They surely disbelieve who say: Lo! Allah is the third of three; when there is no Allah save the One Allah. If they desist not from so saying a painful doom will fall on those of them who disbelieve — 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.
4
loci in the corpus
2
distinct acts
4 of 4
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 13, ¶50 · numbered by Ḥafṣ · lesson opens at vol. 3, p. 3 · the annual Ramaḍān cycle
إِنَّ اللَّهَ ثَالِثُ ثَلَثَةٍ ومن تشبه بقوم فهو منهم، حيث أن ثالث ثلاثة كفر. اللّه تبارك وتعالى ذكر في القرآن "مَا يَكُولُ مِن نَجْوِىٰ ثَلَئَةٍ إِلأَّ هُوَ رَابِعَهُمْ وَلَا خَمْسَةٍ إلاَّ هُوَ سَادِسُهُمْ وَلَا أَدْنِىٰ مِ ذَلِكَ وَلَا أَكْثَرَ إِلاّ هُوَ مَعَهُمُو" ولكن لم يقل هو ثالثهم، ابتداً الكلام "مَا يَكُونُ مِن نَجْوِىٰ ثَلَكَةِ الأَهْوَ رَابِعُهُمْ" حذرا من أن يقول هو ثالثه، واثنين كل اثنين الله ثالثهم ولكن لما كان ثالث ثلاثة عقيدة كفر تجنب القرآن هذه العبارة فقال: "مَا يَكُونٌ مِن نَجْوِىٰ ثَلّئَةِ الأَ هُوَ رَابِعُهُمْ وَلا خَمْسَةٍ إِلاّ هُوَ سَادِسُهُمْ وَلَاَ أَدْنِيى مِ ذَلِكَ وَلَا أَكْثَرَ إِلَّ هُوَ مَعَهُمْ " لهذا الإنسان يفر من التشبه بهم، (من تشبه بقوم فهو منهم)\!
Here the verse warrants a claim argued from other authorities. It is not the object of commentary.
On ﴿There is no private counsel of three but He is their fourth﴾ (Q 58:7): God's maʿiyya and the numbers — editorial summary; the printing states no question here
proof-text
al-Fatāwā wa-l-ajwiba · undated · Arabic · §3, p. 248 · Mawsūʿat al-āthār al-nathriyya li-ṣāḥib al-fayḍa al-Tijāniyya, maḥwar 5 · compiled by Muḥammad b. al-Shaykh ʿAbd Allāh al-Tijānī
…إبطالا لمذهب التثليث ﴿لَّقَدْ كَفَرَ ٱلَّذِينَ قَالُوٓاْ إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ ثَالِثُ ثَلَٰثَةٍ﴾…إلخ وتنويها بمقام الثلاثة الذين هو رابعهم والخمسة الذين هو سادسهم.
…as a nullification of the doctrine of trinity: ﴿Truly they have disbelieved who said: Allah is the third of three﴾ …etc. — and as an announcing of the rank of the three of whom He is the fourth and the five of whom He is the sixth.
Excerpt from the answer; the full text is not published here. Translation by Amadu Kunateh. The compiler's footnotes are not included.
§3. The edition quotes the verse without a printed reference; the identification is inferred.
On ʿIllaysh's fatwā — “One, not out of fewness; existent, not out of a cause” — and waḥdat al-wujūd
proof-text
معنى قوله في صفات الله تبارك وتعالى واحد لا من قلة وموجود لا من علة
al-Fatāwā wa-l-ajwiba · undated · Arabic · §12, p. 265 · Mawsūʿat al-āthār al-nathriyya li-ṣāḥib al-fayḍa al-Tijāniyya, maḥwar 5 · compiled by Muḥammad b. al-Shaykh ʿAbd Allāh al-Tijānī
قال بعض العارفين: إنما كفر من قال ﴿إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ ثَالِثُ ثَلَٰثَةٍ﴾ (المائدة:73) لأنه جعله بعضا من ثلاثة كما هو قاعدة فاعل مع ما اشتق منه من العدد فأوقع المشاكلة والمشابهة وجعله بعضا من متعدد…
Some of the ʿārifūn said: the one who said ﴿Allah is the third of three﴾ (al-Māʾida 73) fell into unbelief only because he made Him a part of three — as is the rule for the fāʿil form together with the number it is derived from — and so brought about assimilation and resemblance, and made Him a part of a plurality…
Excerpt from the answer; the full text is not published here. Translation by Amadu Kunateh. The compiler's footnotes are not included.
§12. The edition quotes the verse without a printed reference; the identification is inferred.
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.