Reading al-Razi’s Tafsir and al-Zamakhshari’s Tafsir for Students of Knowledge
Machine translationRead the Arabic original
The questioner:
Honorable Shaykh, do you advise students of knowledge to read al-Razi’s Tafsir? And have you read it all?
The Shaykh:
We do not advise reading it as a lifelong pursuit, but we advise reading it for specialists who want to know the statements of the theologians (mutakallimun) in order to refute them and clarify the misguidance they hold. As for reading it out of mere desire, that is not correct, especially for beginners.
The questioner:
May Allah reward you.
The Shaykh:
Al-Zamakhshari’s book is more dangerous than this one. Al-Zamakhshari’s Tafsir is worse than this book because it contains insults and cursing of the people of the Sunnah.
The questioner:
He asks: “And have you read it?”
The Shaykh:
But a student of knowledge who wants to look into it has no objection to reading in al-Zamakhshari, reading in al-Farā’id, and reading in these books in order to know what lies in them of obscenity and doubts, so as to warn against them and refute them. I sometimes read in it, but by Allah, the reality narrows a person’s chest when he reads in it. But he reads it critically, and that is a reading of love, yes.
The presenter:
May Allah reward you
Honorable Shaykh, do you advise students of knowledge to read al-Razi’s Tafsir? And have you read it all?
The Shaykh:
We do not advise reading it as a lifelong pursuit, but we advise reading it for specialists who want to know the statements of the theologians (mutakallimun) in order to refute them and clarify the misguidance they hold. As for reading it out of mere desire, that is not correct, especially for beginners.
The questioner:
May Allah reward you.
The Shaykh:
Al-Zamakhshari’s book is more dangerous than this one. Al-Zamakhshari’s Tafsir is worse than this book because it contains insults and cursing of the people of the Sunnah.
The questioner:
He asks: “And have you read it?”
The Shaykh:
But a student of knowledge who wants to look into it has no objection to reading in al-Zamakhshari, reading in al-Farā’id, and reading in these books in order to know what lies in them of obscenity and doubts, so as to warn against them and refute them. I sometimes read in it, but by Allah, the reality narrows a person’s chest when he reads in it. But he reads it critically, and that is a reading of love, yes.
The presenter:
May Allah reward you
Source
شرح نونية ابن القيم [48] — alfawzan.live (1:13:23)
The Arabic text is a machine transcription of the audio recording.