Facebook, Twitter and The Study Quran

Arabic, Persian, and Urdu tafasir have had divergent opinions available in them for centuries (varying legal opinions, positions of varying theological schools, many sunni tafasir even sound as though they should be shiite), and nobody has had their back up about that or flooded social media about those or argued they should be confined to scholars or academics. 

Why when this has been done in English are people suddenly so afraid? What are people afraid of? Will people read the SQ and leave Islam? Will Sunnis become Shias or vice versa? Will Asharis suddenly espouse Maturidi positions (gasp!). Seriously, folks, I love the 'ulema, I love to sit at their feet, I love to learn from them, but we do have an intellect as lay people.

Nobody is saying don't study tafsir with local scholars or online. The SQ is not intended to be a manual on aqidah, fiqh, tasawwuf -- it's not meant to give you philosophy or metaphysics. It's tafsir -- it is simply meant to present the context of verses/surahs and the varying ways in which the mufasirs have understood them. It's not devotional in the sense that litanies are, its to assist in one's reflection on the various level of meanings contained in it -- because there are various levels of meanings and to think otherwise is to limit the expanse and depth and great heights of Allah's Words.

I logged back on to FB after 5 months (will be deactivating once more) and people are still condemning without reading, spreading without verifying. Get off of this lowest common denominator known as FB, stop reading what other people are saying about a book, or trying to corner the two editors that are on FB about their religious beliefs/positions (even if you "extract" some information -- do you think all the editors have identical positions or affiliations?!), and actually read the book. The first command of the Quran was to read! Muslims have never been afraid of divergent ideas or opinions or even completely foreign ones -- we have a strong intellectual history. Be proud of that, say bismillah and read with a pure heart, this SQ that you are condemning. Or if you don't want to read it, at least get off FB and go memorize the Quran -- Allah knows the amount of time people waste on this waste of time social media, our ummah could be producing huffaz of the Quran by the thousands. Wassalam!