Among his famous books

· Muḥāḍarāt Ramaḍāniyyah,
· Zubar from the Qurʾānic Benefits,
· Shaqāshiq al-Ashjān,
· Al-Mafātīḥ in Balāghah,
· Masāʾil al-Khilāf,
· Azhār and Athmār,
· Al-Janāḥ in the science of al-bāṭin,
· Al-Naẓarāt in Uṣūl al-Dīn ,
· Al-Fiqh al-Qurʾānī,
· Al-Markab al-Nafīs,
· Ṣaḥīḥ al-Sunnah between Ahl al-Sunnah and al-Sunnah,
· Lamaḥāt from the Prophetic Sīrah,
· Qaṣd al-Sabīl ila Maʿrifah al-Jalīl,
· Min Thimār al-ʿIlm wa al-Ḥikmah,
· Why, and Is, and How?
· Maʿārij al-Muttaqīn.
They are taught in the schools, circulated in the gatherings, and read in the assemblies.
And he continues in authorship until today, responding to hundreds of questions and fatāwā every day. You see him occupied with the Ummah and its problems, answering with that which rectifies its religion and its worldly life; for he is the author whose giving does not cease, and the scholar whose light does not dim, and the guide whose lasting impact does not vanish, and the exemplar whose remembrance does not end; his books are like fruitful trees, and his scholarly works like shining lights.
And amidst the great abundance of teaching and verification for many students of the Islamic sciences, and the great lectures in the tafsīr of the Noble Qurʾān, and authorship in the types of knowledges and arts in the two uṣūls and the furūʿ and the sciences of the tools and the science of al-bāṭin and other than that, he opened upon himself two great doors from the doors of mercy for the Ummah of his grandfather, peace be upon him and his family: the door of judicial authority and the decisive adjudication of disputes with a wisdom whose like is rare, by which all parties are satisfied, and at which disagreement and divergence cease; and if this indicates anything, then it only indicates the sincerity of the ḥakam and his counsel.
And the second door is the door of fatwā, by which he surpassed the peers, and its mention spread in all lands, until it became the speech of the gatherings, and the place of attention of the researcher and the student; books have been compiled in it in volumes, and in social communication thousands of pages, until his official channel in social communication has contained more than seventy-three thousand questions and answers; as for the written and oral questions, then there is no end to mentioning them.
And let us leave the field to the Sayyid, the erudite scholar, the mujtahid, the verifier, Aḥmad ibn al-Ḥasan Abū ʿAlī—may Allah preserve him—after six thousand questions were sent to him concerning the tafsīr of al-Mawlā (Muḥāḍarāt Ramaḍāniyyah), and that in the introduction to the verification; so how eloquent is the description of the scholar by the scholar:
(In the Name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful
Praise be to Allah alone, and may Allah send blessings and peace upon our Prophet, the oft-returning [to Allah], Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh, and upon his family, the guides. Now then:
It pleases us, my noble brother reader, to present to you this great work and the upright tafsīr (Muḥāḍarāt Ramaḍāniyyah fī Taqrīb Maʿānī al-Āyāt al-Qurʾāniyyah) of its author, the Mawlā, the erudite scholar, the penetrating examiner, the surging overwhelming current, the mujtahid of the Prophetic progeny, and the lexicon of the ʿAlawī household, the scholar of the age: Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh ʿAwaḍ al-Ḍaḥyānī al-Muʾayyadī—may Allah preserve him with the Mother of the Qurʾān, suffice him the tasks of time and the calamities of events—in its splendid form, its new garment, and its second printing, comprising some important corrections and additions, and the arrangement of some of its paragraphs by advancement or delay or deletion or alteration, its margin gilded and its marginalia embroidered with thousands of varied questions, and the answers of the author—may Allah preserve him—to them, beneficial and convincing, for which journeys are undertaken, and for which burdensome loads are borne; due to the multiplicity of its virtues and the diversity of its benefits: from parsing the important of the vocabulary of the Qurʾānic āyāt and the majority of their sentences, and clarifying the aspects of separation and connection in some of their constructions, along with discourse on some aspects of balāghah and subtleties of meanings and bayān, and harvesting a fruitful yield from ṣarf and the science of derivation. Thus it is, in truth and reality, a great encyclopaedia in these sciences, and it makes clear to the observer, through it, the need of the practitioner of tafsīr to verify its explicit wording and its understood meaning, otherwise his work would be like a mirage in a desert plain, resembling the play of fools and the conduct of the bereaved.
