The King Fahd Complex for the Printing of the Glorious Qur’an is considered a distinguished establishment concerned with the service of the Glorious Qur’an and its sciences. Due to lack of a comprehensive index that incorporates the compilations of Tafsir, the King Fahd Complex is prompted to prepare the “Index of Tafsir Compilations”. The need for such a reference work is even stressed when we learn that the Qur’anic library is void of a comprehensive index that incorporates different books of Tafsir, indicating the status of each book: manuscript, in print, or lost and verifying their titles and authors. 

The Index is to survey the Arabic commentaries of the Glorious Qur’an, whether complete or partial, since the emergence of Islam until present time (1422 A.H.).

The material of the Index will cover the following topics:

1. Tafsirs of the Glorious Qur’an in their different methodologies, tendencies and sizes 
2. Books compiled on the ambiguous terms of the Glorious Qur’an
3. Books compiled on Qur’anic judgments = juristic Tafsir
4. Books compiled on the Qur’anic terms of similar wording but different meanings
5. Books compiled on the relevance of certain verses and Surahs to other verses and surahs.
6. Books compiled on the literal resemblance of Qur’anic terms and its justification
7. Books compiled on difficult terms of Qur’an
8. Books compiled on the contextual resemblance of Qur’anic terms
9. Books compiled on the similes of the Qur’an
10. Books compiled on the parables of the Qur’an
11. Books compiled on oaths of the Qur’an

In this framework the scope of the Index is limited, in terms of the compilations it will include and the topics it will cover.

The Index does not cover the following items:

1. Biographical names of scholars who taught Tafsir and its sciences, but no mention was made of any Tafsir-related work compiled by them as far as the references we consulted are concerned. 
2. Books that serve certain aspects of Tafsir, such as books that contain references for the hadiths relating to a certain Tafsir compilation, books that include commentaries on poetic verses mentioned to supplement commentary, or books of Qur’an sciences that have no direct relevance to the subject of Tafsir.
3. Books of the fundamentals and rules of Tafsir; for such books are written to adjust the rules and bases of Tafsir, except when they include passages interpreting some Qur’anic meanings.

The Index also includes books available in different languages, including Arabic, such as “Al-Mufradat Al-Qur’aniyyah” by Murad bin Ali Al-Hanafi (d. 1132 A.H.).

In most cases, the information of the Index are gathered within five fields, which are:

1. Book title
2. Author’s name
3. Book information
4. Authentication references
5. Notes

As for references, the material of the Index is extracted from 116 references (titles). In selecting these references we considered variation in terms of novelty or antiquity, the category, the place where it was written, the juristic school to which the author belongs and the discipline, in order to make the database of the Index as extensive and comprehensive as possible.

In the field of references related to the book, only the names of persons included in such references are mentioned, to the exclusion of biographers who wrote biographies of the biographical names included in references. 

The references are arranged chronologically, based on the date of the death of authors, or the date of printing (if the author is still alive). In case two or more books have the same date of printing, alphabetical order is to be applied. 

Some authentication references are retained to prove that the book in print has a manuscript, either handwritten by the author or has his own handwriting on some of its parts.

Sometimes the Notes field displays authentication from certain references, which were made use of, but did not mention the book itself.

As for the notes, it is an open field that displays comments on the total fields of the books, such as correcting the author’s name or the date of his death, if such information is different from those included in the selected references. The comments may also correct the attribution of a book, which is attributed to other than its author by mistake, correct a book title or its content. However, we were not committed to pointing out any corrected information regarding dates of death, which differ from what is widely known.

Many lexical works in the field of Qur’anic studies have appeared, which aimed at observing the movement of compilation in this discipline, but either had no clear methodology, did not deal with the references of the subject directly, or were not concerned with editing the data and its authenticity, and therefore, became void of many necessary information.

Comparing this lexical work to other previous ones, the huge difference between them, which is in the favor of this work, becomes evident.

The Academic Affairs Department, in the King Fahd Complex welcomes the comments of researchers and their notes on the reference material of the Index.

Praise be to Allah, Lord of the worlds