Tafsīr al-Jalālayn, by Jalāl al-Dīn al-Maḥallī and Jalāl al-Dīn al-Suyūṭī (d. 864 AH / 1459 CE and 911 AH / 1505 CE). The two Jalāls’ gloss, a sentence or two to a verse, which became the handbook commentary of the Muslim world.
The complete commentary on The birth of Jesus (19:16-37), covering 19:16 to 19:37.
On 19:16
And mention in the Book (19:16), the Qurʾān, Mary, that is, her story, when, at the time when, she withdrew from her family to an eastern place, that is, she secluded herself in a place towards the east of the house.
On 19:17
And she took a screen apart from them (19:17): she let down a curtain to conceal herself behind, so as to delouse her head, or her clothes, or to wash herself after her menses. Then We sent to her Our Spirit, Gabriel, and he took on for her – after she had put on her clothes – the likeness of a well-proportioned man, perfect in form.
On 19:18
She said: I seek refuge in the All-Merciful from you, if you are God-fearing (19:18), so that you will desist from me on account of my seeking refuge.
On 19:19
He said: I am only the messenger of your Lord, to grant you a boy who is pure (19:19), through prophethood.
On 19:20
She said: How shall I have a boy when no man has touched me (19:20), by marriage, nor have I been unchaste, a fornicatress?
On 19:21
He said (19:21), Gabriel: The matter is so, God’s creating a boy from you without a father; your Lord has said: It is easy for Me, that is, by Gabriel’s breathing into you at My command, so that you conceive him. And since what has been mentioned has the sense of a cause, the following is conjoined to it: and so that We may make him a sign for people, of Our power, and a mercy from Us for whoever believes in him; and it was, his creation, a matter decreed, in My knowledge. So Gabriel breathed into the opening of her shift, and she felt the conception in her womb, already formed.
On 19:22
So she conceived him, and she withdrew (19:22), retired, with him to a far place, distant from her family.
On 19:23
Then there drove her (19:23), brought her, the pangs of childbirth, the pain of labour, to the trunk of the palm-tree, so that she might lean upon it; and she gave birth – the conception, the formation and the birth all took place within a single hour. She said: O – for calling attention – would that I had died before this affair, and been a thing forgotten, consigned to oblivion, something abandoned, neither known nor remembered.
On 19:24
Then he called to her from beneath her (19:24), that is, Gabriel, who was lower down than she: Do not grieve; your Lord has placed beneath you a rivulet, a stream of water which had dried up.
On 19:25
And shake towards you the trunk of the palm-tree (19:25) – it was withered, and the bāʾ is redundant – it will drop – originally with two tāʾs (tatasāqaṭ), the second changed into sīn and assimilated into the sīn; in one reading it is left out – upon you dates, a specification (tamyīz), fresh and ripe, its adjective.
On 19:26
So eat (19:26) of the fresh dates, and drink of the rivulet, and be comforted of eye by the child – a specification (tamyīz) transposed from the subject, that is, “so that your eye be comforted by him”, meaning that it be at rest and not look towards anything else. And if – here the nūn of the conditional in is assimilated into the redundant mā – you should see – from it the final radical and the middle radical of the verb have been elided, the vowel of the latter transferred to the rāʾ, and the yāʾ of the pronoun given a kasra because of the meeting of two unvowelled letters – any human being, who then asks you about your child, say: I have vowed to the All-Merciful a fast, that is, an abstention from speaking about his affair and other matters with human beings, as is shown by: so I shall not speak today to any human, that is, after this.
On 19:27
Then she brought him to her people, carrying him (19:27) – a circumstantial clause (ḥāl) – and they saw him. They said: O Mary, you have indeed done a monstrous thing, a grave thing, in that you have brought a child without a father.
On 19:28
O sister of Aaron (19:28) – he was a righteous man; that is, O you who are like him in chastity – your father was not an evil man, that is, a fornicator, nor was your mother unchaste, that is, a fornicatress; so from where have you this child?
On 19:29
Then she pointed (19:29), to them, to him, [as if to say] speak to him. They said: How shall we speak to one who is, that is, who is found, in the cradle, a child?
On 19:30
He said: I am the servant of God. He has given me the Book (19:30), that is, the Gospel, and made me a prophet.
On 19:31
And He has made me blessed wherever I may be (19:31), that is, greatly beneficial to people – an announcement of what had been decreed for him – and has enjoined upon me prayer and alms, He commanded me with them both, as long as I live.
On 19:32
And dutiful towards my mother (19:32) – in the accusative, governed by an implied “He has made me” – and He has not made me arrogant, self-aggrandising, wretched, disobedient to his Lord.
On 19:33
And peace (19:33), from God, be upon me the day I was born, and the day I die, and the day I am raised alive. What was said earlier regarding the lord John is said of this too.
On 19:34
He, Exalted, said: That is Jesus son of Mary, the word of truth (19:34) – in the nominative, the predicate of an implied subject, that is, “[this is] the word of the son of Mary”; and in the accusative, with “I say” implied, the meaning being “the true word” – concerning which they are in doubt, from mirya, that is, they doubt; they are the Christians, who said that Jesus is the son of God. They lied.
On 19:35
It is not for God to take any son. Glory be to Him (19:35), declaring Him far above that. When He decrees a matter, that is, wills to bring it into being, He only says to it “Be”, and it is – in the nominative (fa-yakūnu), with “he” implied; and in the accusative (fa-yakūna), with an implied. And among such is the creation of Jesus without a father.
On 19:36
And truly God is my Lord and your Lord, so worship Him (19:36) – with anna taking fatḥa, with “remember” implied; and with kasra (inna), with “say” implied, as is shown by I said to them nothing except what You commanded me: Worship God, my Lord and your Lord (5:117). This, what has been mentioned, is a path, a way, that is straight, leading to Paradise.
On 19:37
But the factions differed among themselves (19:37), that is, the Christians, concerning Jesus: is he the son of God, or a god alongside Him, or the third of three? So woe, severity of punishment, to those who disbelieve in what has been mentioned and in other things, from the witnessing of a tremendous day, that is, being present at the Day of Resurrection and its terrors.
About this text
This is a complete English rendering of Tafsīr al-Jalālayn on these verses, prepared for this website from the public-domain Arabic text (tafsir.app, src=jalalayn). 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.
The birth of Jesus (19:16-37): all commentaries · The classical commentaries