The Islamic Personality by Sheikh Taqīuddīn An-Nabahānī

The Sahabah made tafsīr for the verses of the Noble Qur’ān either as their own Ijtihād in tafsīr or by hearing it from the Messenger of Allah . Many a time they would explain the cause of revelation for a verse or explain with respect to whom it had been revealed. In explaining a verse they would restrict themselves to elucidating the linguistic meaning which they understood from the verse with the most concise of words like their saying: ghayr mutajanif li ithm (not inclined to sin) i.e, not predisposed to sin (ghayr muta'arrid li ma'siyya). Similarly their statement regarding His  saying:

The people of jahiliyya when one of them wanted to go out (on a journey) he would take an arrow and say: This one orders me to go out. So if he goes out on his journey will meet good luck. And he will take another arrow and say: This one orders me to stay, so he will not be lucky in his journey. The unlucky arrow is one of the two arrows. So Allah  forbade them from this practice. An example would be what has been narrated about Ibn 'Abbas regarding His  saying:

He said: to Makkah. If they added anything to that it would be what has been narrated about the cause of revelation and with regards to whom the verse in question was revealed. It has been narrated about Abu Hurairah regarding His  saying:

that he said the verse had been revealed concerning the Messenger of Allah  when he tried to win over his uncle Abu Talib to Islam. Then came the Tabi'un after the Sahabah who reported everything the Sahabah mentioned in this manner. From among the Tabi'un there were those who explained the verses of the Noble Qur’ān or stated the cause of revelation, either as their own Ijtihād in tafsīr or by hearing it from (other authorities). After the Tabi'un the 'Ulama came and expanded the tafsīr and quoted reports from the Jews and Christians. The mufassirun succeeded one after another in every age and generation, who explained the Qur’ān and expanded the tafsīr in each age on what had come before. The mufassirun began to give their attention to the verses to deduce rulings from them and explain their schools of thought in terms of freewill (ikhtiyar) and predestination (jabr). And they began to explain verses proving their opinions according to their inclinations in legislation, scholasticism ('ilm al-Kalam), rhetorics (balaagha), declension (sarf) and grammar etc. What is apparent from an examination of the tafaseers through the different ages since the time of the Sahabah until now is that the tafsīr of the Qur’ān in every age was influenced by the scholarly movement of the time, it presented a picture which reflected the views, theories and schools of thought of the time. Seldom were there tafsīrs that were free from the influence of opinions, thoughts and rules of the time.

However, all of these tafsīrs were not compiled in books from the first day mufassirun came to exist i.e, from the time of the Sahabah. Rather, they changed from situation to situation through the ages. In the beginning, the tafsīr used to be a part of the hadīth and one of its chapters. The hadīth was the all-extensive topic which encompassed all the Islamic disciplines. So the transmitter of a hadīth just as he would narrate a hadīth containing a legal ruling he would also narrate a hadīth which contained the tafsīr of a Qur’ānic verse. Then writers, in the beginning of the Abbasid era and towards the end of the Umayyad era i.e, in the beginning of the second century hijri, began to bring together all the similar and relevant ahadīth under a topic and separate them from other topics. So the disciplines such as tafsīr and fiqh which the hadīth contains were separated from each other. What resulted from the sciences is what resulted in terms of hadīth, Sīrah, jurisprudence and tafsīr. Thus, the science of tafsīr came to exist and it became an independent science which was studied on its own. However, the tafsīrs did not take any organised form, in that verses of Qur’ān were not mentioned in an ordered manner like the arrangement found in the mushaf (Qur’ān) and then followed by their tafsīr. Rather the tafsīrs narrated were scattered here and there. They were tafsīr for miscellaneous verses as was the case with the hadīth. This situation continued until the tafsīr became separated from the hadīth and began to stand up as a science in its own right. Tafsīr was written for each ayah of the Qur’ān or part of an ayah, arranging these verses according to the order in mushaf. The first one to undertake the tafsīr of the Qur’ān quoting ayah after ayah and explain them one after another was al-Farra' (d.207 A.H.). Ibn al-Nadim reports in his book alFihirst that:

