Sūrat Al-Mujādala · 58 : 7

Q 58:7 in the tafsīr of Shaykh Ibrāhīm Niasse

اَلَمْ أَنَّ مَا فِے وَمَا فِے مَا مِن اِلَّا هُوَ وَلَا اِلَّا هُوَ وَلَآ مِن ذَٰلِكَ وَلَآ إِلَّا هُوَ مَعَهُمُۥٓ أَيْنَ مَا ثُمَّ بِمَا إِنَّ

Hast thou not seen that Allah knoweth all that is in the heavens and all that is in the earth? There is no secret conference of three but He is their fourth, nor of five but He is their sixth, nor of less than that or more but He is with them wheresoever they may be; and afterward, on the Day of Resurrection, He will inform them of what they did. Lo! Allah is Knower of all things — Pickthall

Shaykh Ibrāhīm Niasse (d. 1975) read the whole Qurʾān aloud at Medina Baye over fifty-six sessions between ẓuhr and ʿaṣr in Ramaḍān 1383/1964, and his students wrote those sessions down as Fī Riyāḍ al-Tafsīr. He comes back to the same āya elsewhere — in the fatwās, the Ḥikam, the poetry — decades apart. About the tafsīr →

In the printed edition: Sūrat Al-Mujādala begins at vol. 9, p. 189 (Tūnis 2022, 10 vols.)

The āya above is Warsh ʿan Nāfiʿ, the rasm of the printed edition. The root behind each underlined word comes from a Ḥafṣ ʿan ʿĀṣim corpus, realigned to this Warsh text word by word; 125 of the 6,236 āyāt differ in word count between the two riwāyāt, and those were aligned rather than assumed. A word carries no underline where the corpus supplies no root. Lexicon entries are a reading aid and carry no page reference; the edition does not cite them. Page references elsewhere on this site follow the ten-volume Tunis 2022 printing this site was transcribed from; published scholarship on this text cites the six-volume Tunis 2010 printing, whose pagination is different.

5
loci in the corpus
2
distinct acts
5 of 5
text available

Exegesis of the verse

Sustained interpretation of the verse as a verse — lemma, gloss, expansion.

Fī riyāḍ al-tafsīr li-l-Qurʾān al-karīm

في رياض التفسير للقرآن الكريمtafsīrunbracketed quotation

1383 / 1964 · Arabic · Lesson 50, ¶16 · numbered by Ḥafṣ · lesson opens at vol. 9, p. 189 · the annual Ramaḍān cycle

(وَاللَّهُ عَلَىٰ كُلِّ شَيْءٍ شَهِيدٌ آلَمْ تَرَ أَنَّ اللَّهَ يَعْلَمْ مَا فِى اِلسَّمَٰوَاتِ وَمَا فِى الأَرْضِ هذه نزلت في المتناجين، أهل النجوى كانوا يتفرقون فرقا فرقا، يتناجون بعضهم بعضا، في اغتياب النبي صلى اللّٰه عليه وسلم وأصحابه، وهم المنافقون. (ألَمْ تَرَ) تعلم (أَنَّ اللَّهَ يَعْلَمُ مَا مِح السَّمَوَاتِ وَمَا مِحِ الارْضِ مَا يَكُونُ مِن نَجْوِىٰ ثَلَّثَةٍ إِلاَّا هُوَ رَابِعُهُمْ) إذا تناجى ثلاثة فالله هو رابعهم (وَلَا خَمْسَةٍ إِلاَّ هُوَ سَادِسْهُمْ وَلَا أَدْنْبى مِن ذَلِكَ وَلَا أَكْثَرَ إِلَّ هُوَ مَعَهُمرَ أَيْرَ مَا كَانُواْ ثُمَّ يُنَبِّئُهُم بِمَا عَمِلُواْ يَوْمَ الْقِيَمَةٌ إِنَّ اللَّةَ بِكُلِّ شَيْءٍ عَلِيمٌ) ذكر في هذه الآية أن المتناجين إذا جلسوا ثلاثة يكون اللّٰه هو رابعهم وإذا جلسوا خمسة يكون اللّٰه هو سادسهم، وما ذكر أنه إذا جلس اثنان يكون ثالثهم لأن اللّٰه نفى حكم النصارى "إِنَّ اللَّهَ ثَالِثُ ثَلَئَةٌ

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The printing brackets no quotation here. A run of consecutive words in this paragraph — three at the shortest — occurs in one place in the muṣḥaf and nowhere else, and every āya lying inside that run is credited, so a run crossing a boundary attests both. Matching folds together the letter shapes the scan confuses, so the words need not stand in the āya exactly as printed.

Fī riyāḍ al-tafsīr li-l-Qurʾān al-karīm

في رياض التفسير للقرآن الكريمtafsīr

1383 / 1964 · Arabic · Lesson 50, ¶17 · numbered by Ḥafṣ · lesson opens at vol. 9, p. 189 · the annual Ramaḍān cycle

"لَقَدْ كَبَرَ ألذِينَ قَالُوَاْ إِنَّ اللَّهَ ثَالِثُ ثَلَثَةٍ" ثالث ثلاثة غير مقبول شرعا لأنه موافق لعقيدة النصارى، وإن كان اللّٰه ثالث ثلاثة فالشريعة رفضت هذا، فلهذا لم يأت في الآية قال «مَا يَكُونُ مِن نَجْوِىٰ ثَلَثَةٍ إِلاَّا هُوَ رَابِعُهُمْ» ولم يقل اثنان إلا هو ثالثهم إبطالا لعقيدة التثليث.

