al-Durr al-manthūr fī al-tafsīr bi-l-maʾthūr, by Jalāl al-Dīn al-Suyūṭī (d. 911 AH / 1505 CE). Al-Suyūṭī’s collection of every transmitted report on each verse, drawn from the ḥadīth collections and the early commentaries, many of them otherwise lost.
The complete commentary on She who guarded her chastity (21:91), covering 21:91.
On 21:91
His words, Exalted: And she who guarded her chastity (21:91), to the end of the verse.
Ibn Abī Ḥātim reported from Ibn ʿAbbās, who said: Caesar wrote to Muʿāwiyah: Peace be upon you. To proceed: inform me of the noblest of His servants in His sight, and of the noblest of His handmaids in His sight. So he wrote to me asking me, and I said to him: To proceed: as for the noblest of His servants in His sight, it is Adam, whom He created with His hand and taught all the names; and as for the noblest of His handmaids in His sight, it is Mary daughter of ʿImrān, who guarded her chastity.
ʿAbd al-Razzāq and Ibn Abī Ḥātim reported from Qatādah, concerning His words so We breathed into her of Our spirit (21:91), that he said: He breathed into the opening of her garment.
Ibn Abī Ḥātim reported from Muqātil, who said: He breathed into her private part.
About this text
This is a complete English rendering of al-Durr al-manthūr fī al-tafsīr bi-l-maʾthūr on these verses, prepared for this website from the public-domain Arabic text (tafsir.app, src=aldur-almanthoor). Nothing is abridged: every opinion, every report with its chain of transmission, every verse of poetry and every grammatical note is translated. Qur’anic quotations are in bold; the translator’s own notes are confined to the numbered footnotes and identify names, terms and variant readings only. A second translator has not checked the rendering, and the Arabic is linked so that any passage can be compared. The modern editors’ apparatus is not part of the classical text and is not translated.
She who guarded her chastity (21:91): all commentaries · The classical commentaries