The English Commentary of the Holy Quran
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| Language | Arabic, English |
| Genre | Religious |
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The Holy Quran with English translation and commentary is a 5 volume commentary of the Quran published in 1963 by the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community. It was prepared by a board of translators consisting of Maulvi Sher Ali, Mirza Bashir Ahmad and Malik Ghulam Farid.
This 5 Volume "Commentary" covers about 3,000 pages with an Introduction by Mirza Basheer-ud-Din Mahmood Ahmad, the Second Caliph of the Ahmadiyya movement. The Commentary is largely based upon the earlier volumes of the Urdu Tafsir Saghir, the 10 Volumes Tafsir Kabeer and unpublished notes of Mahmood Ahmad. The Introduction to the Study of the Holy Qur'an by Mahmood Ahmad, has been published as an independent work as well. In 1968, a single Volume abridged Edition was also published. The Arabic Text of the book has been given side by side with the English Translation, followed by a system of Cross-references and Notes.
In the introduction to the work, stating the need for a modern English commentary, Mirza Mahmood Ahmad explained that all the large and systematic commentaries were in Arabic and thus of little use to those who cannot read the Quran in Arabic. Explanatory notes to their translations by non-Muslim authors had been influenced by writers who were prejudiced towards Islam. Moreover, these authors themselves knew little if any Arabic thus lacking access to the larger, more reliable commentaries and relying instead on the minor and more popular ones. Likewise, European translators and commentators seem not to have made a close study of the Quran itself, a necessary step in comprehending it by gaining an insight into its terminology, idiom and fundamentals from which its content derives its significance.
He also explained that the emergence of new sciences – which expose any book that professes to give a teaching to new criticism – merited a commentary of the Quran in light of new knowledge. Secondly, when the earliest commentaries of the Quran were written, the Bible had not been translated into Arabic, therefore when discussing parts of the Quran containing references to Biblical narratives, the commentators often relied on what they had heard from Jewish and Christian scholars, or on their own speculations, with later European writers on Islam attributing their mistakes to the Quran. Now when knowledge of the Bible had become common and with Arabic, Latin and Greek works being accessible to Muslim scholars, new avenues for understanding the parts of the Quran which contain references to the Bible or the Mosaic tradition had been made available. Thirdly, he stated that inter-religious controversies had hitherto largely revolved around matters of belief and ritual rather than those of moral and socio-political ideas or economic relations and that the contemporary world thought more in terms of these practical matters. A commentary dealing with such practical teachings of the Quran was therefore necessary. Fourthly, according to Mahmood Ahmad, the Quran contained prophecies and those prophecies which had been fulfilled up until the time of this commentary, constituted an important part of the evidence that the Quran was the revealed word of God. Fifthly, the Quran dealt with beliefs and teachings found in all other religions and ideologies, incorporating their best parts and pointing to their weaknesses and deficiencies. Earlier commentators were unaware of the teachings of these religions and ideologies and therefore unable to fully appreciate Quranic teachings regarding them. Now that all the most obscure teachings have become easily accessible and better known, a more comparative approach to the Quran vis-a-vis other religions and ideologies is possible which also demanded a new commentary.
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