Just a small note on teaching tafsir today. Qasimi did not only write his tafsir, he also taught tafsir actively, most likely in the process of writing his work. His way of teaching appears to have been quite uncommon in his own age, and was a clear style break with .. (1/7)

.. lessons of other scholars, and the way tafsir was taught until then through glosses on Baydawi.

His former student Maḥmūd al-ʿAṭṭār (d. 1944) relates how he was amazed when he first visited a tafsīr lesson of Qāsimī in the Sināniyya Mosque. (2/7)

Not only was he surprised to see how many representatives of the Damascene cultural scene gathered for his lessons, also the content of his lessons was nothing like he was used to. (3/7)

No repetition of the glosses with their subtleties of grammar and rhetoric in his lessons, but an attack on the negative social consequences of the culture of visiting graves and the creedal errors of seeking intercession of awliyāʾ, through the medium of tafsīr. (4/7)

ʿAṭṭār describes how his father, due to peer pressure from other scholars, at first forbade him to join the lessons, but after he once accompanied him, became so much impressed that he kept attending the classes as well. (5/7)

This anecdote neatly shows how iǧtihād not only had consequences for the way fiqh was conceptualized and taught, but also for tafsīr, as well as matters of creed. His project of iǧtihād had serious social consequences for the scholarly relations in the time of Qāsimī. (6/7)

This is @PieterCoppens8 , tweeting on my research on the tafsir of Jamal al-Din al-Qasimi (1866-1914). (7/7)