Al-Shaykh Ghulām Ullah Khan and the Prelude of his Tafsīr Jawhir- ul-Qur’ān: An Analytical and Methodological Study الشيخ غلام الله خان ومقدمة تفسيره جواهر القرآن دراسة تحليلية منهجية

Abstract

Indeed, knowledge is one of the special blessings of Allah almighty. And, ultimately, the one who have knowledge of the holy book is considered one of the prize and noteworthy in (Muslim) world. Hence, the distinguished Muslim scholars and virtuous Quranic exegesis have served the Quran knowledge from the era of their descent till the present age. For this purpose, they have chosen different methodological approaches keeping in view the requirements of their time. Similarly, while interpreting the holy Quran, they took care of the method of literal and syntactic interpretations with regard to the preceding and impending problems. Resultantly, very broad descriptions and commentaries have been compiled by the Quranic exegesis keeping in view the challenges of their time/s within the constraint of their own methodological approaches. Among many experts and commentators, one of them is al-Shaykh Ghulām Ullah Khan an Indian-subcontinent contemporary commentator. Who have not only wrote tafsīr but rather offered it with a notable inclusion of prelude/introduction and thus added valuable scholarly discussions there-in. His work is regarded because of the momentous methodological approach; a complete summary of the views and methods is given along-with the commentary style and the principles/rules of preference in different/diverse opinions. Additionally, he derived necessary references to Quranic verses along with the syntactic views in quite expressive and simple manner. Thus, his remarkable tafsīr; Jawahir-ul-Qur’ān, and more particularly his prelude/preface, explaining the issues faced by ordinary people and laymen in understanding of the simple meaning of the text. Therefore, in this article, we have presented a descriptive and analytical study of the prelude/introduction to his commentary so that it became easy for the reader to know the views and ideas of Shaykh Ghulām Ullah Khan before delving into his tafsīr work.

Keywords: Quran, Commentary, Muqadimah, Shaykh Ghulām Ullah Khan, Tafsīr, al-Tibyān al-Qur’ān, Islamic law