Course Description
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Course Outline
Course Text
The course draws on works that came to inform Islam’s traditional pedagogy and represent its’ normative expression. These works are cited below for reference followed by brief biography authors:
al-Qurtūbī, Abū ‘Abdullah. (2007) al-jāmʻi li-ahkām al-Quran Beirut.
ʻĀshūr, Muhammad, T. (2000) Tafsīr al-Tahrīr wa al-Tanwīr, Mua’ssis al-Tārīkh, Beirut
Biographies are taken from: Keller, N. (2021). The Quran Beheld. Stanchion Press
al-Qurtūbī, Abū ‘Abdullah. (2007) al-jāmʻi li-ahkām al-Quran Beirut.
QURTUBI is Muhammad ibn Ahmad ibn Abu Bakr ibn Farah, Abu ‘Abdullah al -Ansari alQurtubi, born in Cordova, Spain, in the carly 6005/1200s. His father was killed in a raid by Spaniards in the Reconquista. At another attack he was chased down by two enemy horsemen on an open plain, so he recited “And whenever you recite the Quran, We put between you and those who believe not in the afterlife a covering veil of incomprehension” (17.45), and the first nine verses of surat Ya Sin, and Allah made him seem to disappear to the Spaniards, who were so close behind him he heard one of them say to the other, “Diablo (A devil)!” He escaped to Egypt, where he authored works on the sciences of hadith and tenets of faith,...Read More
though his greatest achievement was his twenty-volume al-Jami’li ahkam al-Qur’an (The compendium of the rulings of the Quran]. In his foreword, a marvelous introduction in itself to tafsir and studying the Quran, he notes that he was engaged in it for his entire life, and expended his whole stamina to complete it: “I wrote it as a reminder to myself, a provision laid up for the day I perish, and a good deed to remain after my death.” It stands at the summit of tafsirs that show how rulings and meta-principles of Sacred Law derive from the verses of the Quran, and which verses abrogate others (nasikh wa mansukh), with exhaustive
treatment of exegesis, lexicology, and Arabic grammar and inflections, all with a superb and logical order of presentation of the issues. Though a Maliki, he discusses the positions of other schools of jurisprudence impartially, and sometimes finds the rulings of other schools stronger. He is scrupulously fair.His tafsir, like that of his fellow Maliki Ibn ‘Atiyya before him, does not stress rhetoric (balagha) as much as that farther east who followed the lead of scholars such as Zamakhshari, Razi, and Badawi. He was an ascetic who disdained airs, and after living for a space in Alexandria, moved to the village of Munya Abi al-Khusayb in
upper Egypt, where he divided his days between worship and writing, and would walk about appareled in a simple caftan and cloth cap, more concerned with matters that would benefit him in the next world. He died there in 671/1273 (al-A’lam (67), 5-322; al-Dibaj almudhahhab (16), 2.308-9; al-Jamiliahkam al-Qur an (38), 1.3, 10.270; and Sheikh Shu’ayb alArna’ut).
Ashur, Muhammad T. (2000) Tafsir al-Tahrir wa al-Tanwir, Mua’ssis al-Tarikh, Beirut
IBN ‘ASHUR is Muhammad Tahir ibn ‘Ashur, born in Tunis in 1296/1879. He lived a very active life, serving as a Maliki judge, professor, and rector of the renowned Zaytuna University. His professional commitments did not hinder his prolific pen from producing over forty works on Arabic rhetoric (balagha), oratory, jurisprudence, history, hadith commentary, Sufism, and ancient medicine; all of them eclipsed by his tremendous thirtyvolume Quranic exegesis Tahrir al-ma’na al-sadid wa tanwir al-‘aql al-Jadid min Tafsir alKitab al-Majid [Verifying the true meaning and illuminating the modern mind through expositing the Glorious Book], which reflects its author’s wide familiarity with modern science and addresses deep questions of exegesis unanswered by others before....Read More
and spends upon the magisterial authority of his work, upon the correctness of his choices between valid interpretive possibilities of the Arabic raised by his predecessors, and upon his critiques of those he finds weak. The work imposes itself on anyone who hopes to understand the Quran after him. His public service brought him into contact with heads of state, and it is related that when President Bourguiba proposed that Tunisians abandon fasting the month of Ramadan in the name of national productivity and asked him to speak to the populace to reassure them, he agreed, and gave a live address over the airwaves citing some verses on the matter, concluding that “Allah has told the truth, and Bourguiba a falsehood.” He was summarily dismissed from office, but gained time to finish his tafsir, which he completed in 1960 after a total of thirty-nine years, at the age of eighty-three. He died thirteen years later and was laid to rest in Tunis in 1393/1973 (al-A’lam (67), 6.174; A’lam Tunisiyyun (66), 361- 67; Tafsir al-Tahrir wa al-tanwir (15), 30.636; and Tarajim al-mu’allifin al-Tunisiyyin (32), 3.304-9).
Shaykh Thaqib Mahmood
Shaykh Thaqib has travelled to numerous places over the last 10 years in pursuit of sacred knowledge. This began at several deen intensives with Shaykh Hamza Yusuf from whom the impetus to his seeking sacred knowledge belongs. After travelling to Morocco he went to Hadramawt to the village of Tarim where he sat at the feet of the spiritual Masters and jurists including Habib Umar bin Hafiz.
He travelled to Damascus a number of times and studied under Shaykh Muhammad Darwish, Shaykh Abdul Wahaab Shaykh Muhammad al Yaqoubi, Shaykh Adnan al Majd, Shaykh Maree al Rashid and Shaykh Khalil al Sabbagh. His travels also led him to Mauritania to study with Murabit al Hajj, to Liverpool to study with Shaykh Siraj Ud-Din and to Istanbul at the feet of the gnostic and friend of Allah, Shaykh Mahmud Effendi; and studied with Shaykh Ehsaan Hojah and Shaykh Muhammed Ameen Siraj.”
Shaykh Thaqib has been teaching on Sacred Study for 12 years and part of the Fountain teacher for now over 22 years.
Location
Bury Park Community Centre, 161, 161b Dunstable Rd, Luton LU1 1BW.
Zoom: links will be provided via email
Date/Time
Starting – 5th April 2025 for 10 weeks
Saturdays – 9.30AM to 10.30PM
Course Content
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