flaws. So I harbored in my soul the intention to publish this book, in order to fulfill some of God's right upon me, and to give thanks thereby for a favor bestowed upon me—for which I am unworthy—from a Lord whereof no servant among His servants fulfills the gratitude for a past favor from His favors except through a new favor from Him that obliges him to offer gratitude for it, which is His enabling him to give thanks for the favor that preceded; as al-Shāfiʿī (may God be pleased with him) said.

Time passed and days vanished while I was consumed with that which will profit me nothing on the Day when mankind will stand before the Lord of the worlds, until the aggression of the aggressors, the injustice of the wrongdoers, and the tyranny of the arrogant tyrants awakened me; so I resolved to print this monumental Tafsir, seeking thereby proximity to the Lord of the worlds, the Sovereign of the Day of Judgment.

I disclosed what was in my heart to my elder brother, Sayyid Aḥmad Muḥammad Shākir—may God extend his life and enlighten me with his knowledge—and he was of the view that Dār al-Maʿārif should publish it as the first fruit of its works in publishing the heritage of Islam. Before long, the publishing house made its preparations to publish this massive book, with gratitude to them for what they exerted in reviving the Arabic book.

I would have loved for the work of publishing this book to be a joint effort between me and my brother in every detail, large and small, but the abundance of his work prevented that. Would that he had done so, so that I might benefit from his knowledge and guidance, and avoid what I fear of error and slip in a book regarding which Abū ʿAmr al-Zāhid, the servant of Thaʿlab, said: "I collated this book from its beginning to its end, and I did not find in it a single letter in error regarding grammar or language." And how could someone like me fulfill the word of Abū ʿAmr regarding the book of Abū Jaʿfar!