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.
[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.
[2] A peculiar feature of this work is that the author claimed to have been divinely taught the meanings and purport of Quranic verses and chapters.
This approach greatly reduces the impact and validity of negative remarks and objections made on the Quran by non-Muslim critics.
It deals particularly with such practical teachings of the Quran as pertain to moral and socio-political ideas and economic relations; and frequently comments upon verses with reference to the various theories and findings of what were then the newly emerging natural and social sciences of the 19th and early 20th centuries.
The commentary also adopts a more comparative approach to the Quran than earlier commentators vis-a-vis the beliefs and teachings found in other religions and ideologies.