This is in addition to what these beneficial answers contain of precisions in some kalām matters, and verifications in various uṣūlī discussions, and sound reconciliations regarding what appears to the deficient as contradiction between numerous āyāt, and the excavation of some fiqh rulings, and the pure benefits in the āyāt to which they have restricted the locations of rulings and the sources of the lawful and the unlawful, and in other than them from what exceeds five hundred āyāt, which the understandings of the mujtahids have not addressed with analytical consideration nor with expert understanding, nor have the pens of derivations run upon them with thought nor consideration.
And it is well established that had the author—may Allah preserve him—engaged in this chapter, or allowed his pen to extend in this subject, he would have brought forth astonishing marvels, and extracted that which would dazzle the intellects of the mujtahids and the minds of those of understanding, until both the one in agreement and the one in opposition would be compelled to testify that he—may Allah preserve him—has been granted wisdom and decisive speech, and that his Lord has singled him out with that which escaped others of understanding the subtleties of the Sunnah and the fiqh of the secrets of the Book, and would make them assert with certainty that he—in this age—is the peer of the Qurʾān, and the one singled out with this quality from the progeny of the Master of the sons of ʿAdnān.
And direct observation surpasses description; so whoever looks into his book (Zubar min al-Fawāʾid al-Qurʾāniyyah) and (Azhār wa Athmār min Ḥadāʾiq al-Ḥikmah al-Nabawiyyah) will know that with certainty, and may even swear upon its content with an oath.
As for the secrets of balāghah and the wonders of meanings and bayān, then if the author—may Allah preserve him—had permitted his pen to run in that field, it would have encompassed great volumes, and his tafsīr would have extended to dozens of tomes, and would have surpassed Tahdhīb al-Ḥākim, and his subtle points would have excelled over the verifications of the ḥāshiyah of al-Sharīf Yaḥyā ibn Qāsim. This is known by the one who casts his gaze in the book (al-Mafātīḥ), or sets his thought in motion regarding what his noble pen has inscribed upon Sūrat al-Kawthar and the like of the noble sūrahs.
And more eloquent than that and more astonishing is that this great tafsīr was arranged for him in harmony, and these upright lectures were organized for him, with the interconnection of their expressions, the ease of their constructions, the smoothness of their words, and the sweetness of their styles—all of that without looking into the books of tafsīr, nor studying in their principal sources, nor preparation, nor returning to the lexical dictionaries; rather, he dictated them from the purity of his refined thought, and poured them from his chest to the listener fresh, and their words were recorded from his pure mouth, tender and fresh; and this is from that which astonishes the intellects and perplexes the minds.
Let the one in doubt look, by way of example, at the tafsīr of the āyah (88) from Sūrat al-Ṣāffāt, and his upright taʾwīl of the āyah (102) from the same sūrah, and the two āyāt (61 and 81) from Sūrat al-Zukhruf, and the second āyah from Sūrat al-Fatḥ and the fourteenth from Sūrat al-Mulk, and the āyah (18) from al-Muzzammil, and his taʾwīl of His saying, the Exalted: “Whatever āyah We abrogate or cause to be forgotten, We bring better than it or similar to it” [al-Baqarah:106], and the like of that which we have indicated in the questions to the strength of his juristic reasoning in them and the greatness of his taʾwīl of them.
And among that which arouses amazement also in this tafsīr is the precise definition of the meanings of some difficult linguistic terms, for which our Mawlā—may Allah preserve him—was granted accuracy by dictation from his memory and recollection, which it may be difficult for some of the great scholars to extract from the books of research, or to investigate their meanings in the texts of the verifying linguists—not to mention memorizing them and formulating them in simple easy expressions—as the author—may Allah support him—did in this tafsīr of his; which indicates to the fair-minded the breadth of the reach of our Mawlā in this aspect, and the strength of his acquisition, and the abundance of the intellectual store of his chest, along with a divine grant, and lordly facilitation, and the blessings of the Prophetic supplication: “O Allah, place knowledge and fiqh in my posterity and the posterity of my posterity, and my progeny and the progeny of my progeny until the Day of Resurrection.”
