for scholarly review

The Commentary Register

Every tafsīr this project reads — what it is, who wrote it, what it set out to do, and how much of the Qurʾān it actually covers. This page exists so the sources can be checked before a word of the output is read: the selection is the argument, and it should be contestable.

commentaries 37distinct works 29 Arabic 21 Urdu 8English 8 āyāt 6,236sūrahs written 114 of 114

corpus fingerprint 62fb6cccf664b21eeed1da12… · generated 2026-08-20

What is claimed here, and what is not

The method. For every āyah this project publishes one agreed reading — a short statement of what these commentaries hold in common. Where they differ, the difference is left aside: not adjudicated, not ranked, not attributed to a school. Nothing is summarised that is not also quoted, and every quotation on every page is checked character-for-character against its source before the page is permitted to build.

Why this register exists. A consensus is only as sound as the witnesses it is drawn from. If the selection below is unbalanced then the readings are unbalanced, and no amount of machine verification would reveal it. That is the one judgement this project cannot make about itself.

Reading the completeness column. It is the count of āyāt for which that edition carries text, out of 6,236, counted from the corpus. A work is never presented as agreeing with a reading on an āyah it does not comment on — where it is silent, the page says so by name.

Arabic — the Sunnī tradition 13

The core of the corpus: from al-Ṭabarī, who fixed the form of the genre, to committee works written for translation.