Then, after him came Ibn Jarir al-Tabari (d.310 A.H.) who wrote his famous tafsīr. A number of tafsīrs before the tafsīr of Ibn Jarir became well known such as the tafsīr of Ibn Jurayj. His situation was the situation of the first muhaddithin who compiled everything that reached them without differentiating between the correct (Sahih) and incorrect reports. They said 'that Ibn Jurayj's aim was not authenticity; rather he reported everything that was reported about every ayah whether it was correct (Sahih) or weak (saqim).' Also from these tafsīrs is the tafsīr of al-Suddi (d.127 A.H.) and the tafsīr of Muqatil (d.150 A.H.). 'Abd Allah ibn al-Mubarak said about the tafsīr of Muqatil: How excellent is his tafsīr, if only he were reliable (thiqa).' Amongst them is also the tafsīr of Muhammad ibn Ishaq. He used to transmit from the Jews and Christians and he used to quote sayings of Wahb ibn Munabbih, Ka'b al-Ahbar and others, who reported thing from the Torah, Bible and their commentaries. These tafsīrs have not reached us, although Ibn Jarir al-Tabari has collected most of it and included it in his book. Then came mufassirun one after another explaining the Qur’ān in an complete and well-ordered manner in books that were complete and systematic.

However, anyone who inspects the tafaseer will find that the mufassirun approached the tafsīr from various perspectives. Some were interested in looking at the styles and meanings of the Book and whatever it included in terms of the forms of rhetorics (balaagha) to know the highest and distinguished forms of speech as compared to other types of speech. So the rhetorical aspect prevailed in their tafsīrs. One of those people is Muhammad ibn al-Zamakhshari in his tafsīr entitled al-Kashaf. There were those who looked into the foundations of belief, the fighting of pretenders and debating those who disagreed (with Islam) like Fakhr al-Din al-Razi in his famous tafsīr: al-Tafsīr al-Kabir. And some of them studied the Sharī’ah rules and were interested in deducing them from the verses. So they channelled their interest towards the verses of ahkām like Abu Bakr al-Razi commonly known as al-Jassas in his well known tafsīr Ahkām al-Qur’ān. There were those who went after stories and added to the Qur’ānic stories from the books of history and israiliyyat (Judaica) and began to collect everything they heard however meagre or abundant without revising the things that contradicted the Sharī’ah, did not agree with the mind or contradicted Qur’ānic ayāt which are definite in meaning. One such person is 'Ala' al-Din 'Ali ibn Muhammad al-Baghdadi, the sufi otherwise known as al-Khazin who did this in his tafsīr Bab al ta'weel fi ma'ani al-tanzeel. And there were those that concerned themselves with supporting their mazhab (school) and explaining the verses in accordance with whatever supports their faction like the tafsīr al-Bayan of al-Shaykh al-Tibrisi and the tafsīr al-Tibyan of al-Shaykh al-Tusi. Both of them supported the views of the Shi'a and their mazhab regarding belief ('aqaid) and ahkām. And there were those that were only concerned with the tafsīr in order to explain the verses and rulings of the Qur’ān regardless of any perspective. They are the mufassirun whose tafsīrs are considered the essence of the books of tafsīr. And they are considered the imams of tafsīr and other topics. Like the tafsīr of Ibn Jarir al-Tabari, the tafsīr of Abu 'Abd Allah Muhammad al-Qurtubi, and the tafsīr of al-Nasafi and others. As for the tafsīrs written in this age and towards the end of the period of decline like the tafsīr of Muhammad 'Abduh, the tafsīr of Tantawi Jawhari and the tafsīr of Ahmad Mustafa al-Muraghi and others, they are not considered part of the tafsīr literature and nor is there any trust put in them. This is because there is a risk in the deen of Allah in the explanation of many verses like Muhammad Rasheed Ridha’s tafsīr of the verse:

He permitted the Muslims of India to adopt English laws and submit to the rulings of English judges. Shaykh Muhammad Rasheed Ridha mentioned in volume six of the Tafsīr of the Noble Qur’ān widely known as al-Manar in the tafsīr of sura al- Mā’idah when he explained His  saying:

In pages 406-409 he was asked:

Then he said:

Much similar is the tafsīr of Tantawi Jawhari where he mentioned that there are modern sciences and disciplines in the Qur’ān and he filled his tafsīr with pictures of birds and animals to demonstrate that the Qur’ān did explain such things. And the tafsīr of Mustafa Zayd in which he interpreted and rejected the existence of angels and Shayateen. So he committed kufr by his tafsīr and took himself outside of Islam. These tafsīrs and their likes are not considered books of tafsīr by the Muslims and nor are their explanations given any consideration