواْ …

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Lesson 34 is titled by sūra rather than by āya, and its bounds (Q 21:64–Q 22:78) 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.

The verse in verse

The verse as structure — acrostic, tawassul, or the letters themselves — not as an object of interpretation.

al-Dawāwīn al-sitt

الدواوين الستpoetic

before 1959 · English · Q. qāfiyya: Wajjahtu wajhī li-l-Qadīm al-Bāqī (ALA #49-xxiv)

Not yet ingested. MS Kaolack 11; NU/Paden 287 Composed 1362/1942-3.

al-Dawāwīn al-sitt

الدواوين الستpoetic

before 1959 · English · Silāḥ al-ṣāliḥīn fī nuḥūr al-aʿdāʾ al-ṭāliḥīn (ALA #68)

Not yet ingested. MS Kaolack 16 — ALA gives the same shelfmark for #38; one of the two is an error

al-Dawāwīn al-sitt

الدواوين الستpoetic

before 1959 · English · Tawṣiyat al-aḥbāb alladhīna baʿudū ʿannā wa-tabshīr (ALA #77)

Not yet ingested. Opens Waliyyukum awliyāʾ Allāhi idh makarū * makran huwa llāhu mawlā l-khalqi fa-ṣṭabirū — layers Q 3:54 or 8:30 over the Q 40:44 acrostic Composed 22 Shawwāl 1375 / 2 June 1956.

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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