You Can Study It in About an Hour, or Two Years

This book, then, is so popular, so small, yet so comprehensive. But another point about this book that is fascinating is that it can be studied in about an hour, or one could take two years or more to study it. For a person who just wants to read through it, it is so simple that it should not bother them. No particular point should bother such a person, or make them more curious, if they just want to read and get the basic idea. Very simple, very lucid, just beautifully composed. But at the same time, for those who want to open it up, together with the commentaries that have been written, it can take a year, or two years, or even more, to go into its depth and understand it.

Some of the popular commentaries: right off, anyone who understands Arabic and wants to benefit more from this will take on the commentary of al-Maydānī. Al-Maydānī's commentary is, arguably, really nice. It is not that deep. There are some points which he takes from the Musāyarah of Ibn al-Humām; those can be ignored. They are just hair-splitting debates, very, very difficult and complex. But other than that, it is just a very beautiful commentary, published by Dār al-Fikr, and others have published it as well.

Another is al-Bābartī's sharḥ. It is not as popular, but it is around. Another is al-Ghaznawī's sharḥ, al-Ghaznawī's commentary, which is really nice, because for everything he puts a Qur'anic verse. For nearly every point he brings the Qur'anic verse that it is taken from. So for those who want to relate it back to the Qur'an, that is a very good sharḥ. It does not go into any in-depth topics. It was, it seems, published perhaps a few hundred years ago in Kazan in Russia, or in some other places. But today a manuscript copy of it is at hand, and it is going to be published soon, in shāʾ Allāh.

One of the best sharḥs, the best commentaries on this book in Arabic, they say, is by al-Qūnawī. It is a Māturīdī commentary. Again, it is not published; it is not available today. That is being worked on. But the commentary is quoted by Mullā ʿAlī al-Qārī and others, in all the other books. It is supposed to be a very good commentary. Unfortunately, it has not yet been possible to see a copy of it.