alSuyuti

Jalal al-Din Abd al-Rahman ibn Kamal al-Din Muhammad ibn Sabiq al-Din al-Khuzayri al-Suyuti, commonly known as al-Suyuti, was a prolific Egyptian scholar and jurist of the Shafi'i school of jurisprudence. He was born in 1445 in Cairo and died in 1505. Al-Suyuti is renowned for his vast output across numerous Islamic sciences, including hadith, tafsir (Quranic exegesis), fiqh (jurisprudence), Arabic grammar, history, and Sufism.

His scholarly career was marked by an intense dedication to learning and teaching. He received a comprehensive education from prominent scholars of his time and later became a teacher himself, holding positions at various madrasas in Cairo. Al-Suyuti's methodology was characterized by extensive compilation and synthesis of existing knowledge, often producing encyclopedic works that aimed to preserve and disseminate Islamic scholarship.

Among his most significant contributions are his comprehensive commentaries on the Quran and hadith collections. His tafsir works, such as "Tafsir al-Jalalayn" (though primarily authored by his teacher Jalal al-Din al-Mahalli and completed by al-Suyuti) and "Al-Itqan fi Ulum al-Qur'an" (The Perfect Book on the Sciences of the Quran), remain highly influential. He also produced extensive hadith literature, including his biographical dictionary of hadith transmitters. Al-Suyuti's sheer volume of work and his ability to engage with diverse fields of Islamic knowledge solidify his position as one of the most important scholars of the late medieval Islamic world.