tafsīr

tafsīr, the science of explanation of the Qurʾān, the sacred scripture of Islam, or of Qurʾānic commentary. So long as Muhammad, the Prophet of Islam, was alive, no other authority for interpretations of the Qurʾānic revelations was recognized by Muslims. Upon his death, however, commentaries were needed because the text, when it achieved written form, lacked historical sequence in the arrangement of surahs, suffered from ambiguity of both text and meaning, showed a variety of differing readings, was recorded in a defective script (lacking especially in vowels), and even contained apparent contradictions. Many Muslims in the early period sought to explain the Qurʾān on the basis of pure personal speculation, known as tafsīr bil-raʾy, and such interpretation, though generally disapproved, has persisted down to the present time. Others explained or embellished Qurʾānic passages using stories drawn from Christian—and especially from Jewish—sources (Isrāʾīliyyāt). To counter the arbitrariness of such interpretation, in the fourth Islamic century (10th century ce) there emerged the religious science called ʿilm al-tafsīr, a systematic exegesis of the Qurʾānic text, which proceeds verse by verse, and sometimes word by word. Over time this science developed several methods and forms of its own.

The Hungarian scholar Ignáz Goldziher traced the development of tafsīr through several stages. In the first, or primitive, stage, Muslims were concerned principally to establish the proper text of the Qurʾān. The second stage, known as traditional tafsīr, featured explanations of Qurʾānic passages based upon what the Prophet himself or his companions said these passages to mean. It relied, therefore, upon the traditions (Hadith) or reports of the sayings of Muhammad and his immediate associates. As Muslims sought to establish their identity as a religious community and to define their doctrinal stance, there arose a dogmatic type of tafsīr. The Qurʾān was interpreted by various sectarian groups to establish their own peculiar doctrinal positions; notable among them were the Muʿtazilah, so-called rationalists, who insisted that interpretation (taʾwīl) of the Qurʾān must conform with reason. Sufis (Muslim mystics) and Shiʿis with esoteric inclinations also practiced taʾwīl, departing sharply from a purely external analysis. (See Bāṭiniyyah.) A British scholar, John Wansbrough, classified tafsīr literature according to its form and function. He distinguished five types, which he held to have appeared in roughly the following chronological order: attempts to supply a narrative context for passages, efforts to explain the implications for conduct of various passages, concern with details of the text, concern with matters of rhetoric, and allegorical interpretation.

The monumental commentary compiled by the historian al-Ṭabarī (838/839–923) assembled all the traditional scholarship that had been produced until his time. It remains the most basic of all tafsīrs. Subsequent commentaries of note include those by al-Zamakhsharī (1075–1143), al-Rāzī (1149–1209), al-Bayḍāwī (d. 1280), and al-Suyūṭī (1445–1505). Commentaries continue to be compiled at the present time; Muslim modernists, for example, have used them as a vehicle for their reformist ideas.