The Holy Quran with Five Volume Commentary (Vol 5)

The Holy Quran with Five Volume Commentary (Vol 5) — Page xv

PREFACE (1988 Edition) Glory be to the name of our Lord that the great and noble work of preparing an exhaustive Commentary of the Qur'ān has come to a successful end. Enormous labour, money and time have gone into the preparation of this Commentary, covering, as it does over 3,300 pages, including a very learned Introduction from the pen of Ḥaḍrat Mirzā Bashīr-ud-Dīn, Maḥmūd Aḥmad, Second Successor of the Promised Messiah. The present book constitutes the Third Volume of the Commentary and deals with 69 chapters—from Sūra Al-Ahqaf to Sūra An-Nās. The preparation of the Commentary was originally entrusted to a Board of Editors, Consisting of the late Maulawi Sher ‘Alī, Mirzā Bashir Aḥmad, M. A. , and Malik Ghulām Farīd, M. A. , present Editor of the Commentary. The Commentary is based mainly on the material culled and collected from the writings and speeches of Ḥaḍrat Mirzā Bashīr-ud-Din Maḥmūd Aḥmad, present Head of the Aḥmadiyya Community. The First Volume had hardly appeared when, with the Partition of India, in 1947, the whole work was thrown out of gear. The Headquarters of the Movement had to be shifted to Pakistan, and much of the very useful religious literature produced by the Community in the past five decades was left behind. Immediately after, Maulawi Sher ‘Alī died and Mirzā Bashir Aḥmad was called to other important duties, and the writer of these lines was left alone to carry on the work which by the grace of God has now been successfully completed. This Volume follows the same scheme and arrangement with regard to Test, Translation & Commentary of the Holy Book as followed in the earlier Volumes. It would be useful, therefore, to reproduce here the relevant extract from the Preface of Volume I. The Arabic text has been given side by side with the English translation. A mere translation without the text is likely to endanger the purity of the text, besides depriving the reader of the opportunity of comparison, verification, and of making a critical study of the Holy Book. The annotations of the text have been generally divided into two parts. The first deals with Important Words in the verse under comment. These words, along with other words derived from the same root, particularly those occurring in other parts of the Qur'ān, have been explained and examples given to illustrate their different uses. These explanations are based on the standard lexicons of the Arabic language, such as the Lisān al-'Arab, the Tāj