al-Muyassar fi Gharib al-Qur'an al-Karim

al-Muyassar fi gharib al-Qur'an al-karim ("The Simplified Guide to the Rare Words of the Noble Qur'an") is a concise glossary of the Qur'an's rare words, prepared by the Centre for Qur'anic Studies of the Scientific Affairs department of the King Fahd Complex for the Printing of the Holy Qur'an in Medina, and printed in 1433 AH in 632 pages. ^{1 2}

The foreword of the Complex's general supervisor, the Minister of Islamic Affairs Salih ibn Abd al-Aziz Al al-Shaykh, says that the growth of learning in Saudi Arabia and the spread of Qur'an memorisation circles created the need for a work "seeking clear, accessible wording to explain the rare Qur'anic word" while drawing on earlier reliable works, so the secretariat was directed to prepare it for the margin of the Medina Mushaf. ³ The secretary-general, Muhammad Salim ibn Shudayyid al-Awfi, says the Complex judged that the books printed on the subject, "for all their number, may not serve the purpose", and that it had received calls to fill this gap. ⁴

The plan was drawn up with a team of researchers at the Centre for Qur'anic Studies, who chose to address the material "to the general public in easy wording", formulated after reviewing the views of trustworthy commentators and choosing the preferred one; the team unified its method and chose "a single one of the possible meanings, the one accepted by the authoritative commentators", with attention to the aims of the Qur'an and use of the Complex's own al-Tafsir al-muyassar, which it adopted as the basis for its translations of the meanings of the Qur'an. ^{4 5}

The book opens with an introduction on the meaning of gharib, the importance of knowing it, the development of writing on it and the methods of its authors; it says the first works on the rare words of the Qur'an are credited to Aban ibn Taghlib, Muhammad ibn al-Sa'ib al-Kalbi and Abu Rawq al-Hamdani, and classifies the methods as sura order, dictionary order, combination with other sciences, selection from larger works, and verse. See gharib al-Qur'an. ^{6 7 8 9 10}

Its 'statement of method' says the work was assigned to four researchers of the Centre, who divided the parts of the Qur'an equally; that the yardstick of rarity is "the ordinary reader of the Noble Qur'an", so that words a specialist may find easy are included; that al-Tafsir al-muyassar is consulted, though other wordings may be chosen; that the principal works of tafsir and gharib are checked for every word; and that recurring words are mostly explained the same way everywhere. ^{11 12} The introduction says that printed books on gharib are either long and arranged as dictionaries, hard for ordinary learners, or too brief, or open to criticism in their choice of meanings or in matters of creed, and that the Complex received a proposal from the general directorate of the Qur'an memorisation charities, since students of the circles and memorisation competitions need the meanings of rare words. ¹³

The book follows the order of the suras of the Mushaf, giving each Qur'anic word in brackets followed by its meaning in a brief phrase, beginning with al-Fatiha. ¹⁴