Introduction to Mufti Shafi Usmani and Ma'arif al-Quran

Ma'arif al-Quran is one of the most widely read Quranic commentaries in the South Asian Muslim tradition, and through its English translation has become an indispensable resource for English-speaking Muslims worldwide who seek a grounded, traditionally rooted tafsir. Its author, Mufti Muhammad Shafi Usmani, was born in 1897 in Deoband, India, in the heartland of the Deobandi scholarly movement, and was raised in the tradition of that school from his earliest years.

Mufti Shafi studied at Darul Uloom Deoband under some of the greatest scholars of his generation, including the legendary Shaykh al-Hind Mahmud al-Hasan and the master hadith scholar Anwar Shah Kashmiri. His years at Deoband formed him as a scholar of the full classical Islamic curriculum — Quran, tafsir, hadith, fiqh, and usul — and he graduated with ijazahs (scholarly licenses) in all of these sciences. He served as a senior faculty member at Deoband for many years, teaching hadith and fiqh, before the partition of British India in 1947 led him to migrate to Pakistan.

In Pakistan, Mufti Shafi became the Grand Mufti — the highest religious authority in the country — and founded Darul Uloom Karachi, which became one of the premier centers of traditional Islamic education in the world. His son, the widely respected Mufti Muhammad Taqi Usmani, has continued and expanded this legacy. Mufti Shafi passed away in 1976, having spent his final decades producing Ma'arif al-Quran among numerous other works.

Ma'arif al-Quran was originally composed in Urdu, the scholarly and literary language of South Asian Islam, and spans eight volumes covering the entire Quran. The work was later translated into English by Mufti Muhammad Taqi Usmani's editorial team, making it accessible to a global audience. The translation preserves the methodological character of the original: it is written for an educated Muslim audience, balancing accessibility with scholarly substance.

The methodology of Ma'arif al-Quran combines several classical approaches to tafsir. Mufti Shafi draws heavily on tafsir bi'l-ma'thur — commentary through transmitted reports from the Prophet, the Companions, and the Followers — while also engaging with rational analysis and the derivation of legal rulings (ahkam) from Quranic verses. His Hanafi training is naturally reflected in the fiqh discussions, where he presents Hanafi positions as the default while noting where other schools differ and offering the reasoning behind each position.

A defining quality of Ma'arif al-Quran is its engagement with modernity. Mufti Shafi was writing in an era when Muslim communities faced urgent questions about how to understand traditional Islamic teachings in light of modern life, Western philosophy, and contemporary social conditions. He addresses these questions directly and unhesitatingly, grounding his responses in classical scholarship while making them comprehensible to twentieth-century readers. This combination — traditional scholarship meeting modern questions without compromising either — has made Ma'arif al-Quran a reference that remains authoritative decades after its composition.

For English-speaking Muslims who want to study the entire Quran with traditional commentary, Ma'arif al-Quran remains one of the most complete and reliable options available, representing the best of the Deobandi scholarly tradition brought into English form.