Maani al-Quran lil-Nahhas
- Author died
- 338 AH
- Editions
- Umm al-Qura University
Maani al-Quran (Maʿānī al-Qurʾān) is a work of linguistic Quranic exegesis by the Egyptian grammarian and philologist Abu Jafar al-Nahhas (d. 338 AH / 950 CE). Unlike many earlier scholars who combined the linguistic exposition of Quranic meanings with grammatical parsing in a single treatise, al-Nahhas composed Maani al-Quran as an independent text dedicated to interpretation, separating it from his dedicated work on syntax, Irab al-Quran (Iʿrāb al-Qurʾān).
Purpose and Scope
In his introduction to the book, al-Nahhas states that his objective was to explicate the meanings of verses, rare vocabulary (gharib), legal rulings (ahkam al-Quran), and abrogating and abrogated passages (al-nasikh wa-l-mansukh) on the authority of early authorities. He intended to incorporate the views of prominent philologists and scholars of legal and speculative reasoning (ahl al-nazar), clarify root derivations and morphology (tasrif and ishtiqaq), and cite variant readings (qira'at) and grammatical elements whenever necessary to illuminate the intended meaning. He also aimed to present scholarly responses to contentious queries raised by disputants and to elucidate stylistic devices such as ellipsis, conciseness, elaboration, and word order shifts (al-taqdim wa-l-ta'khir), designing the work to be accessible to students while remaining useful to advanced scholars.
Method and Sources
In compiling the commentary, al-Nahhas drew heavily on earlier authorities in the field of Quranic meanings, relying particularly on the work of his teacher Abu Ishaq al-Zajjaj, alongside authorities such as al-Farra and al-Akhfash. He incorporated numerous prophetic traditions and early narrations (athar), documented contrasting opinions on individual verses, and occasionally weighed between them (al-tarjih). Al-Nahhas applied his linguistic expertise to evaluate traditional exegetical statements against standard Arabic linguistic norms, rejecting anomalous narrations that conflicted with established Arabic usage, while citing lines of classical Arabic poetry as linguistic evidence.
Reception and Manuscripts
Maani al-Quran was utilized by subsequent Quranic commentators, serving as a key reference for al-Qurtubi in his legal exegesis al-Jami li-Ahkam al-Quran.
The text did not circulate widely in manuscript form in later centuries and survived in only a single known manuscript copy containing lacunae and effaced text. It was edited by Muhammad Ali al-Sabuni and published in six volumes by the Institute of Scientific Research and Revival of Islamic Heritage at Umm al-Qura University in Mecca, with the first volume appearing in 1408 AH (1988 CE). Because of defects in the surviving exemplar, this printed edition contains missing text from Surah al-Baqarah, completely lacks the commentaries on Surahs Taha and al-Anbiya, and terminates at the conclusion of Surah al-Fath.
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