Towards Understanding the Quran is a fresh and highly readable English rendering of Tafhim al-Quran, Jamaat-e-Islami founder and Islamic ideologue Sayyid Abul Ala Mawdudis monumental Urdu translation and commentary. An immense wealth of profound understanding of the Quran is accumulated here, so is a vast treasure of knowledge and deep insights, illuminating historical accounts, and a highly systematic exposition of social, political, economic and legal teachings. But what makes this Tafseer unique is that it translates the Quran into a book to be lived by, a mission to be lived for, and a duty that a reader can no longer evade or postpone. This Tafseer answers contemporary questions, and makes the Quran fully relevant to the concerns of our day. Each Surah is prefaced by an account of its background and teachings. Maps and indexes add greatly to learning.

About the author

Sayyid Abul Ala Mawdudi (1903-1979), one of the chief architects of the contemporary Islamic resurgence, was the most outstanding Islamic thinker and writer of his time. He devoted his entire life to expounding the meaning and message of Islam and to organizing a collective movement to establish the Islamic order. In this struggle, he had to pass through all kinds of suffering. Between 1948 and 1967, he was put behind bars on four occasions, spending a total of five years in different prisons in Pakistan. In 1953, he was also sentenced to death by a Martial Law Court for writing a "seditious" pamphlet, this sentence being later commuted to life imprisonment. In 1941, he founded Jamaat Islaami, of which he remained Amir until 1972 and which is one of the most prominent Islamic movements of our day. He authored more than 100 works on Islam, both scholarly and popular, and his writings have been translated into forty languages. Mawdudi died in 1979 after a lifetime of serving Islam.