	Commentary	Died	School & method	Completeness	Purpose — what the author set out to do	Rights
1	Tanwīr al-Miqbāsتنوير المقباس من تفسير ابن عباسattributed to ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿAbbās	68 AH 687 CEformative	Sunnīplain paraphrase	100% 6,236 of 6,236	A running word-for-word paraphrase giving the plain sense of each phrase, without argument or chains. ATTRIBUTION DISPUTED. The compilation is usually credited to al-Fīrūzābādī (d. 817/1414); its ascription to Ibn ʿAbbās has been contested since the classical period. Carried here as an early witness, labelled as attributed.	public domain
2	Jāmiʿ al-bayānجامع البيان عن تأويل آي القرآنAbū Jaʿfar Muḥammad b. Jarīr al-Ṭabarī	310 AH 923 CEformative	Sunnītransmission (bi'l-maʾthūr)	100% 6,236 of 6,236	To gather the whole body of interpretation transmitted from the Companions and Successors, each report with its chain, then weigh them and state a preference. The foundation. Every later commentary in this register draws on it, including those that disagree with it.	public domain
3	Maʿālim al-tanzīlمعالم التنزيلAbū Muḥammad al-Ḥusayn b. Masʿūd al-Baghawī	516 AH 1122 CEclassical	Sunnī / Shāfiʿītransmission, abridged	100% 6,236 of 6,236	To distil al-Thaʿlabī's commentary into a sound teachable middle length, dropping the weak and fabricated reports it carried.	public domain
4	al-Kashshāfالكشاف عن حقائق التنزيلAbū al-Qāsim Maḥmūd b. ʿUmar al-Zamakhsharī	538 AH 1144 CEclassical	Muʿtazilīrhetoric and language (balāghī)	100% 6,236 of 6,236	To demonstrate the inimitability of the Qurʾān by analysing its rhetoric — why this word, this order, this figure. Read across all schools for its language and contested by them for its Muʿtazilī theology. Later commentators routinely quote it while rejecting its creed.	public domain
5	Mafātīḥ al-ghayb (al-Tafsīr al-kabīr)مفاتيح الغيبFakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī	606 AH 1210 CEclassical	Sunnī / Ashʿarīreasoned, theological (bi'l-raʾy, kalāmī)	100% 6,236 of 6,236	To expound and defend the creed through the Qurʾān, drawing in logic, philosophy and the natural sciences of his day. The widest-ranging commentary in the corpus by scope.	public domain
6	al-Jāmiʿ li-aḥkām al-Qurʾānالجامع لأحكام القرآنAbū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad b. Aḥmad al-Qurṭubī	671 AH 1273 CEclassical	Sunnī / Mālikīlegal (fiqhī), comparative	100% 6,234 of 6,236	To derive the rulings the Qurʾān establishes, setting the schools' positions side by side before giving his own. Mālikī by training but deliberately comparative; the standard legal commentary.	public domain
7	Tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-ʿAẓīmتفسير القرآن العظيمIsmāʿīl b. ʿUmar Ibn Kathīr	774 AH 1373 CEpost-classical	Sunnī / Atharītransmission, ḥadīth-critical	100% 6,236 of 6,236	To explain the Qurʾān first by the Qurʾān, then by ḥadīth, then by the Companions — and to prune the Isrāʾīliyyāt earlier works had absorbed. The most widely used reference of the later tradition, and the most translated.	public domain
8	Tafsīr al-Jalālaynتفسير الجلالينJalāl al-Dīn al-Maḥallī, completed by Jalāl al-Dīn al-Suyūṭī	911 AH 1505 CEpost-classical	Sunnī / Shāfiʿīinterlinear gloss	96% 6,010 of 6,236	To give the plain sense in the fewest possible words, phrase by phrase, so it can be read alongside the text itself. Begun by al-Maḥallī (d. 864/1459), who died at sūrah 17; al-Suyūṭī completed it in the same register.	public domain
9	Taysīr al-karīm al-raḥmānتيسير الكريم الرحمنʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. Nāṣir al-Saʿdī	1376 AH 1957 CEmodern	Sunnī / Salafīplain sense, devotional	100% 6,236 of 6,236	To make the meaning immediately usable by an ordinary reader — no philology, no disputes, the lesson of the passage stated directly.	in copyright
10	al-Taḥrīr wa'l-tanwīrالتحرير والتنويرMuḥammad al-Ṭāhir b. ʿĀshūr	1393 AH 1973 CEmodern	Sunnī / Mālikīrhetoric and objectives (balāghī, maqāṣid)	100% 6,236 of 6,236	To read each sūrah as a coherent whole with its own purpose, and to renew rhetorical analysis after centuries of commentary on commentary. Generally regarded as the major Arabic commentary of the twentieth century.	in copyright
11	al-Tafsīr al-Wasīṭالتفسير الوسيطMuḥammad Sayyid Ṭanṭāwī	1431 AH 2010 CEcontemporary	Sunnī / al-Azharmiddle-length, mainstream	100% 6,236 of 6,236	An Azhar teaching commentary: deliberately moderate, avoiding both terseness and technical excess. Written while the author was Shaykh al-Azhar.	in copyright
12	al-Tafsīr al-Muyassarالتفسير الميسرcommittee, King Fahd Complex, Madīna	committeecontemporary	Sunnīsimplified paraphrase	100% 6,236 of 6,236	To state one short plain-Arabic meaning for every āyah, for general readers and for translators working from Arabic. No chains, no disputes, no alternatives — by design.	in copyright
13	al-Mukhtaṣar fī al-tafsīrالمختصر في التفسيرcommittee, Markaz Tafsīr, Riyadh	committeecontemporary	Sunnīabridged, plain	100% 6,236 of 6,236	A short committee commentary built to be translated: one agreed plain meaning per āyah, phrased so it survives rendering into other languages. Now published in over twenty languages — but not, at the time of writing, in Urdu.	in copyright

Arabic — the Shīʿī tradition 8

Included as a standing rule of this project, not as an appendix. Coverage runs lower because aligning these texts to individual āyāt is harder; where no Shīʿī witness can be anchored, the page says so rather than passing over it in silence.

