Tafsir Al-Jalalayn

About the authors

Jalal al-Din al-Mahalli: Imam Jalal al-Din al-Mahalli rahimahullah (791-864 AH / 1389-1459 CE) was one of the preeminent Shafi'i scholars of Cairo in his era. He excelled in jurisprudence, theology, grammar, rhetoric, and Qur'anic commentary, and was renowned for his scrupulousness, his fear of Allah, and his fearlessness in upholding the truth. He taught jurisprudence at the Mu'ayyadiyya and Barquqiyya madrasas in Cairo. Known for his asceticism, he declined the highest judicial positions when they were offered to him, preferring to earn his living through trade. His authored works include commentaries on Jam' al-Jawami', al-Burda, al-Manahij fi'l-fiqh, al-Waraqat fi'l-usul, and Kitab al-Jihad, as well as Kanz al-Raghibin Sharh Minhaj al-Talibin, the foundational commentary on Imam al-Nawawi's Minhaj al-Talibin. He is most celebrated for beginning the Tafsir al-Jalalayn, composing the second half of the Qur'an from Surat al-Kahf to al-Nas and al-Fatiha; he died before completing the first half, which was subsequently composed by his student Jalal al-Din al-Suyuti.

Jalal al-Din al-Suyuti: One of the most prolific scholars in Islamic history, Jalal al-Din al-Suyuti (849-911 AH / 1445-1505 CE), whose full name was Abu al-Fadl ʿAbd al-Rahman ibn Abi Bakr al-Khudayri al-Suyuti, was born and raised in Cairo. Orphaned in childhood, he memorized the entire Qurʾan by the age of eight and went on to study under many of the leading teachers of Mamluk Egypt, gathering ijazas from scholars across the Muslim world. He was a Shafiʿi in law and Ashʿari in creed, and at one point regarded himself as the mujaddid, the renewer, of his age. Biographers credit him with close to six hundred works, from brief epistles to large reference compilations, spanning tafsir, hadith, fiqh, Arabic grammar and rhetoric, history, and more. He is best remembered as co-author of Tafsir al-Jalalayn, completing the concise verse-by-verse Qurʾanic commentary begun by Jalal al-Din al-Mahalli, and for al-Itqan fi ʿUlum al-Qurʾan, a landmark survey of the Qurʾanic sciences. Among his other enduring works are al-Jami al-Saghir, a much-used collection of Prophetic hadith, Tadrib al-Rawi on hadith methodology, Tarikh al-Khulafaʾ on the caliphs, and Husn al-Muhadara on the history of Egypt. In his forties he withdrew from teaching and public life, secluding himself on Rawda Island on the Nile to write, where he remained until his death in Cairo in 911 AH.

About the translator

Aisha Bewley: Aisha Bewley (b. 1948 CE) is one of the most prolific and respected translators of classical Arabic Islamic literature into English. Born in the United States, she earned a BA in French and an MA in Near Eastern languages at the University of California, Berkeley, and undertook further study at the American University in Cairo. She embraced Islam in 1968 and has since devoted more than four decades to rendering the texts of the Islamic tradition into clear, accessible English. Her best-known work is The Noble Qur'an, a translation of the meanings of the Qur'an produced with her husband, Abdalhaqq Bewley, and first published in 1999. Among her landmark translations are the Muwatta' of Imam Malik ibn Anas (1989), a foundational early collection of hadith and Maliki fiqh, and the multi-volume Tafsir of al-Qurtubi (2003 onward). Her wider output spans creed, law, and Prophetic biography, including abridgements and renderings of works such as Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya's writing on the soul after death and classical descriptions of the noble character and appearance of the Prophet, peace be upon him. WorldCat records her as author or translator of dozens of works across many editions, and in 2023 she was named Muslim Woman of the Year by The Muslim 500, which recognizes the world's most influential Muslims. Her translations are valued for fidelity to the Arabic and readable English, and remain in steady use among English-speaking students of the tradition.