There is no dispute that the Prophet was the first commentator of the Qur’an. This is also accepted by the members of the Ahl al-Qur’an school. His companions received the commentary from him, and the companions transmitted this information to the tâbi’een. The authoritative hadith sources have brought together the Qur’anic exegesis of the Messenger of Allah, his companions and the leading members of the tâbiîn. When these sources are examined, it is seen that the Messenger of Allah’s exegesis of the Qur’an appears in various forms. The Messenger of Allah sometimes corrects the misunderstandings and misinterpretations of the companions, sometimes directly interprets a verse or a sūrah or explains a closed point, and sometimes exegetes the Qur’an as an answer to questions. Eliminating the ambiguity in a verse, explaining an unknown word, interpreting a verse with a verse, giving details about an event described in a verse are among these forms of exegesis. Thus, the Messenger of Allah, through his interpretations, declared the Qur’an’s majmal, declared the Qur’an’s absolute, clarified the Qur’an’s absolute, clarified the Qur’an’s obscure, declared the Qur’an’s ambiguous, declared the Qur’an’s ambiguous, allocated the Qur’an’s general, declared the Qur’an’s abrogation, and made other explanations from time to time (For the forms of the Messenger of Allah’s interpretation of the Qur’an see Yıldırım, I, 99-233). In the narrations of the Companions narrated in the hadith sources, there is information on the issues of the occurrence and nāsih-mensuh, as well as the issues in which the ambiguity in the verse is removed, the words are explained, and the news from the Children of Israel are narrated. However, it is seen that the Companions were very cautious in their exegesis and did not talk much about what they did not know (Tabari, I, 72). It is known that only prominent commentators such as ‘Abdullah b. Mas’ūd and ‘Abdullah b. ‘Abbas interpreted almost all of the Qur’ān by using the interpretations transmitted from the Messenger of Allah (a.g.e., I, 75). It is noteworthy that Arabic poetry and prose were used for the analysis of words in the tafsir of the Companions, and Arabic history was used for the solution of difficult issues. However, the most important issue that stands out in the tafsir of the Companions is the use of the information transmitted from the Ahl al-Bayt (Isrâiliyat). The fact that the Prophet, who knew that auxiliary information would be needed for the interpretation of many verses in the Qur’ân al-kerîm that refer to historical events, did not take a stand against the information from the Ahl al-bayt (Bukhārī, “Tafsīr”, 2/11; “Iʿtiṣām”; 25, “Tawḥīd”, 42, 51) facilitated the introduction of Isrāiliyat, which did not contradict the Qur’an, into the exegesis. These narrations, the first examples of which were seen in the Sahāba period, occupied an important place in the tafsīrs of the tābiʿīn and taba al-tābiʿīn (Ibn Taymiyya, Muḳaddime, p. 87). The work of Muqātil b. Sulayman, who wrote the first complete Qurʾānic exegesis, clearly demonstrates this change in the second and third generations. On the other hand, the tendency in Islamic society to accept the part of Isrāʿīliyat that was not considered objectionable was one of the important factors that enabled the expansion of exegesis.

Among the early schools of tafsīr, the Meccan school of tafsīr was the strongest, because the Messenger of Allah said of him, “O Allah! Make him deep in understanding in religion and teach him the interpretation” (Musnad, I, 214, 269, 314; Bukhārī, “ʿIlm”, 17, “Wuḍūʾ”, 10; Muslim, “Feżāʾil al-ṣaḥāba”, 138). Among his friends and students were Saīd b. Jubayr, Mujāhid b. Jabr, Ikrima al-Barberī, Ṣāwūs b. Keysān, and Atā b. Abū Rebāḥ, whose views are considered important in tafsīr. Ibn ‘Abbas’ tafsir narrations come from various branches. Among them there are reliable ones as well as those who cannot be trusted in terms of narration technique (Süyûtî, II, 1228-1233). Another important school in exegesis is the Medina school. Among the representatives of the Medina school, which is based on Ubay b. Ka’b from the Companions, there are scholars such as Abū al-‘Alīl al-Riyāhī, Muhammad b. Ka’b al-Qurazī, Zayd b. Aslam, ‘Abd al-Rahman b. ‘Abdullah and ‘Abdullah b. Wahb. The Iraqi school, represented by the students and friends of ‘Abdullah b. Mas’ūd, who was one of the first Muslims and who had extensive knowledge of tafsīr, was as strong as the Meccan school. Among his followers were Alqamah b. Qays, Masrooq b. Ajda’, Aswad b. Yazīd, Murra al-Hamadānī, Hasan al-Basrī, Qatāda b. Diāma and Ibrāhīm al-Nahāʾī (M. Husayn al-Zahebī, I, 49-95; Cerrahoğlu, History of Tafsir, I, 103-112, 140-167).

