Читать книгу Towards Understanding the Qur'an - Sayyid Abul A'la Mawdudi - Страница 18

Editor’s Preface

however, I reviewed that translation quite carefully and critically and modified it at quite a few places. As for the translation of the remaining Surahs – 29 to 114 – it was done afresh. I cannot thank God enough for enabling me to accomplish this task. The mere idea that I will, insha’ Allah, find a place among the translators of the Qur’an is a matter of extraordinary privilege which fills my heart with immense gratitude to the Almighty.

I must confess that before I had prepared the manuscript of the abridged one-volume work, I did not have more than a faint idea of the true value and merit of the abridged version of Tafhim as a vehicle for dissemination of the Qur’an’s message. It was only after I had completed the draft of this work and read its proofs more than once – a task that made me read the text in one go – that I realized what a useful work it is. With all its merits, Tafhim al-Qur’an is a massive work and comprises something close to 4,000 pages of large-size paper in Urdu. It requires a considerable amount of sustained interest and a certain degree of academic competence to go through this significant piece of Qur’anic scholarship, especially its copious notes. It is no wonder, therefore, that although Tafhim attracted a very large readership, the abridged Urdu edition of the work prepared by Mawdudi himself has reached a much larger readership. We hope that the abridged edition of Tafhim in English will possibly also draw a very large readership and will thus be a source of enlightenment for a great number of people. The worth of the present work also lies in the fact that its short notes provide that essential explanation of the Qur’an without which an ordinary reader’s understanding of it might remain inadequate. At the same time, the notes indeed seem confined to the bare minimum so that one hardly finds anything that is not necessary for a proper understanding of the Qur’anic teachings.

In finalizing the text of this work I have greatly benefited, as I had benefited earlier in Towards Understanding the Qur’an, from the critical comments and suggestions of Ms. Suzanne Thackeray and Dr. A.R. Kidwai and it is my pleasant duty to express my profound gratitude to them. Dr. Kidwai was kind enough also to cast a second critical look at the text which helped me weed out

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