Taysīr al-Karīm al-Raḥmān fī tafsīr kalām al-Mannān, by ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Nāṣir al-Saʿdī (d. 1376 AH / 1956 CE). A modern commentary in plain Arabic that states the sense of each verse and the lesson drawn from it, without chains or digressions.
The complete commentary on She who guarded her chastity (21:91), covering 21:91.
On 21:91
That is: and mention Mary (peace be upon her), praising her, making plain her worth and proclaiming her nobility, and so He said: And she who guarded her chastity, that is, she kept it from what is unlawful and from approaching it, and indeed even from what is lawful, for she did not marry, because of her occupation with worship and her time being wholly taken up with the service of her Lord. And when Gabriel came to her in the form of a well-proportioned human being, perfect in form and beauty, she said: I seek refuge in the Most Merciful from you, if you are God-fearing (19:18). So God recompensed her with the like of her deed and granted her a child without a father; rather Gabriel (peace be upon him) breathed into her, and she conceived by God’s leave. And We made her and her son a sign for the worlds (21:91), in that she conceived him and gave birth to him without anyone having touched her; in that he spoke in the cradle and cleared her of what the accusers suspected of her, and told of himself in that state; and in that God caused to be wrought at his hands the extraordinary deeds and miracles that are well known. So she and her son were a sign for the worlds, spoken of generation after generation, and from which those who take heed draw their lesson.
About this text
This is a complete English rendering of Taysīr al-Karīm al-Raḥmān fī tafsīr kalām al-Mannān on these verses, prepared for this website from the public-domain Arabic text (tafsir.app, src=saadi). 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