Text and tafsīr

Systematic scholarship on Qurʾānic tafsīr (commentary) is a matter of growing interest for Muslim and non-Muslim scholars alike. While the subject of tafsīr has benefited from the increased attention to Qurʾānic studies generally, it has also been the focus of more specific concern. For the purposes of a brief presentation, the history of tafsīr may conveniently be divided into three periods: formative, classical, and modern. This study, for reasons that will be explained, concentrates on the latter two stages. However, the earliest period deserves some consideration not only for its intrinsic importance as prelude to all subsequent exegetical endeavor but also for the prolonged scholarly attention that it has attracted. THE FORMATIVE PERIOD OF QURʾĀNIC TAFSĪR If one accepts Muḥammad (d. 9/632) as the Qurʾān's first interpreter, then the formative period may be said to extend from his lifetime to the early years of the tenth century, the era that saw both the appearance of Abu Jacfar Muḥammad b. Jarīr al-Ṭabarī's commentary and the consensual establishment of an accepted range of Qurʾānic textual variation. It is this span of slightly less than three hundred years that is the object of considerable controversy. Comprehension of the main lines of debate would be impossible without some notion of the traditional Muslim view of the Qurʾān's textual history. While accounts of the formation of the Qurʾānic canon are by no means uniform, most cite the period immediately following Muḥammad's death as critical. How much of the revelation, if any, had been written down by that time and how much was a purely oral transmission is still a moot question.

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