Abd al-Jalil Abduh Shalabi
- Died
- 1415 AH
- Born in
- -
Abd al-Jalil Abduh Shalabi (d. 1415 AH / 1995 CE) was an Egyptian scholar, preacher, and researcher who served as the secretary-general of the Islamic Research Academy at Al-Azhar.
Education and early career
Shalabi completed the memorization and recitation of the Quran at the age of twelve in his native village of Gharb al-Waqf al-Bahri, located in the Mutubas district of Kafr al-Sheikh Governorate. He then enrolled at the Azhari Institute in Alexandria, continuing his education until he obtained his higher degree (al-shahāda al-ʿāliyya) and a teaching license from the Faculty of Arabic Language at Al-Azhar University.
Due to the temporary suspension of postgraduate studies at Al-Azhar during part of the 1940s, Shalabi turned to secular institutions while working as a teacher, acquiring his primary and secondary cultural certificates. He subsequently studied in the Department of Arabic Language at the Faculty of Arts at Alexandria University and later attended the Khartoum branch of Cairo University while working in Sudan. Upon returning to work in Egypt, he completed his university degrees, earning a licentiate (BA) and a master's degree. While stationed in London as the imam of its Islamic Cultural Centre, he completed his doctorate.
Positions, scholarship, and death
Following his return to Cairo, Shalabi was appointed assistant secretary-general and later secretary-general of the Islamic Research Academy at Al-Azhar. After retiring from this post, he served as a member of the Al-Azhar Fatwa Committee and held the position of dean of the Preachers' Preparation Institute in Egypt. He was also an active public writer, contributing a daily column titled Qurʾān wa-Sunna (Quran and Sunnah) to the Cairo newspaper al-Jumhuriyya over a span of thirteen years to discuss religious and social issues.
The majority of Shalabi's scholarly output—amounting to twenty-two books—centered on apologetics, refuting orientalist critiques, and addressing Christian missionary activities, including his work Radd muftarrayat al-mubashshirin 'ala al-Islam (Refutation of Missionaries' Allegations Against Islam). In the field of Quranic linguistics, he edited and commented on al-Zajjaj's classical work Ma'ani al-Quran wa-i'rabuh (The Meanings and Syntax of the Quran). Shalabi died in 1415 AH (1995 CE).
Answer updated
List of Works
Min al-Mushkilat al-Lughawiyya fi al-Quran al-Karim (Linguistic Problems in the Noble Quran) is a scholarly treatise that investigates complex grammatical parsing (iȓrāb) and rhetorical structures in the text of the Quran that posed interpretive difficulties for classical Arabic grammarians and rhetoricians.