Then he shows to us how the meanings of the words have...

Then he shows to us how the meanings of the words have changed with the passing of time and have appeared in the form of an independent meaning (with a loose affiliation to the original meaning), in addition to possessing its own original meaning. Today, in the various Arabic dictionaries, we see that there are some words which have ten meanings to them and a person may actually think that a particular word has actually been formed to mean all ten things and actually has ten meanings to it!

However, when a person refers to the work al-Maqayis , it would then be made clear to him that the word he is studying does not have more than one meaning associated with it and all other meanings are simply different facets of the original meaning, which, due to the passage f time, have been attributed to that word and taken as independent meanings.

In addition to the book al-Maqayis , the true commentator of the Qur`an must also refer to books such as, al-Mufradat fi Gharib al-Qur`an , written by Abul Qasim Husayn b. Muhammad, popularly known as Raghib al-Isfahani (d. 502 ah) and the work, an-Nihayah fi Gharib al-Hadith wal Athar , written by Majd ad-Din Abul Saf’dat Mubarak b. Muhammad Jazri, better known as Ibne Athir (d. 606 ah) if he wants to be able to differentiate the various meanings of the words in the Qur`an.

This last book mentioned has been printed in Egypt in six volumes and even though this work looks at the words contained in the ahadith, however we are able to use this work in the commentary of the Qur`an as well. In addition, the work Majma’ al-Bahrain , written by Turayhi al-Najafi (d. 1086 ah) is also a very beneficial work on the commentary of the words (contained in the Qur`an). [^1]: Surat Taha (20), Verse 121 Previous…