Tafsir Ibn Juzayy

Al-Tashil li-'Ulum al-Tanzil

Author	Ibn Juzayy
Translator	Musa Furber
Language	Arabic, English
Subject	Tafsir, Sufism
Publisher	Islamosaic
Publication date	2016
Publication place	Al-Andalus
ISBN	9781944904050

Tafsir Ibn Juzayy, edited by 'Abd Allah al-Khalidi, 2 vols (Beirut: Dar al-'Arqam, 1995)

Al-Tashil li Ulum al-Tanzil (Arabic: التسهيل لعلوم التنزيل, romanized: Facilitation of the Sciences of Revelation), better known as Tafsir Ibn Juzayy (Arabic: تفسير ابن جُزَيّ), is a classical Sunni tafsir of the Qur'an, authored by the Maliki-Ash'ari scholar Ibn Juzayy.

Methodology

In the science of tafsir, Ibn Juzayy's tafsir is among one of the greatest and most precise. He used a detailed approach to interpreting the Quran by the Quran, the Sunnah, or the interpretations of the Companions, distinguishing their preponderant viewpoints and the outweighing ones in the event of a disagreement. He also looked into the comments made by Quranic commentators, distinguishing between those that were authentic and those that weren't, as well as between the majority and minority views.

Features

The tafsir and all other relevant sciences are found in this book. The author has chosen a wise path by providing a comprehensive but concise summary and outlining four purposes that contain four benefits: He discusses the four benefits in the introduction of his book:

1. “Firstly, citing a great number of statements of scholars in one small book to make it easier for the seekers of knowledge. The book includes the same information cited in the long references but briefly summarized and filtered with no room for redundancy ... I included all the Quranic sciences and the brief and most important conclusions, not the unneeded or irrelevant information.
2. Secondly, I cited some anecdotes and subtle benefits that can be rarely found in any other book because they are the product of my wisdom, experience, and knowledge imparted to me by my teachers or the anecdotes cited in other books.
3. Thirdly, I keenly illustrated the problems either by addressing the problematic topics or by eliminating the possibilities and explaining the general points.
4. Fourthly, I verified the statements of past commentators of the Quran, identifying the authentic and inauthentic and the preponderant and the outweighed; this is because the opinions are of different levels (of authenticity); some are authentic and can be relied on as evidence, others are false and should simply be overlooked and rejected, and a third category includes those that are possibly authentic and possibly inauthentic. This possibility may be equal or not, and there are other levels in between as well. I classified the statements and opinions of scholars into different categories in order to identify each category easily marked with certain expressions indicating each of them; those declared false or void were referred to as 'weak or far-fetched', underlining that there are other preponderant, stronger, or most famous ones outweighing them and then citing the preponderant ones or remarking that 'such-and-such was said' so as not to attribute to anyone what he has not actually stated...”

Background

Ibn Juzayy based his sources on a number of older sources, which include the following:

• Al-Kashshaaf by al-Zamakhshari (d. 538/1143).
• Al-Muharrar al-Wajiz fi Tafsir al-Kitāb al-'Aziz by Ibn 'Atiyya (d. 541/1141).

About the author

Ibn Juzayy was an influential Sunni scholar from Granada during the Andalusian period. He was a multidisciplinary scholar who specialized in scriptural exegesis, qira'at, Hadith, Islamic jurisprudence, Islamic theology, legal theory, Arabic, literature, and poetry. A major figure in the Maliki school, he is considered well-versed in many sciences and known for authoring quality books.

See also

• List of tafsir works
• List of Sunni books