Q 5:66 in the tafsīr of Shaykh Ibrāhīm Niasse

وَلَوَ اَنَّهُمُۥٓ اُ۬لتَّوْر۪يٰةَ وَالِانجِيلَ وَمَآ إِلَيْهِم مِّن مِن وَمِن مِّنْهُمُۥٓ مِّنْهُمْ مَا

If they had observed the Torah and the Gospel and that which was revealed unto them from their Lord, they would surely have been nourished from above them and from beneath their feet. Among them there are people who are moderate, but many of them are of evil conduct — 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-Māʾida begins at vol. 3, p. 33 (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 14, ¶91 · numbered by Ḥafṣ · lesson opens at vol. 3, p. 49 · the annual Ramaḍān cycle

أنَّ أَهْلَ الْكِقَابِ ءَامَنُوا) بمحمد (وَاتَّفَوْا) الكفر (لَكَفَّرْنَا عَنْهُمْ سَيّئَاتِهِمْ وَلَادْخَلْتَةَ جَنَّتِ التَّعِيمُ وَلَوَانَّهَمُوَ أَفَامُوا التَّوْرِيَةَ) أي عملوا بالتوراة (وَالانجِيلَ) عملوا بما فيهما، وما فيهما هو الإيمان بالنبي صلى اللّٰه عليه وسلم. قد جاء ذكر محمد في التوراة والإنجيل. كلهما بشر به، قال عيسى: سوف أذهب وسيأتيكم البارقليط (وَمَآ أُنزِلَ إِلَيْهِم مِّن رَّبِّهِمْ لَأَكَلُواْ مِن فَوْقِهِمْ وَمِن تَحْتِ أَرْجُلِهِمۖ) لو عملوا بما أرشدهم إليه التوراة والإنجيل من الإيمان بمحد صلى اللّٰه عليه وسلم لفتح اللّٰه عليهم ووسع عليهم في الرزق وأفاض عليهم من كل جيها (مِنْهُمْ وَ ثُمَةُ مُفْتَصِدَةُ ه نعم فيهم جماعة تعمل به وهم عبد اللّه بن سلام وَكَثِيْرَ مَنْهُمْ مَه مَا يَعْمَلُونَ يَأَنَّهَا أَسُولَ بَنَغْ مَا أَنزِلَ إِلَيْكَ صٍ رَبِكَ ولا تكتم شيئا منه خوف أن تا،

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.

On the meaning of ﴿And in the heavens is your provision﴾ (Q 51:22) and ﴿had the people of the townships believed and had taqwā﴾ (Q 7:96)

proof-text

سؤال عن معنى قوله تعالى: ﴿وَفِي ٱلسَّمَآءِ رِزْقُكُمْ وَمَا تُوعَدُونَ﴾ (الذاريات:22)، وقوله: ﴿وَلَوْ أَنَّ أَهْلَ ٱلْقُرَىٰٓ ءَامَنُواْ وَٱتَّقَوْاْ لَفَتَحْنَا عَلَيْهِم بَرَكَٰتٍ مِّنَ ٱلسَّمَآءِ وَٱلْأَرْضِ﴾ الأعراف:96

al-Fatāwā wa-l-ajwiba · undated · Arabic · §1, pp. 241, 243 · Mawsūʿat al-āthār al-nathriyya li-ṣāḥib al-fayḍa al-Tijāniyya, maḥwar 5 · compiled by Muḥammad b. al-Shaykh ʿAbd Allāh al-Tijānī · answered in writing

الجواب عن الآية الأولى والله أعلم: أن للآية ظاهرا وباطنا كغيرها من الآيات، وقوله تعالى ﴿وَفِي ٱلسَّمَآءِ﴾ السماء: معناه المجازي المطر… والمعنى الحقيقي السماء المعروفة. والرزق أيضا رزقان: رزق مجازي ورزق حقيقي. فالرزق المجازي مدار أمره على المطر، لا ينزل رزق إلا بواسطة المطر.

The answer concerning the first verse — and Allah knows best — is that the verse has a ẓāhir [outward sense] and a bāṭin [inward sense], like other verses. ﴿And in the heaven﴾: al-samāʾ, in its figurative meaning, is rain… Its literal meaning is the known heaven. And provision, likewise, is of two kinds: a figurative provision and a real one. The figurative provision turns entirely upon rain; no provision descends except by means of rain.

Excerpt from the answer; the full text is not published here. Translation by Amadu Kunateh. The compiler's footnotes are not included.

§1. The edition prints this reference itself.

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 and how well attested the attribution is. Loci 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 to1–120