Abd al-Hamid Kishk; A Pioneer in Offering Quran Interpretation in Simple Language
He was born on March 1933 in Shubra Khit, a town in Egypt’s Beheira Governorate. He went to a Maktab (traditional school) at an early age and learned the Quran by heart before ten.
He was used to reading the Quran since early childhood and later in life he used related verses of the Quran in his sermons, for which he was famous.
He lost his sight in on eye at the age of 13 and then the other eye at 17. He would always read a famous poem by Ibn Abbas that said “God took away my eyesight but illuminated my soul and my thought”.
He wrote 108 books on Islamic education and Quranic and religious concepts. In these books, he uses a simple language to explain Quranic and religious concepts to ordinary people.
His main work is the ten-volume book titled “In Expanse of Tafsir” also uses a simple language to highlight the guidance of the Holy Quran in different areas.
The language and interpretation method used in this book makes it easy for ordinary people who have no Quranic, linguistic, scholarly and Fiqhi knowledge to benefit from it.
In this interpretation, Sheikh Kishk first mentions each verse, then explains about its words and then talks about the meaning and purpose of the verse. Based on the subject, he employs other fields of knowledge such as literature, political sciences, medicine, etc to better convey the meaning. He then points to questions and doubts about the concepts and explains about them.
In his sermons, Sheikh Kiskh emphasized the importance of observing principles of Islamic ethics and Taqwa (God-fearing), considering it a factor for social growth.
On Friday, December 6, 1996, when he was geeing ready to go to the mosque and say Friday prayers, Sheikh Kishk passed away in the middle of Nawafil prayers.
