Al-Mahalli Biography

Jalal al-Din Abu Abdullah Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Mahalli was a fifteenth-century Egyptian Shafi'i jurist, mufassir, and theologian, best known as the originator of one of the most widely read Qur'anic commentaries in the Islamic world. Born in 791 AH / 1389 CE in Cairo during the Mamluk period, he took his nisba from the town of al-Mahalla al-Kubra in the Nile Delta, his family's place of origin. He taught at the prestigious Mu'ayyadiyya and Barquqiyya madrasas in Cairo and earned a reputation for piety, ascetic restraint, and refusal of judicial office even when offered the highest posts in the land — choosing instead to support himself through trade.

Al-Mahalli's scholarship covered fiqh, usul al-fiqh, kalam, grammar, and rhetoric. His Sharh al-Minhaj on al-Nawawi's Minhaj al-Talibin (also known as Kanz al-Raghibin) became a standard manual in Shafi'i jurisprudence, and his commentary on Jam' al-Jawami' by al-Subki remains a core text in the principles of Islamic law. His most enduring contribution, however, was the Tafsir al-Jalalayn — the 'Commentary of the Two Jalals' — which he began at Surat al-Kahf and worked backward to al-Fatiha before his death cut the project short. His student Jalal al-Din al-Suyuti completed the second half in just forty days, producing one of the most popular and widely taught Qur'anic commentaries in Sunni Islam.

Al-Mahalli died in Cairo in 864 AH / 1459 CE. His concise, accessible style — preserved in the Jalalayn — continues to shape introductory tafsir study across the Muslim world more than five centuries after his death.