Ali al-Tantawi

Muhammad Ali ibn Mustafa al-Tantawi, known as Ali al-Tantawi (1327–1420 AH / 1909–1999), was a Syrian jurist, writer and judge, counted among the leading figures of Islamic preaching and Arabic letters in the twentieth century. ^{1 2}

He was born in Damascus into a learned family: his father, Shaykh Mustafa al-Tantawi, held the office of fatwa in Damascus; the family traced its origin to Tanta in Egypt; his maternal uncle was the writer Muhibb al-Din al-Khatib. His father died when he was sixteen, leaving him to support the family. He took his baccalaureate at Maktab Anbar in 1928, spent a year at Dar al-Ulum in Cairo, and graduated in law from Damascus in 1933, while leading the Higher Committee of Syrian Students for about three years in the struggle against the French mandate. ¹

His first article appeared in al-Muqtabas in 1926; he wrote for al-Fath, al-Zahra and al-Ayyam, then for Ahmad Hasan al-Zayyat's al-Risala for twenty years, from 1933 until it closed in 1953, and late in life serialised his memoirs in al-Sharq al-Awsat for some five years. He taught in Syria, Iraq and Lebanon from 1931 to 1940; his nationalist stands got him transferred again and again, until a Friday sermon at Deir ez-Zor in 1940 ended his teaching. ¹

He then spent twenty-five years as a judge — at al-Nabk and Douma, then as senior judge of Damascus from 1943 to 1953, and as counsellor of the Court of Cassation in Damascus and, during the union with Egypt, in Cairo. In 1947 he was charged with drafting a complete personal-status law; after a year in Egypt he prepared the draft that became the basis of Syria's law. ¹

In 1963 he moved to Riyadh to teach, then to Mecca, living in Mecca and Jeddah for thirty-five years. After teaching at the College of Education in Mecca he devoted himself to religious instruction and fatwa, and presented 'Masa'il wa Mushkilat' on radio and 'Nur wa Hidaya' on television — among the longest-running programmes in the kingdom's broadcasting — besides his best-known 'Ala Ma'idat al-Iftar'. He had broadcast from the Near East station in Jaffa from the early 1930s, from Baghdad in 1937 and from Damascus from 1942. ¹

He received the King Faisal Prize for Service to Islam in 1990. ³ He left broadcasting at eighty and died in Jeddah on 4 Rabi' I 1420 / 18 June 1999; he was prayed over at the Masjid al-Haram and buried in Mecca. His books include 'Rijal min al-Tarikh', 'Qisas min al-Tarikh', 'Min Nafahat al-Haram' and his eight-volume memoirs. ¹

Wikidata listed articles on him in ten Wikipedia editions on 7 November 2026. ²

• Arabic Wikipedia article, revision of 5 November 2026. ¹

• Wikidata item Q12227911. ²

• King Faisal Prize laureate list, revision of 31 October 2026. ³