الإتقان في علوم القرآن-ابن كثير

al-Itqan fi 'Ulum al-Qur'an

A monumental encyclopaedic work on the sciences of the Qurʾān by the prolific Egyptian scholar Jalāl al-Dīn al-Suyūṭī (d. 911 AH). Al-Itqān became one of the principal classical reference works in its field, gathering within a single systematic compilation a vast body of earlier scholarship concerning the revelation, transmission, language, interpretation and distinctive characteristics of the Qurʾān.

Al-Suyūṭī organizes the work into approximately eighty categories (anwāʿ) of Qurʾānic sciences. Among the subjects examined are the Makkan and Madinan revelations; the first and last passages revealed; circumstances of revelation; collection and arrangement of the Qurʾān; its names and sūrahs; the seven aḥruf; Qurʾānic readings; mutawātir and other forms of transmission; abrogating and abrogated verses; muḥkam and mutashābih; general and particular expressions; absolute and qualified wording; unusual Qurʾānic vocabulary; grammatical analysis; rhetoric; parables; oaths; the inimitability of the Qurʾān; principles required by the mufassir; and the ranks and methods of the early exegetes.

The breadth of al-Itqān is one of its defining features. Al-Suyūṭī draws extensively upon the accumulated literature of earlier Qurʾānic scholars, preserving opinions, classifications, transmitted reports and bibliographical material from numerous preceding works. It therefore functions both as a manual of ʿUlūm al-Qurʾān and as an important repository for the history and development of the discipline.

This Dār Ibn Kathīr edition is a new critical edition prepared by Dr. Muḥammad Ṣādiq Darwīsh. The editor established the text through comparison with five manuscripts, one of which bears the handwriting of al-Suyūṭī himself, while also vocalising difficult words, supplying punctuation, tracing discussions to their sources, referencing and documenting transmitted reports, and providing an introductory study and explanatory annotations.