Al-Khattab undertook an exegetical work called Al-Tafsir al-Shamil fi Maarafat al-Kamil, or The Complete Exegesis Toward an Understanding of the Divine Perfection. It began simply enough, aiming for a comprehensive synthesis of the preceding centuries’ scholarship on Qur’anic interpretation. Al-Khattab was well into the third volume and the exegeses on the Chapter of the Cave,…