The Most-Copied Tafsir in Islamic History—By a Huge Margin
Yusuf Mullan
7,822 views
Learn Qur’anic and Classical Arabic with me here: https://arabic.lpages.co/early-bird/
Why could Tafsīr al-Bayḍāwī reasonably be called the most important tafsīr ever written?
A recent survey of more than 2,000 tafsīr works identified 1,391 surviving full or partial manuscripts of al-Bayḍāwī—far ahead of al-Kashshāf in second place with 886. Five separate commentaries on al-Bayḍāwī also appear among the 25 most copied tafsīr works in Islamic history.
But rather than merely talking about the historical importance of the book, I want to show you what studying it actually looks like.
In this video, I first explain verses 9–10 of Sūrah al-Isrāʾ directly from the muṣḥaf. We then read the commentary of Imām al-Bayḍāwī together with Muḥyiddīn Shaykhzādah’s detailed ḥāshiyah.
Along the way, we examine the grammatical relationship between the two verses, the two possible readings of verse 10, the rhetorical omission in لِلَّتِي هِيَ أَقْوَمُ, the precise meaning of أَقْوَمُ, and the omitted باء before أَنَّ لَهُمْ أَجْرًا كَبِيرًا.
This is what it means to move beyond simply translating the Qur’an and begin appreciating how the great scholars of Arabic and tafsīr analysed its language.
CHAPTERS
0:00 Why al-Bayḍāwī may be the most important tafsīr
1:00 The manuscript evidence and historical rankings
4:19 Translation of Sūrah al-Isrāʾ 9–10
5:19 How the two verses connect grammatically
8:31 Two possible ways to understand verse 10
11:14 Reading Tafsīr al-Bayḍāwī
15:18 Shaykhzādah’s ḥāshiyah and the omitted noun
17:57 Why أَقْوَمُ does not mean “more straight”
21:39 Three descriptions of the Qur’an
25:30 منصوب بنزع الخافض: removing the preposition
29:05 The final analysis of verse 10
Read the full research behind the tafsīr rankings:
https://chatgpt.com/share/6aa97d87-ee...
#Tafsir #QuranicArabic #Baydawi
17 Comments
Imām Bayḍhāwi is such a nuanced writer SubhanAllah
Do you have a link to the study? I wanted to share it with a friend.
Let that sink in for a moment.
For centuries, the Muslim ummah was reading, teaching, copying and transmitting a vast and diverse body of tafsīr and Sunni scholarship. Then, centuries later, a particular reformist movement emerges and begins speaking as though it alone inherited the authentic Islam, while everyone before it was somehow lost in deviations, innovations and theological corruption.
And now, because this discourse is particularly loud and aggressive in the modern religious marketplace, we are expected to believe that it represents the historical Sunni tradition itself?
No. Volume is not lineage. Aggressiveness is not authenticity. And claiming to be “the saved” does not make one the historical mainstream of the ummah.
The history of Islamic scholarship is far too vast to be rewritten by a movement that appeared relatively late and then declared its own methodology to be the exclusive standard by which thirteen centuries of Muslims are to be judged.
This is attraction and not good will
Second, the Quran should be understood in the same way as the earliest Muslims, Salaf-us-Saleh understood it, otherwise understanding Quran would be chaotic which has already appeared due to many polytheistic and un-Islamic interventions by the deviant groups, the groups that deceptively call themselves Muslims.
Please note that my comment is not in favor or against any particular tafseer, be it Baidhyawi, Ibn Kathir or any tafseer but only to highlight that right manhaj will decide the correctness.
The Most-Copied Tafsir in Islamic History—By a Huge Margin
Yusuf Mullan
7,822 views
Learn Qur’anic and Classical Arabic with me here: https://arabic.lpages.co/early-bird/
Why could Tafsīr al-Bayḍāwī reasonably be called the most important tafsīr ever written?
A recent survey of more than 2,000 tafsīr works identified 1,391 surviving full or partial manuscripts of al-Bayḍāwī—far ahead of al-Kashshāf in second place with 886. Five separate commentaries on al-Bayḍāwī also appear among the 25 most copied tafsīr works in Islamic history.
But rather than merely talking about the historical importance of the book, I want to show you what studying it actually looks like.
In this video, I first explain verses 9–10 of Sūrah al-Isrāʾ directly from the muṣḥaf. We then read the commentary of Imām al-Bayḍāwī together with Muḥyiddīn Shaykhzādah’s detailed ḥāshiyah.
Along the way, we examine the grammatical relationship between the two verses, the two possible readings of verse 10, the rhetorical omission in لِلَّتِي هِيَ أَقْوَمُ, the precise meaning of أَقْوَمُ, and the omitted باء before أَنَّ لَهُمْ أَجْرًا كَبِيرًا.
This is what it means to move beyond simply translating the Qur’an and begin appreciating how the great scholars of Arabic and tafsīr analysed its language.
CHAPTERS
0:00 Why al-Bayḍāwī may be the most important tafsīr
1:00 The manuscript evidence and historical rankings
4:19 Translation of Sūrah al-Isrāʾ 9–10
5:19 How the two verses connect grammatically
8:31 Two possible ways to understand verse 10
11:14 Reading Tafsīr al-Bayḍāwī
15:18 Shaykhzādah’s ḥāshiyah and the omitted noun
17:57 Why أَقْوَمُ does not mean “more straight”
21:39 Three descriptions of the Qur’an
25:30 منصوب بنزع الخافض: removing the preposition
29:05 The final analysis of verse 10
Read the full research behind the tafsīr rankings:
https://chatgpt.com/share/6aa97d87-ee...
#Tafsir #QuranicArabic #Baydawi