In the preface to the first volume, explaining need for a modern commentary, Mahmood Ahmad acknowledged the importance of the classical commentators like Ibn Kathir, Zamakhshari, Abu Hayyan etc. and the great service they rendered for the Quran, but stated that they made two fundamental mistakes. Namely, they uncritically included questionable narrations from unsound sources in their comments and they relied too heavily on Jewish literature. As a result some subjects had become a source of ridicule for Islam and the person of Muhammad.[1] He also believed that the idea of abrogation had been of great detriment to the purity and authenticity of the divine nature of the Quran from which it needed to be absolved.