In 1872, Abdullah Yussuf Ali was born in Surat, India. His father, a merchant, was a very religious man who made sure that his son learned Qur'an before anything else. He taught his young son Abdullah the entire Qur'an to memory.
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. He was a superior student who excelled in academic achievement and won the much-coveted Indian civil award. Abdullah was easily able to absorb English literature and was considered to be among the best of his fellow countrymen in writing English. Many of the most well known scholarly magazines in India published his works and expressed their appreciation for his beautiful literary style. Later Abdullah Yussuf Ali left India for Europe and visited many European capitals and eventually resided in London for a considerable period of time. While in London he was exposed to many translations of the Qur'an and continued to have tremendous interest in it and its studies. He than began to closely study the Qur'an giving special interest to its various interpretations, both old and new. After studying what was written about the Qur'an in both European and Eastern languages, he returned to India and took up new residence in Lahore where he became the Dean of the Islamic College. He than began his monumental work of translating and commenting on the Qur'an and later died in London in1953.