Bayan al-Quran

Bayan al-Quran (Urdu: بیان القرآن) is an early 20th-century Urdu translation and commentary of the Quran by Ashraf Ali Thanwi, completed in 1905 and first published in 1908 in twelve volumes from Delhi. A revised version, titled Complete Bayan al-Quran, was released in 1935. Thanwi developed the work as a direct response to the translations and interpretations of Nazir Ahmad Dehlvi, Mirza Hairat Dehlvi, and Syed Ahmad Khan, whose approaches he disagreed with. The translation is influenced by the works of Shah Abdul Qadir and Mahmud Hasan Deobandi, while the commentary is primarily influenced by Ruh al-Ma'ani. Its key themes include hadith-based interpretations, jurisprudential discussions, and mysticism. It also stands out as the first Urdu exegesis to explore the mystical dimensions of Quranic verses in depth. The translation and interpretative style of Bayan al-Quran were later adopted and expanded upon by scholars such as Abul Kalam Azad. It served as the primary source for compiling Tafseer-e-Majidi and also formed the foundation for Ma'arif al-Quran, a summarized version of this work.