Al-Alusi begins Ruh al-Ma'ani, 1252/1836

Mahmud al-Alusi began writing Ruh al-Ma'ani on the night of 16 Sha'ban 1252 AH, in the thirty-fourth year of his life. ¹

In the preface to his commentary al-Alusi says he kept putting off writing until, on a Friday night in Rajab 1252, he had a dream "that I do not count as a jumble of dreams": God commanded him to fold up the heavens and the earth and join what was split in them; he raised one hand to the sky and lowered the other to the water's resting place. He woke awed by it, found in some books that it pointed to writing a commentary, set aside his excuses and began. ¹ He says he wrote it in the reign of Sultan Mahmud Khan son of Abd al-Hamid Khan. ¹ The Gregorian date in the data is a tabular conversion and so approximate.