farahi's biography on a site:
http://shibliacademy.org/founders/Hamiduddin_Farahi
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on the site above:
Maulana Abdul Majid Daryabadi writes, “In this age, Allama Hameed Uddin Farahi is the most outstanding personality as far as Qur’anic Studies are concerned. He not only occupies a distinguished position among the scholars of recent times, but, in fact, has discovered some new principles for the interpretation of the Qur’an. The foremost among them is his philosophy of coherence in the Qur’an.”
even though, scholars have been writing on it and explaining it for ages, and farahi himself draws from these works - he is billed as the originator.
Maulana Manazir Ahsan Gilani writes, “… the revivalist movement launched by Shah Wali Ullah [in the eighteenth century], in recent years has drawn inspiration from “Tafseer Nizaam-ul-Qur’an” the work of a distinguished scholar, Maulana Hameed Uddin Farahi. Among other features of this commentary (ie relationship between the Qur’an and the Bible, and various literary discussions), its salient feature is the unprecedented attempt in it to bring out the coherence between the verses. It is this coherence which sometimes provides enough evidence that the Qur’an is a Divine Book.” [4]
unprecedented? suyuti's itqan cites half a dozen precedents, including his own:
1. abu ja'afar ibn al-zubayr, the shaykh of abu Hayyan al-andalusi wrote a work: "al-burhan fi munasabati tartib al-qur'an"
2. among our (i.e.suyuti's) contemporaries is burhanuddin biqa'yi who wrote: "naZm al-durar fi tanasub al-aayati wa'l suwar"
3. my (i.e. suyuti) book: "asrar al-tanzil"
4. an abridged version of the above: "tanasuq al-durar fi tanasub al-suwar"
suyuti further mentions:
5. tafsir of imam fakhruddin razi
6. ibn arabi (who did not leave any work)
7. his own work: "maraSid al-maTali'y fi tanasub al-maqaTi'y wa'l maTali'y"
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perhaps farahi is the only person in the latter times, who took this route, and in sha'Allah, we will examine the quality of the work. but first we have to dispel the propaganda and unqualified claims, repeated by his followers and those who cite them, in books, journals, speeches that it is mentioned as a self-evident truth.
much like RTs of today.
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mustansir mir, in his book "coherence in the qur'an", p.30-31 says:
in the above, the author makes libelous accusation that imam razi was not able to give a satisfactory explanation. whereas even suyuti acknowledged that he was convincing, and farahi cited it.
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mir, makes a further egregious slander:
this is the strawman. the very premise that certain scholars denied existence of nazm is false. this is because of farahi's unscholarly and dishonest citation of ibn abd al-salam's statement; which was (properly) cited first by zarkashi, and copied by suyuti (but farahi snipped it and distorted it). we have shown that they said: "such a nazm exists, but cannot be found in EVERY ayah from beginning to end."
i read a significant portion of mustansir mir's book, and i was puzzled at how the author makes decent arguments in the first chapter: "Nazm in the Qur'an: A Brief History" and recounts facts (warning: i haven't cross checked any of them, but the names and books he mentioned are familiar), though he omits many of them. but still, he acknowledges the history of this science.
when he goes to the second chapter, "nazm according to farahi-islahi", he suffers amnesia. he says:
i.e. ibn taymiyyah and zarkashi "do not raise the issue of nazm at all". even though, the author has even mentioned the chapter number (i.e. the second chapter) in zarkashi's "burhan". looks like he did not read that chapter, else he would have noticed one of the most beautiful examples of nazm that a common person can understand (see my next post, in sha'Allah. just to avoid clutter or becoming 'farahi').
see p17 of mustansir's
coherence. even though, the author repeats the lie, the misleading statement of farahi attributing to imam ibn abd al-salam and if he has really read zarkashi's chapter, he has not properly understood it (except bits and pieces quoted by farahi).
looks like every one of farahi's admirers is plagued with incomplete reading of books and utter incoherence; and grandstanding based on third party opinions.
in other words, more akrams.
