title: Towards Understanding the Qur'an Surahs 17-21
author: Sayyid Abul A'la Mawdudi
description: Maulana Maududi, whose full legal name was Syed Abul A'ala Maududi was born on September 25, 1903 in Aurangabad, Maharashtra, Hyderabad, India. Near the end of his life he became ill and traveled to Buffalo, New York USA, where his son was a practicing medical doctor. He died there on September 22, 1979. Zafar Ishaq Ansari was born 27 December 1932. He is a scholar of Islamic Studies. He is the Director General of the Islamic Research Institute of the International Islamic University. Previously, he has also been the President of the International Islamic University Islamabad. He has published a number of books and articles and has spoken at international conferences on Islamic Studies and inter-religious dialogue. presently Dean, Faculty of Shariah and Law, International Islamic University, Islamabad Pakistan, was born and completed his early education in undivided India. He obtained his M.A. In economics from the University of Karachi, and later his M.A. and Ph.D. from McGill University in Canada in Islamic Studies, with specialization in Islamic History and Islamic Jurisprudence. He has taught at the University of Karachi; King Abdul Aziz University, Jeddah; King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals, Dhahran; Princeton University; University of Chicago; Melbourne University and McGill University. He has contributed a host of research papers to journals of international fame and articles to Encyclopedia Britannica and the recently published Encyclopedia or Religion. He has also co-edited with Prof. Khurshid Ahmad, Islamic Perspectives, Studies in Honor of Sayyid Abul A'la Mawdudi (Leicester, Islamic Foundation, 1979).
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  Foreword 
  READ in the name of thy Sustainer, who has created - 
  created man out of a germ-cell! 
  Read - for thy Sustainer is the Most Bountiful One  
  who has taught [man] the use of the pen - 
  taught man what he did not know. 
  With these opening verses of the ninety-sixth surah - with an allusion to man's humble biological origin as well as to his 
  consciousness and intellect - began, early in the seventh century of the Chnstian era, the revelation of the Qur'an to the 
  Prophet Muhammad, destined to continue during the twenty-three years of his ministry and to end, shortly before his 
  death, with verse 281 of the second surah:  
    And be conscious of the Day on which you shall be brought back unto God,  
    whereupon every human being shall 