Tanwīr al-miqbās min tafsīr Ibn ʿAbbās, by attributed to ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAbbās; compiled by Majd al-Dīn al-Fīrūzābādī (d. compiler d. 817 AH / 1414 CE). A running gloss, phrase by phrase, transmitted under the name of the Prophet’s cousin Ibn ʿAbbās through a chain (al-Kalbī from Abū Ṣāliḥ) that Muslim scholars have long judged weak; it is read as a witness to early Kufan exegesis rather than as Ibn ʿAbbās’s own words.
The complete commentary on The refuge on high ground (23:50), covering 23:50.
On 23:50
23:50. And We made the son of Mary: meaning Jesus; and his mother a sign: a mark and a lesson: a child without a father, and a birth without being touched; and We gave them refuge: We brought them back; to a height: to an elevated place; of settled ground: level, possessed of comfort; and flowing water: visible running water; and it is Damascus.
About this text
This is a complete English rendering of Tanwīr al-miqbās min tafsīr Ibn ʿAbbās on these verses, prepared for this website from the public-domain Arabic text (shamela.ws, book 12877). Nothing is abridged: every opinion, every report with its chain of transmission, every verse of poetry and every grammatical note is translated. Qur’anic quotations are in bold; the translator’s own notes are confined to the numbered footnotes and identify names, terms and variant readings only. A second translator has not checked the rendering, and the Arabic is linked so that any passage can be compared. The modern editors’ apparatus is not part of the classical text and is not translated.
The refuge on high ground (23:50): all commentaries · The classical commentaries