	Commentary	Died	School & method	Completeness	Purpose — what the author set out to do	Rights
14	Tafsīr al-ʿAyyāshīتفسير العياشيMuḥammad b. Masʿūd al-ʿAyyāshī	320 AH 932 CEformative	Shīʿī / Imāmīnarrational (riwāʾī)	2% 133 of 6,236	To collect what is transmitted from the Imams on each āyah, with little authorial comment. One of the two oldest surviving Imāmī commentaries. A later copyist stripped the chains, which is why it is cited by content rather than by isnād.	public domain
15	Tafsīr al-Qummīتفسير القميʿAlī b. Ibrāhīm al-Qummī	329 AH 941 CEformative	Shīʿī / Imāmīnarrational	27% 1,689 of 6,236	To transmit the Imams' explanation, heavily weighted to the occasions and circumstances of revelation. A primary source for asbāb al-nuzūl in the Imāmī tradition.	public domain
16	al-Tibyānالتبيان في تفسير القرآنShaykh al-Ṭāʾifa Abū Jaʿfar Muḥammad b. al-Ḥasan al-Ṭūsī	460 AH 1067 CEclassical	Shīʿī / Imāmīcomprehensive, reasoned	65% 4,053 of 6,236	To place Imāmī exegesis on a philological and rational footing, engaging Sunnī and Muʿtazilī readings directly rather than ignoring them. The first comprehensive Imāmī commentary.	public domain
17	Majmaʿ al-bayānمجمع البيان في تفسير القرآنal-Faḍl b. al-Ḥasan al-Ṭabrisī	548 AH 1153 CEclassical	Shīʿī / Imāmīordered: readings, language, syntax, occasion, meaning	62% 3,895 of 6,236	To treat every āyah under a fixed sequence of headings so nothing is skipped, and to report opposing views fairly before answering them. The most widely used Imāmī commentary; praised across schools for its order and fairness.	public domain
18	Jawāmiʿ al-jāmiʿجوامع الجامعal-Faḍl b. al-Ḥasan al-Ṭabrisī	548 AH 1153 CEclassical	Shīʿī / Imāmīabridged, rhetorical	57% 3,570 of 6,236	The author's own abridgement of Majmaʿ al-bayān, taking in al-Zamakhsharī's rhetorical analysis. Same author as the entry above; the two are not independent witnesses of each other.	public domain
19	al-Ṣāfīالصافي في تفسير القرآنMuḥsin al-Fayḍ al-Kāshānī	1091 AH 1680 CEpost-classical	Shīʿī / Imāmīnarrational with mystical inflection	61% 3,810 of 6,236	To give the meaning as the Imams' reports establish it, concisely, with an inward dimension drawn from the author's philosophical training.	public domain
20	Nūr al-thaqalaynنور الثقلينʿAbd ʿAlī b. Jumʿa al-ʿArūsī al-Ḥuwayzī	1112 AH 1700 CEpost-classical	Shīʿī / Imāmīpure narration	21% 1,303 of 6,236	To assemble, for each āyah, the reports transmitted from the Prophet and the Imams — a source-book rather than an exposition. Almost no authorial comment by design.	public domain
21	al-Mīzānالميزان في تفسير القرآنMuḥammad Ḥusayn Ṭabāṭabāʾī	1402 AH 1981 CEmodern	Shīʿī / ImāmīQurʾān by Qurʾān (bi'l-Qurʾān)	60% 3,756 of 6,236	To let the Qurʾān interpret itself before any report is consulted, then treat philosophical, historical and social questions in separate appended discussions. The major modern Imāmī commentary.	in copyright

Urdu 8

8 works across 8 schools. 3 are annotation on a translation — the subcontinent form of tarjuma plus ḥawāshī — and this corpus carries the notes, not the translation.

