Sayyid Abul A'la Mawdudi's multi-volume Tafhim al-Quran is a majorQur'an commentary of the twentieth century. Written over a period of aboutthirty years, the work runs the gamut of Qur'anic-and Islamic-thought anddoctrine, and is the magnum opus of a writer called by Wilfred CantwellSmith "the most systematic thinker of modern Islam." As such, Tafhim isan important work. An English translation exists, but clearly there was aneed for a new translation, and that is what Zafar Ishaq Ansari attemptsto provide in Towards Understanding the Qur'an, of which two volumes,covering the first six surahs of the Qur'an, have so far been published.Ansari's translation may be called "authorized" in that it was the author'swish that Ansari render Tafhim into English. The translation reads quite well.Being intimately familiar with Mawdiidi's style, and being a writer of reputein his own right, Ansari has done a good job of rendering Tafhim into English.Besides possessing a high degree of readability, the work has other notablefeatures. The translator has furnished complete documentation for thequotations in the original work, including all ahadith, and, while retainingand translating the highly useful subject index of the Urdu original, has addeda glossary of terms, biographical notes, a bibliography, and a general index.On occasions, alternative interpretations, offered by other scholars, are noted(e.g. of the object pronoun in ya'rifanahu in the Qur'an, 2:146 [TowardsUnderstanding the Quran, 1:125), or of alladh'ina yakhafana in 5:23 [ibid.,2:151, n. 451), the reasons for the use of certain Islamic terms by Mawdudi(e.g. "caliphate" for pre-Islamic kingships, etc. [2:153]) are given, and termsand expressions which an Urdu reader would understand because of hisparticular cultural background are explained for the English reader. The amountof such notes and explanations seems to increase in Volume 2.A few problems may be noted. Here and there certain portions of theoriginal text are not translated. From the author's Preface and Introductionespecially, several paragraphs have been left out. While every attempt is madeto convey the general meaning of the parts omitted, the omissions in somecases are not indicated. Unlike the Biographical Notes, the Glossary of Terms,found in each volume, is not meant to be cumulative. There are, however,some repetitions in the Glossary of Vol. 2 (e.g. Ahl al-Dhimmah, Din, Hadith, ...
The Poet’s “Caressive Sight:” Denise Levertov’s Transactions with Nature
