Playing God

"All rights of this book are reserved for the publisher and the author. This copy is for reading purpose only. This copy cannot be uploaded on any website except those of the publisher and the author." Appendix: Brief Biographical Notes 71 religious and modern sciences would be taught in Urdu. Later in 1919, his vision materialized in the form of J ā mi‘ah ‘Uthm ā niyyah, Hyderabad. In 1925, he returned to his home town Azamgarh and took charge of the Madrasah al-Isl ā h. Here, besides managing the affairs of the Madrasah, al-Far ā h ī devoted most of his time to training a few students. Among them, was Am ī n Ahsan Isl ā h ī , who was d estined to become the greatest exponent of his though t after him. Far ā h ī died on 11th November 1930 i n Mithra, where he had gone for treatment. For almost fif ty years , al-Far ā h ī reflected over the Qur’an, which remained his chief interest and the focal point of all his writings. His greatest contribution is to re-direct the attention of Muslim scholars to the Qur’ ā n as the basis and ultimate authority in all matters of religion. He stressed that the Qur’ ā n should be practically regarded as the m ī z ā n (the scale that weighs the truth) and the furq ā n (the distinguisher between good and evil), a status which it invests on itself. Thus Ah ā d ī th cannot change or modify the Qur’ ā n in any way. They should be interpreted in the light shed by this divine book and not vice versa. It was as result of this status of the Qur’ ā n that he insisted on the univocity of the Qur’ ā nic text and rejected that variant readings be regarded as the Qur’ ā n per se. It was his deep deliberation on the Qur’ ā n that led him to unfold its nazm (coherence) in a unique way. By taking into consideration, the three constituents of nazm : order ( tarti # b ), proportion ( tana # sub ) and unity ( wah @ da # niyyah ), he proved that a single interpretation of w.javedahmadghamidi.com www.al-mawrid.or