	Commentary	Died	School & method	Completeness	Purpose — what the author set out to do	Rights
22	Tafsīr Ibn Kathīr (Urdu)Ibn Kathīr, tr. into Urdurenders Tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-ʿAẓīm	774 AH 1373 CEpost-classical	Sunnī / Atharītransmission, ḥadīth-critical	100% 6,236 of 6,236	The Urdu rendering of the standard transmission commentary. A translation of an Arabic work already in this register; not an independent witness.	in copyright
23	Tafsīr-e-ʿUthmānīتفسیر عثمانیʿAllāma Shabbīr Aḥmad ʿUthmānīannotation on a translation	1369 AH 1949 CEmodern	Deobandīconcise annotation (ḥawāshī)	82% 5,094 of 6,236	To supply the shortest sufficient explanation beside Shaykh al-Hind Maḥmūd al-Ḥasan's Urdu translation, for a reader working through the muṣḥaf itself. THE NOTES ONLY, as above. The standard annotated Urdu muṣḥaf of the Deobandī tradition.	in copyright
24	Taysīr al-karīm al-raḥmān (Urdu)ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Saʿdī, tr. into Urdurenders Taysīr al-karīm al-raḥmān	1376 AH 1957 CEmodern	Sunnī / Salafīplain sense, devotional	100% 6,236 of 6,236	The Urdu rendering of al-Saʿdī's plain-sense commentary. A translation of an Arabic work already in this register.	in copyright
25	Fī Ẓilāl al-Qurʾān (Urdu)في ظلال القرآنSayyid Quṭb, tr. into Urdu	1386 AH 1966 CEmodern	Sunnī / Ikhwānliterary, experiential (ḥarakī)	64% 3,995 of 6,236	To convey the Qurʾān as a living address that forms and moves a community, rather than as a text to be analysed. Written largely in prison; the Arabic original is not in this corpus, only the Urdu.	in copyright
26	Tafhīm al-Qurʾānتفہیم القرآنSayyid Abū al-Aʿlā Maudūdīannotation on a translation	1399 AH 1979 CEmodern	Jamāʿat-e-Islāmīthematic, socio-political	65% 4,057 of 6,236	To present the Qurʾān as complete guidance for individual and collective life, giving each sūrah its historical setting and its purpose before explaining the text. THE NOTES ONLY. quran.com serves Maudūdī's translation inline and keeps the commentary behind a separate footnote endpoint; this corpus carries the commentary, not the translation.	in copyright
27	Bayān ul Qurʾānبيان القرآنDr Israr Ahmad	1431 AH 2010 CEcontemporary	Sunnī / contemporary Pakistanithematic, coherence (naẓm)	81% 5,073 of 6,236	To expound the Qurʾān as a single connected argument calling for the establishment of the dīn, following Iṣlāḥī's theory of sūrah coherence. Delivered as lectures; distinct from Thānwī's Urdu work of the same name, which is NOT in this corpus.	in copyright
28	Tazkīr ul Qurʾānتذکیر القرآنMaulana Wahiduddin Khan	1442 AH 2021 CEcontemporary	Modernistreflective, ethical	25% 1,558 of 6,236	To draw out the spiritual and moral lesson for the individual reader, deliberately setting political reading aside.	in copyright
29	Aḥsan al-Bayānاحسن البیانḤāfiẓ Ṣalāḥuddīn Yūsuf, on Muḥammad Junagarhi's translationannotation on a translation	committeecontemporary	Ahl-e-Ḥadīthḥadīth-anchored annotation	77% 4,803 of 6,236	To explain each āyah by authenticated ḥadīth, and to mark where the author holds common practice to have departed from the sunna. THE NOTES ONLY, as above.	in copyright

English 8

8 works. 6 are English renderings of works already listed above; they are separate witnesses for the reader but are never counted twice in a consensus.

