About the Author

Abdullah Yusuf Ali was born on 4 April 1872, in Surat, a textile town in Gujarat, Western India, which formed part of the ‘Presidency of Mumbai’ in the days of Raj. He belonged to a mercantile community known as the Bohras, who trace their Muslim ancestry to the efforts of preachers dispatched by the Fatimid caliphs in Cairo. His father, a merchant, was a very religious man who made sure that his son learned Qur’an before anything else. Upon the completion of young Yusuf’s committing the entire Qur’an to memory, his father celebrated the occasion with a grand banquet, thus showing to his son the importance of his achievement and the importance of the Qur’an. In addition to studying contemporary knowledge at school, “Abdullah continued to receive lessons in Arabic language and never ceased in his studies of the Qur’an.