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Tafsir al-Jalalayn تَفْسِير الْجَلَالَيْن

In review — pending scholar verification

A concise classical Quran commentary completed by two Jalals — Jalal ad-Din al-Mahalli (d. 864 AH) and his student Jalal ad-Din as-Suyuti (d. 911 AH); printed alongside the Quran in single-volume Mushafs in many editions.

Overview

Tafsīr al-Jalālayn (Arabic: تَفْسِير الْجَلَالَيْن; "Tafsir of the Two Jalals") is a concise word-by-word and phrase-by-phrase commentary on the Quran, completed by two scholars who shared the name Jalāl ad-Dīn:

  • Jalāl ad-Dīn al-Maḥallī (791–864 AH / 1389–1459 CE) — wrote the commentary on Surah Al-Kahf (18) through Surah An-Nās (114).
  • Jalāl ad-Dīn as-Suyūṭī (849–911 AH / 1445–1505 CE) — al-Maḥallī's student; completed the commentary on Surah Al-Fātiḥah (1) through Surah Al-Israʾ (17) after his teacher's death, in a deliberately matched style.

The result is a remarkably compact tafsir — typically printed alongside the Quran in single-volume editions, with the explanation in the margins or below each verse. It clarifies meaning, identifies pronoun referents, gives synonyms in classical Arabic, notes a few classical reports, and notes the Meccan/Medinan classification of each surah and verse.

Strengths and limits

Strengths: brevity, accessibility, exact tracking of verse and word. Used in basic Quran study circles globally.

Limits: as a concise work, it does not preserve isnad-based reports as al-Ṭabarī or Ibn Kathīr do; some classical reports it relays should be cross-checked. Caution: a small number of statements reflect Ashʿarī kalām theology (especially from al-Maḥallī, whose Shāfiʿī-Ashʿarī affiliation showed). For dogmatic statements, classical Salafī scholarship has annotated the work to clarify mainstream Sunni positions where they differ.

Significance

Tafsīr al-Jalālayn is one of the most printed and most studied tafsirs in the Muslim world. It is the introductory tafsir for many students before they move to Ibn Kathīr and al-Ṭabarī. The companion work Asbāb an-Nuzūl by al-Suyūṭī is often consulted alongside.

See also

References

  1. al-Maḥallī and as-Suyūṭī, Tafsīr al-Jalālayn, standard editions (Dar al-Maʿrifah; Dar Ibn Kathīr).
  2. Trans. Feras Hamza, Tafsir al-Jalalayn (Royal Aal al-Bayt Institute, 2008).
  3. as-Suyūṭī, Asbāb an-Nuzūl; al-Itqān fī ʿUlūm al-Qurʾān.