Maulana Muhammad Akram Khan's tafsir is an excellent work in every respect. It bears similarities with Muhammad Asad's tafsir titled The Message of the Qur'an. Maulana Akram Khan can be said to be the Asad of South Asia in the field of tafsir though we cannot assert that they met or knew each other. Some might not approve of his rationalist style of exegesis.
However, the reader of his commentary must acknowledge that every opinion in his tafsir is buttressed by strong textual and circumstantial evidences. He has used in his tafsir both hadith material and rational arguments extensively, as the reader will find in this book. This summarized version of his tafsir will help people understand the ideas of this great writer and thinker of Islam with regard to the Qur'an. This book presents some salient features of Maulana Akram Khan's Tafsirul Qur'an, which he wrote spanning most of his active life as an intellectual and writer. A legendary figure in Muslim Bengal, Akram Khan wrote this tafsir in Bangla when there was no such work in the language. It is true that there were few translations and short commentaries before that; but this is the first full-length tafsir of the Qur'an produced in the Bangla language in a true sense. In this work we have tried to present some selective sections of his tafsir, particularly those parts which reflect his in-depth research on the Qur'an and where he has given different views from those of early mufassirun (exegetes) and upheld minority views (even rare views). Our intention is to give the readers who do not know Bangla an access to this superb, scholarly work. Moulana Muhammad Akram Khan was among the topmost scholars of former Bengal of the last few hundred years. He was the President of the Bengal Muslim League before the partition of the sub- continent, a remarkable Islamic scholar and an eminent journalist. Above all, he was the writer of a path-breaking biography of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) and of the commentary of the Qur'an, as he was a scholar of Muslim history and literature. His Mostafa Charit, a biography of the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh), clearly demonstrates the profundity of his ability as a researcher. There he analyzed the life of the Prophet in the light of reliable historical materials and accepted only those facts that have been verified. Conversely, he excluded those materials which appeared contrary to reason. He rebutted Orientalist critiques of the Prophet's life and, this context, he examined some traditions attributed to the Prophet and analyzed their texts. Based on the principles of examining texts (matn) of hadith, laid down by the usuliyyun (scholars of Islamic jurisprudence), he regarded some of them as unacceptable. All may not agree with his ideas, but his work significantly facilitates more critical analysis and helps us rethink about many widely-held views. Moreover, his book on the social history of Muslim Bengal is an unparalleled contribution.
Mohammad Akram Khan (1868 – 18 August 1968) was a Bengali journalist, politician and Islamic scholar. He was the founder of Dhaka's first Bengali newspaper, The Azad. He was among the founders of Jamiat Ulama-e-Hind. Khan was born in 1868, to a Bengali Muslim family in Hakimpur, 24 Parganas district of Bengal Presidency, British India (in present-day West Bengal). His father, Alhaj Mawlana Ghazi Abdul Bari Khan, was a disciple of Syed Ahmed Shaheeed and participated in the Battle of Balakot. His mother's name was Rabeya Khatun. He did not have a British education but studied at Calcutta Madrasah (now Aliah University). He entered the journalism profession at a very young age before becoming involved in politics. Early in his career, he worked at newspapers Ahl-i-Hadith and Mohammadi Akhbar. Between 1908 and 1921, he worked as the editor of the Mohammadi and the Al-Islam. He published the Zamana and the Sebak between 1920 and 1922. Sebak was banned and Akram Khan was arrested on the basis that his anti-government editorials supported the Non-cooperation Movement and the Swadeshi movement. From October 1936, Akram Khan began publishing the newspaper The Azad, which generated support for the Muslim League in Bengal. Akram Khan was one of the founding members of the Muslim League in 1906. As a member of the Anjuman-i-Ulama-i-Bangala, he was involved in the Khilafat and Non-cooperation Movement from 1918 to 1924. He was elected secretary of the All India Khilafat Committee at the conference held at Ahsan Manzil in Dhaka in 1920, which was attended by other eminent Khilafat Movement leaders like Abul Kalam Azad, Maniruzzaman Islamabadi and Mujibur Rahman. Akram was responsible for collecting funds for the Ottoman caliphate. During 1920–1923, he organised public meetings in different parts of Bengal to propagate the cause of the Khilafat and the Non-cooperation Movement. As a believer in Hindu-Muslim amity, Akram Khan supported Chitta Ranjan Das's Swaraj Party in Kolkata in 1922, and also the Bengal pact in 1923. But due to the communal riots of 1926–1927 and other contemporary political developments, Akram Khan lost his faith in Indian nationalist politics and left both the Swaraj Party and Congress. He co-founded the Jamiat Ulama-e-Hind, and became a member of its first executive council. From 1929 to 1935, Khan was deeply involved in the Krishak Praja Party. However, he left peasant politics in 1936 and became an activist for the Muslim League. He was a member of the central working committee of the League until 1947. After the partition of India in 1947, he opted for East Bengal and settled in Dhaka. He was the President of Muslim League (East Pakistan) until he retired from politics in 1960. Akram Khan His Literary works are: Samasya O Samadhan, Mostafa Charit, Amparar Tafseer, Tafser-a-Quran, and Muslim Banglar Samajik Itihas. Awards: Independence Day Award (1981). He was also involved in the Bengali Language Movement of 1952. He was also a founding member of Pakistan's Council of Islamic Ideology, a constitutional body formed in 1962. Khan died on 18 August 1968. He was buried at the Ahl-i-Hadith Bangshal mosque at Old Dhaka.
