AUTHORITATIVE TAFSEERS OF THE HOLY QUR'AN

Appearing below is a commentary by Shaykh Mufti Muhammad Shafi on Tafsir At-Tabari. The introduction headed 'Famous Commentaries of the Qur'an' begins on page 45 of Volume 1 of the English translation of Ma'ariful Qur'an, seventh edition 2009, but his remarks about Tafsir At-Tabari commence on page 46.

Aside from some changes to the paragraphing and punctuation no changes have been made to the text, except in one instance I have added the word 'than' but printed it in red. 

Famous Commentaries of the Qur'an

Countless commentaries of the Glorious Qur'an have been written since the blessed period of the Prophethood. In fact, no other book of the world has been served as much as the noble Qur'an.

Introducing all these commentaries is not possible even in some detailed book, much less in a brief introduction such as this. But, what we wish to do here is to introduce very briefly the major commentaries that have served as particular sources of Ma'ariful Qur'an and which have been cited there time and again.

Although, during the period the above commentary was being written, many commentaries and hundreds of books were constantly referred to, but here, the purpose is to limit the introduction to commentaries the references to which will appear repeatedly.

Tafsir ibn Jarir

The real name of this Tafsir is Jami' al-Bayan and it was compiled by 'Allamah Abu Ja'far Muhammad ibn Jarir al-Tabari (died 310 Hijrah).

Allamah Tabari is a highly rated commentator, muhaddith (hadith expert) and historian. It is said that he kept writing for forty years continuously and used to write forty pages every day (al-Bidayah wa al- Nihayah, v 11, p 145).

There are charges of being Shi'ah against him, but researchers have refuted this charge and the truth of the matter is that he is a highly regarded scholar of the followers of the Sunnah,' rather [than] one of the Shi'ite scholars.

Being in thirty volumes, his Tafsir enjoys the status of a basic source for later commentaries. In his explanation of the verses, he quotes different scholars and then goes on to prove the position which, according to him, is weightier, of course, with arguments and proofs.

It must, however, be admitted that narrations of all sorts, sound and weak, have found a place in his commentary. Because of this, not every narration presented by him can be relied upon. In reality, he was aiming through his commentary to collect and compile all narrations that could become available to him, so that this collected material could be put to use later on.

Conceded is the fact that he has given the chain of reporters along with each narration so that whoever wishes to investigate into the chain of narrators could do so and decide for himself if the narrations are true or false.

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