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On ﴿There is no private counsel of three but He is their fourth﴾ (Q 58:7): God's maʿiyya and the numbers — editorial summary; the printing states no question here

tafsīr

al-Fatāwā wa-l-ajwiba · undated · Arabic · §3, p. 248 · Mawsūʿat al-āthār al-nathriyya li-ṣāḥib al-fayḍa al-Tijāniyya, maḥwar 5 · compiled by Muḥammad b. al-Shaykh ʿAbd Allāh al-Tijānī

الجواب باختصار نطقت الآية ﴿مَا يَكُونُ مِن نَّجْوَىٰ ثَلَٰثَةٍ﴾ …إلخ… وإن كان هو الأول والثاني والثالث والرابع والخامس وما فوق ذلك إلى ما وراء الأعداد… ولا فرق بين المعية والهوية هنا، فقد علمت أن المعية بالذات وإذا بدت فلا معية.

The answer in brief. The verse said ﴿There is no private counsel of three﴾ …etc.… even though He is the first and the second and the third and the fourth and the fifth and what is above that, out to what lies beyond numbers… There is no difference here between maʿiyya [His accompaniment] and huwiyya [His He-ness], for you have come to know that the maʿiyya is by the Essence, and when it appears there is no maʿiyya.

Excerpt from the answer; the full text is not published here. Translation by Amadu Kunateh. The compiler's footnotes are not included.

§3. The edition prints this reference itself.

The verse used, not interpreted

Here the verse warrants a claim argued from other authorities. It is not the object of commentary.

Fī riyāḍ al-tafsīr li-l-Qurʾān al-karīm

في رياض التفسير للقرآن الكريمproof-textunbracketed quotation

1383 / 1964 · Arabic · Lesson 13, ¶51 · numbered by Ḥafṣ · lesson opens at vol. 3, p. 3 · the annual Ramaḍān cycle

( إنتَهُوا ) عن ذلك وآتوا خَيْراً لَكْم منه وهو التوحيد، اتركوا هذه العقيدة واتوا بالتوحيد، في التوراة عبارات هي التي

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Lesson 13 runs Q 4:148–Q 5:22. This āya falls outside it. He quotes it here inside the commentary on another verse, which is why it is not filed as exegesis of this one.

The printing brackets no quotation here. A run of consecutive words in this paragraph — three at the shortest — occurs in one place in the muṣḥaf and nowhere else, and every āya lying inside that run is credited, so a run crossing a boundary attests both. Matching folds together the letter shapes the scan confuses, so the words need not stand in the āya exactly as printed.

On ʿIllaysh's fatwā — “One, not out of fewness; existent, not out of a cause” — and waḥdat al-wujūd

proof-text

معنى قوله في صفات الله تبارك وتعالى واحد لا من قلة وموجود لا من علة

al-Fatāwā wa-l-ajwiba · undated · Arabic · §12, p. 265 · Mawsūʿat al-āthār al-nathriyya li-ṣāḥib al-fayḍa al-Tijāniyya, maḥwar 5 · compiled by Muḥammad b. al-Shaykh ʿAbd Allāh al-Tijānī

الثالث أن وحدته تعالى ليست وحدات القلة كما يقع في الحوادث بل هو واحد إليه ترجع جميع الكثرات وعلى وحدته تدور ﴿أَلَآ إِلَى ٱللَّهِ تَصِيرُ ٱلْأُمُورُ﴾ (الشورى: 53) فهو واحد ظهرت وحدته في جميع المظاهر… وهذا معنى شريف لا يمكن شرحه بالتعبير إنما يذاق بحسب الفتح والتجلي من الفتاح الخبير، وهو معنى شهود الوحدة في الكثرة الذي يعبر عنه القوم بوحدة الوجود.

…the third is that His oneness is not the onenesses of fewness, such as occur among originated things. Rather He is One to whom all multiplicities go back and upon whose oneness they turn: ﴿Take note — to Allah all matters come home﴾ (al-Shūrā 53). He is One whose oneness has appeared in every locus of manifestation… This is a noble meaning which cannot be explained by expression; it is tasted only in the measure of the opening and the tajallī from the Opener, the Aware. It is the sense of witnessing oneness within multiplicity, which the folk express as waḥdat al-wujūd.

Excerpt from the answer; the full text is not published here. Translation by Amadu Kunateh. The compiler's footnotes are not included.

§12. The edition prints this reference itself.

Entries are grouped by what Shaykh Ibrāhīm is doing with the verse, then ordered oldest first inside each group, so the same words can be seen carrying different work across a career. Every entry names the witness it comes from. Passages that are known but not yet available are listed rather than hidden. Beyond Fī Riyāḍ al-Tafsīr, 156 āyāt have so far been indexed from his other writings — the Ḥikam, the fatwās, Kāshif al-Ilbās, theQanābīl, the Tafsīr Maʿānī cassettes. A verse with nothing under this heading has not been searched in them and found wanting; it has not been searched.

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