During the period of the tâbiîn and tabau’t-tâbiîn, tafsir expanded considerably. This expansion was influenced by the mentioning of different types of isnad of the narrations related to a verse, the use of linguistic knowledge, poetry, prose, idioms and proverbs as evidence, the increase of Isrāiliyat and the transmission of the discussions between the ulema. In this period, it is seen that the comments that fall into the category of dirāyah tafsīr increased remarkably. The tafsīrs written by the commentators themselves in the Tābīn period are quite few; nevertheless, the compilation of tafsīr as a book preceded the hadīth collections. Muḳātil b. Sulaymān, who died in 150 (767), probably at the age of 100, and his extant Qurʾānic commentary (al-Tafsīr al-Kabīr: Tafsīr Muḳātil b. Sulaymān) and other works on tafsīr are among the earliest of tafsīrs. However, the commentaries of early commentators such as al-Ḥasan al-Basrī and his public tafsīr lectures, the tafsīr discussions of al-Qatāda b. Diāma, and the evaluations of the widely consulted tafsīr scholars of the first (VII) and second (VIII) centuries were well preserved and transmitted by their students; they may even be regarded as edited works. Perhaps for this reason, Ibn al-Nadīm, in his al-Fihrist (pp. 36-37), has given the tafsīr narrations of many commentators from the tābiʿīn and taba al-tābiʿīn under titles such as “Kitāb al-tafsīr …”. In this case, it seems possible to trace the compilation of tafsīrs back to the beginning of the second (VIIIth) century.

In the same period, the tendency of lugavî (philological) tafsīr, which started alongside narrative tafsīr, brought a separate mobility to tafsīr studies, thus a new branch in tafsīr emerged. The intellectual development and change in the Islamic society has a great share in this. Muslims, who were previously contented with the explanations of the Messenger of Allah and his companions, started to face new problems due to the non-Arab elements who accepted Islam. When the Muslims, who did not witness the revelation of the Qur’an and could not penetrate its meanings as much as its first interlocutors, started to use the words and expressions of the Qur’an outside the meaning of the Qur’an, linguistic scholars carried out studies such as i’râbü’l-Qur’an, garîbü’l-Qur’an, meâni’l-Qur’an, mecâzü’l-Qur’an, mushkilü’l-Qur’an, wujûh and nezâir. On the one hand, they were accepted as a different exegesis of the Qur’an, and on the other hand, they were seen as sources that determine the limits of the meaning of words and verses for those who would interpret the Qur’an. At this stage of the history of tafsir, tafsir based on narrations and r’y tafsir, which includes linguistic analyses and extensions of meaning, continued together.

Ibn Jarīr al-Tabarī was perhaps the last word in early Qur’anic exegesis. While pioneering at this point, al-Tabari also brought together the scattered tafsir narrations and performed an important service for the organisation of tafsīr. Although his work entitled Jāmiʿ al-bayān ʿan taʾwīli ʿāyi al-Ḳurʾān is generally accepted as a narrative exegesis, a good examination reveals that it also contains many elements of direct exegesis. As a matter of fact, recent studies have paid attention to the dirāyah aspect of al-Tabarī’s tafsīr. After al-Tabari, although there was no voluminous and compact work after al-Tabari, tafsirs that gained as much fame as his work were written with different methods. Among these, Zamakhsharī’s al-Kashshāf and Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī’s Mafātīḥu’l-ġayb should be especially mentioned. With the spread of Islam in many parts of the world, many tafsirs were written by Iranians, Turks, Turkestanis, Caucasian tribes, Indian Muslims, Malays, Indonesians, Africans and Andalusians.

Author: ABDULHAMİT BİRIŞIK