And despite that, he says—may Allah preserve him—in his introduction—which will come—that he did not love to draw it out and bring it forth in a book; due to his inadequacy from that, and his deficiency from being inscribed in a book… to his statement that he wishes to erase the first tafsīr and replace it with a new tafsīr, except that circumstances did not permit him. And this is the utmost humility from his great station (and it is not from Abū Bakr a Bakr), for this trait (humility) has mixed with his flesh and blood until it has become, with respect to him, like natural dispositions; and perhaps this matter is the reason for the acceptance of the majority of societies for this tafsīr specifically, and for the authored works of our Mawlā—may Allah support him—generally; in accordance with the Prophetic wisdom—may the prayers of Allah and His peace be upon its possessor and his family: “Whoever humbles himself for Allah, Allah raises him.” Otherwise, it—meaning: the tafsīr of our Mawlā, may Allah preserve him—has comprised precise meanings, upright taʾwīlāt, sound perspectives, noble benefits, and has been distinguished—as we have previously stated—by great distinctions, even though our Mawlā—may Allah preserve him—has expanded his excuse in not observing the controls of naḥw and balāghah, and the rules of Arabic speech, when analyzing the noble āyāt and deconstructing the Qurʾānic composition; and that is in consideration of making understood the common people and the deficient among those present and listeners, and his fear of depriving them of benefit—despite that, in my view, he indicates many indications not hidden from the benefiting student in many āyāt to most of those rules (naḥw and balāghah), and that he built his analysis of the āyah upon them—and that consideration for making the common people understand, and eagerness for their benefit, is the reason that led him—may Allah support him—to suffice with commenting upon some āyāt and not detailing them in a detailing matching their composition and their wording; and this is in the complex structures of the āyāt; and he may rarely come with commentary relying upon the understanding of the analysis of the āyah corresponding to its composition through its apparent sense, and the absence of hardship in that. So understand this and contemplate it with the eye of insight and fairness; for this may be a distinguishing feature from the features of this tafsīr, and an indication of its excellence and the skill of its author. And long ago the Arabs said: “For every formal occasion there is a discourse.” And with Allah is success.
And know, my noble brother reader, that some of these questions mentioned in the margin we have brought upon the tongue of the common student by his question for the attainment of benefit, and some of them upon the tongue of the guiding inquirer, and among them what is upon the tongue of one who has stripped himself as a person opposing in opinion and juristic reasoning; so that there may emerge to the noble reader this immense quantity of evidences and weightings, and the refined benefits, in preferring a statement, or establishing an opinion, or refuting an objection.
And we seek his pardon for occupying his time, crowded with strenuous works in raising the religion and reviving Islam, and in presenting some objections upon some of his correct opinions and penetrating perspectives; for that is only for the aforementioned reason.
This—and indeed the answers of the author—may Allah preserve him—to these many, branching questions in every discipline, which exceed six thousand questions, have reminded us of what has been narrated about the Imām, the ḥujjah, al-Manṣūr bi-llāh ʿAbdullāh ibn Ḥamzah, peace be upon him, that one of the scholars asked him at the occasion of his bayʿah about five thousand legal issues, and he answered them with the best answer; so there is no wonder nor remoteness in that, along with what we have seen from the author—may Allah make abundant his reward—and no marvel, for it is a progeny, some of it from some.
So if you—O scholar seeking increase, or guide seeking benefit—find your sought aim which you desire, and your lost thing which you seek, in these sufficient answers, and the healing balms, which represent the beneficial antidote for the diseases of the age and the penetrating poison of ignorance, then you will assign our Mawlā who answers them with a portion of your stipend, and your daily supplication, and your continuous devotions, that Allah may preserve him with His preservation, and guard him with the eye of His care, as a treasure and a refuge for Islam and the Muslims, and a banner for the acting scholars, a key to the obscurities of matters, and a solver of the intricate problems, and a straightener of the crookedness of evidences, and that He may reward him on behalf of the Ummah of his grandfather the best reward, and be pleased with him with the best pleasure, and raise his station in the two abodes, and grant him the utmost of his request and his aim, by His power and His might, and that He grant us from his blessings, and pour upon us from his knowledge and his maʿrifah, and make us know his right, and make us firm upon following him, and being upon his path. Āmīn, Āmīn.
Written on 21 / Muḥarram / Miftāḥ year 1440 AH) End