[Second Edition Preface]
In the name of Allah, the Most Merciful, the Compassionate

We are scarcely in need of introducing this magnificent commentary to our readers, for they came to know it in its first edition and received it with unparalleled enthusiasm. Hardly had one part been issued before the public—aware as they were of al-Qurṭubī’s merit, erudition, literary grace, and precision in interpreting the Book of Allah and presenting the statements of the foremost, painstaking imams and the perceptive masters of Qur’anic insight—rushed to obtain it.

When al-Qurṭubī’s Tafsīr first appeared, readers immediately recognized the magnitude of his exertion and the exceptional care he devoted to it, both of which testify to the depth of his research, his aptitude for understanding the Qur’an, and his thorough grasp of the fundamental and subsidiary sciences of the Sharīʿah, as well as of language, literature, and rhetoric. All of this is manifest in his derivation of legal rulings from the noble verses—so much so that a reader might almost dispense with consulting the works of jurisprudence—and in his copious citation of Arabic literary texts, poetry and prose alike, which attest to the breadth of his learning and the spaciousness of his vision.

If any fault is to be found in the work, it consists only of a handful of minor slips that neither lessen his stature nor detract from its worth; even a finely honed sword may strike awry, and a noble steed may stumble.

One such point is that he occasionally departs from the stipulation he set for himself in the introduction to his book, where he says:

“…I shall forgo many of the tales transmitted by the commentators and the chronicles of the historians, except for what is indispensable and without which clarification cannot be achieved…”