Chapter Three
Zoubdat Al Tafseer
(Abridged Version)
of
Fat’h Al Qadeer
by
Professor Muhammad Sulaiman Al Ashqar
Introduction
Before entering into the details of the methodology and procedures adopted in the actual GLORIOUS QUR’AN EXEGESIS by Imam Al Shawkani, it is important to point out that the Volume of Fat’h Al Qadeer which we will be working with is in fact the ABRIDGED Version called ZOUBDAT AL TAFSEER (Cream of Exegesis) from FAT’H AL QADEER written by Professor Muhammad Sulaiman Al Ashqar in 1985 CE (1406 AH). For this purpose we provide a brief biography of this Islamic scholar.
He was MUHAMMAD SLAIMAN ABDULLAH AL ASHQAR born in the city of Nablus, in northern Palestine on 16 September of 1930 CE. He grew up in the confines of his father, who was illiterate. However, because he respected and regarded the people of knowledge and faith he would follow their footsteps in pursuing religious knowledge and read the Quran without a teacher. He joined the primary school in his village and graduated in 1944. He then joined his secondary schooling in Al Salahiyyah in Nablus, where he remained for four years. After graduating he travelled to Saudi Arabia and worked in teaching elementary schools in the in city of Buraidah at Al Qaseem Province. He also worked in general trading in the capital Riyadh. He was invited to work in the Fatwa library Secretariat while maintaining his Islamic studies at the Shari’a College in Riyadh graduating in the year 1376 AH in the first batch of college graduates. He followed after his college Sheikh’s prolific knowledge. He took exegesis and jurisprudence from Sheikh Mohammed Amin Shanqeeti, jurisprudence and doctrine from Sheikh Abdul Aziz bin Abdullah al-Baz, and the statutes from Sheikh Abdul Aziz bin Rashid, Hadeeth from Sheikh Abdul Rahman Al Afriqi, and Arabic Grammar from Sheikh Abdul Latif Sarhan and Sheikh Yusuf and others.
He moved to Kuwait in the mid-sixties to work as Secretary to the Library of Shari’a and Islamic Endowment for twelve year. During this time he managed to obtain his master’s and doctorate from the Faculty of Sharia Al-Azhar University, Egypt. His dissertation was entitled: Actions of the Messenger (Sala Allahu Alayhi Wa Salam) and its Significance With the Shari’a Provisions. It involves the knowledge of jurisprudence on actual obligatory duties. The supervisor of his dissertation was Sheikh Abdul-Ghani Abdul-Khaliq. Since it resumed its function after the Gulf war in 1991, the Ministry of Awqaf (Endowment) in Kuwait Encyclopedia Project was put back to work with its employees along with Al Ashqar who also had previously participated in the Fatwa Committee in Kuwait as a member from 1969 to the Gulf events in 1990.
In addition to his thesis and Zubdat Al Tafseer, Al Ashqar has produced 19 other publications in various fields of Islamic knowledge and jurisprudence. The last of his works with co-authors concentrates on the following topics in Islamic financing:
Insurance & reinsurance.
Home evacuation money return.
Murabaha selling through Islamic Banks.
The principles and rules that govern trading systems in Islam.
Al Salm contract.
Al Istisn’a contract.
Islamic etiquette of money borrowing.
Currency markets in Islam.