al-Durr al-Manthur fi al-Tafsir bi al-Mathur
- Author died
- 911 AH
- Editions
- Dār al-Fikr
al-Durr al-Manthur fi al-Tafsir bi al-Mathur (The Scattered Pearls in Tradition-Based Exegesis) is a classical Quranic commentary compiled by the Egyptian scholar Jalal al-Din al-Suyuti (d. 911 AH / 1505 CE), gathering transmitted narrations on exegesis from the early generations of Islam .
Background and Composition
Al-Suyuti initially composed an extensive, fully chain-indexed Quranic exegesis titled Turjuman al-Qur'an (The Interpreter of the Qur'an), which comprised four volumes and incorporated more than ten thousand prophetic and companion traditions . Observing a declining interest among students in navigating lengthy chains of transmission (asānīd), he abridged the work by stripping away the full isnads while retaining the texts of the reports and referencing each narration to the authoritative source books from which it was extracted . Al-Suyuti completed the fair copy of the manuscript on Eid al-Fitr in 898 AH .
Methodology and Structure
The book is structured according to the traditional sequence of the Quranic chapters (suwar) and verses (āyāt), following a purely transmission-based methodology (al-tafsīr bi-al-maʾthūr) . Al-Suyuti restricts his presentation strictly to transmitted reports tracing back to the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ, his Companions, and the Successors (Tabi'un), without inserting personal analytical commentary, grammatical parsing, or rhetorical discussions .
The work draws heavily on canonical Hadith collections—including the Sahihs of al-Bukhari and Muslim, the Sunan works, and the Musnad of Ahmad ibn Hanbal—alongside early historical and exegetical compilations . A significant value of the compilation lies in its citation of numerous early sources that have since become lost or remain unpublished .
Scholarly Reception and Critique
Later scholars recognized the work as one of the most comprehensive collections of traditional exegetical reports; Siddiq Hasan Khan noted that it gathered the vast majority of transmitted interpretations traceable to the Prophet ﷺ and early generations, leaving out very little .
Nevertheless, several scholars raised critical observations regarding its compilation:
- Absence of Hadith critique: Al-Suyuti consistently cited narrations without evaluating their authenticity or distinguishing between sound and weak transmissions, remaining silent on the presence of weak (ḍaʿīf) or uncorroborated (munkar) reports . Mahmud Shukri al-Alusi criticized the inclusion and mixing of flimsy-chained narrations alongside authentic reports without demarcation .
- Attribution errors: Scholars noted occasional misattributions where certain reports were credited to sources that do not contain them, likely owing to inadvertence (wahm) during compilation .
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