Introduction

Al-Futuhat al-Ilahiyyah bi-Tawdih Tafsir al-Jalalayn, translated as 'Divine Openings for the Elucidation of Tafsir al-Jalalayn,' is an extended commentary on the celebrated concise Quran commentary known as Tafsir al-Jalalayn. The commentary was written by Sulayman ibn 'Umar al-Jamal al-Azhari (d. 1204 AH / 1790 CE), a major Egyptian scholar associated with Al-Azhar who sought to make the terse and sometimes elliptical explanations of al-Jalalayn more accessible while deepening their scholarly treatment. The work belongs to the genre of hashiya (supercommentary), a form of scholarship that was especially productive in the later Ottoman period.

Tafsir al-Jalalayn itself was written by two scholars whose names both begin with 'Jalal': Jalal al-Din al-Mahalli (d. 864 AH / 1459 CE), who completed the commentary from Surah al-Kahf to the end of the Quran and wrote the commentary on Surah al-Fatiha, and his student Jalal al-Din al-Suyuti (d. 911 AH / 1505 CE), who completed the remaining portion. The text is famous for its extreme brevity and its focus on linguistic explanation, and it has been used as a standard teaching text in Islamic education for centuries. Al-Jamal's supercommentary addresses the interpretive questions that al-Jalalayn leaves open, explains difficult vocabulary and grammatical constructions, and adds hadith and Companion reports that support the exegetical positions taken.

Al-Futuhat al-Ilahiyyah is organized to follow the text of al-Jalalayn, with al-Jamal quoting the base text phrase by phrase and providing his expansions and clarifications. The work draws on the classical tafsir tradition including the works of al-Tabari, al-Baghawi, and al-Qurtubi, as well as the Arabic linguistic sciences. Al-Jamal's approach is that of a traditional Sunni scholar committed to the consensus positions of Ahl al-Sunnah in aqeedah and the Shafi'i tradition in fiqh, making the work thoroughly orthodox in its theological and legal orientation.

Al-Futuhat al-Ilahiyyah achieved wide circulation in the Arab world and beyond, and it continues to be studied in traditional Islamic educational institutions. For students who have mastered the Arabic language and seek to study Quranic exegesis in its classical form, al-Jamal's supercommentary provides a reliable expansion of al-Jalalayn that opens up the richness of the classical tafsir tradition. The work stands as an important example of the continued vitality of traditional Islamic scholarship in the later Ottoman period.