	Commentary	Died	School & method	Completeness	Purpose — what the author set out to do	Rights
30	Tanwīr al-Miqbās (English)attributed to Ibn ʿAbbās, tr. Mokrane Guezzourenders Tanwīr al-Miqbās	68 AH 687 CEformative	Sunnīplain paraphrase	97% 6,030 of 6,236	The English rendering of the attributed paraphrase. ATTRIBUTION DISPUTED, as for the Arabic. Royal Aal al-Bayt Institute, Great Commentaries series.	in copyright
31	Tafsīr Ibn Kathīr (English, abridged)Ibn Kathīr, abridged and tr. into Englishrenders Tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-ʿAẓīm	774 AH 1373 CEpost-classical	Sunnī / Atharītransmission, ḥadīth-critical	100% 6,236 of 6,236	The English abridgement of the standard transmission commentary. ABRIDGED. Material present in the Arabic is absent here; a translation of a work already in this register.	in copyright
32	Tafsīr al-Jalālayn (English)al-Maḥallī and al-Suyūṭī, tr. Feras Hamzarenders Tafsīr al-Jalālayn	911 AH 1505 CEpost-classical	Sunnī / Shāfiʿīinterlinear gloss	100% 6,236 of 6,236	The English rendering of the standard concise gloss. Royal Aal al-Bayt Institute, Great Commentaries series. A translation of a work already in this register.	in copyright
33	Maʿāriful Qurʾān (English)معارف القرآنMuftī Muḥammad Shafīʿ ʿUthmānī	1396 AH 1976 CEmodern	Deobandīcomprehensive, practical fiqh	100% 6,236 of 6,236	To give an educated lay reader the full traditional explanation together with the legal rulings that follow from it, in ordinary prose. Written in Urdu; the English edition was produced under the supervision of the author's son, Muftī Muḥammad Taqī ʿUthmānī. The Urdu original is NOT in this corpus.	in copyright
34	Tafhīm al-Qurʾān (English)Sayyid Abū al-Aʿlā Maudūdī, tr. Zafar Isḥāq Anṣārīrenders Tafhīm al-Qurʾānannotation on a translation	1399 AH 1979 CEmodern	Jamāʿat-e-Islāmīthematic, socio-political	64% 3,961 of 6,236	The English rendering of Tafhīm's commentary notes. THE NOTES ONLY. A translation of a work already in this register — the Urdu Tafhīm above.	in copyright
35	Tazkirul Qurʾān (English)Maulana Wahiduddin Khanrenders Tazkīr ul Qurʾān	1442 AH 2021 CEcontemporary	Modernistreflective, ethical	31% 1,952 of 6,236	The English rendering of the author's reflective commentary. A translation of a work already in this register.	in copyright
36	Hilālī & Khān, explanatory notesMuḥammad Taqī-ud-Dīn al-Hilālī and Muḥammad Muḥsin Khānannotation on a translation	committeecontemporary	Sunnī / Salafībrief notes anchored to ḥadīth	12% 718 of 6,236	To clarify, in a few lines, points the translators judged liable to be misread, citing Bukhārī and Muslim. NOTES ONLY, and sparse — they annotate a minority of āyāt. Not a continuous commentary and should not be read as one.	in copyright
37	al-Mukhtaṣar fī al-tafsīr (English)committee, Markaz Tafsīr, Riyadhrenders al-Mukhtaṣar fī al-tafsīr	committeecontemporary	Sunnīabridged, plain	100% 6,236 of 6,236	The English rendering of the short committee commentary. A translation of the Arabic al-Mukhtaṣar in this register.	in copyright

What a reviewer is asked to judge

Is the balance defensible? 21 Arabic commentaries against 8 Urdu and 8 English, for a work addressed to the whole ummah.
Are the schools fairly represented? 16 are represented: Sunnī, Shāfiʿī, Muʿtazilī, Ashʿarī, Mālikī, Atharī, Salafī, Ikhwān, Deobandī, al-Azhar, contemporary Pakistani, Modernist, Jamāʿat-e-Islāmī, Ahl-e-Ḥadīth, Shīʿī, Imāmī. Two are absent, and the build refuses if that stops being true: there is no Barelvī commentary and no Shīʿī Urdu commentary here — both exist only as scanned Nastaʿlīq, which cannot be verified character-for-character, so they were left out rather than admitted unchecked. If that trade is wrong, it should be said.
Is "similarities only" the right rule? Stating what is shared and leaving disagreement unmentioned carries a real cost: a reader never learns where the tradition divided, or why.
Do sparse works belong? 6 of the 37 carry under a third of the Qurʾān and 2 under an eighth of it; the sparsest, Tafsīr al-ʿAyyāshī, reaches 2.1%. They are quoted where they speak and named as absent where they do not — but a witness present on a minority of āyāt still shapes every reading it touches.
Attribution. Tanwīr al-Miqbās is carried under an ascription to Ibn ʿAbbās contested since the classical period, labelled as attributed in both its Arabic and English rows. Is inclusion-with-a-label the right call?
Double-counting. 8 entries — 6 English and 2 Urdu — are renderings of a work that is also in this register: 6 of an Arabic original, 2 of an Urdu one. Each says on its own row which work it renders. Counted once, the register holds 29 distinct works, not 37. Two further renderings are not counted here, because the works they render are not in this corpus at all. Does showing renderings as separate rows still risk a reader taking one voice for several?