The first volume of ‘The Ascendant Qur’an’, Imam Muhammad al-Asi’s tafseer, was launched by the Institute of Contemporary Islamic Thought in Toronto on May 24. Crescent International took the opportunity to speak with Imam al-Asi about his tafseer, and his understanding of the challenges facing the global Islamic movement.
Over the last few years, Crescent International has serialised a new tafseer of the Qur’an by Imam Mohammad al-Asi. The first volume of this tafseer is now being published by the Institute ofContemporary Islamic Thought (ICIT), as the ICIT’s Director ZAFAR BANGASH explains.
The period in question is the period three caliphs and his abstention from public or political involvement, and his tenure as the fourth of the rightly guided caliphs (from the Sunni point of view). The obstacles that confronted him - you could talk about the existence of a rival centre of power in Damascus under the auspice of Mu’awiyah, who using the assassination of Uthman the third caliph as a pretext now wished to deny legitimacy to Imam Ali [AS] and refused him his loyalty and his obedience.
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