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2
Mujāhid’s Exegesis: Origins, Paths of
Transmission and Development of a
Meccan Exegetical Tradition in its
Human, Spiritual and Theological
Environment
C L AU DE GI L L IOT
1 Introduction
63
Published in: Tafsīr and Islamic Intellectual History: Exploring the Boundaries
of a Genre, ed. Andreas Görke and Johanna Pink. Oxford, Oxford University
Press in association with the Institute of Ismaili Studies, 2014, pp. 63-111.
Copyright Islamic Publications Ltd 2014
Claude Gilliot
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Mujāhid’s Exegesis: Origins, Paths of Transmission and Development
(mawlā). His fame in recitation of the Qur’an gained him the title of
al-Muqri! (Qur’an reader or reciter). He is considered a pupil of Ibn
*Abbās (d. 69/688, or other dates), whose reading Mujāhid is said to
have taken over, and with whom he collated his material ‘three
times’ (thalāth )ara*āt); some stories even recount that he recited it
twenty, twenty-nine or thirty times in the presence of Ibn *Abbās.
That he had a codex we know only from its listing by Ibn Abī Dāwūd
al-Sijistānī (d. 316/929).9
He is also considered Ibn *Abbās’s pupil in Qur’anic exegesis.
According to the Meccan Qur’an reader, muezzin and judge Ibn
Abī Mulayka (d. 117/735):10 ‘I saw Mujāhid questioning Ibn *Abbās
on the interpretation of the Qur’an; he had his tablets (wa ma)ahu
alwā+uhu) and Ibn *Abbās said to him, “Write!” In this way,
Mujāhid asked him about the interpretation of the whole Qur’an.’
Or, according to Mujāhid himself: ‘I recited the codex to Ibn *Abbās
in three collations ()ara*āt), from al-Fāti+a to the end. I stopped at
each verse, asking him about it.’11 However, the Kūfan al-A*mash
(d. 148/765)12 heard him saying, ‘If I had used the reading of Ibn
Mas*ūd [d. 32/652–3], I should not have needed to ask Ibn *Abbās so
many things concerning the Qur’an.’13
Mujāhid is presented as a very simple man, but also as a chryso-
stomos (a man with a ‘golden mouth’, an eloquent speaker).
According to A*mash: ‘Always, when I saw Mujāhid, I thought he
was a donkey driver (kharbandaj) whose donkey was lost, and that
he was grieved’;14 or ‘Always, when I saw Mujāhid, I thought he was
a camel driver or a donkey driver. But when he spoke, pearls issued
from his mouth.’15 His simplicity, and above all his capacity to
express the life of the soul and the spirit in apophthegms and in
exempla or parables, is attested in the sources, or books of classes
(#abaqāt), dedicated to the ascetics or Sufis.16 He was considered
one of the leading popular preachers or storytellers of Mecca.17
He was in close contact with those of the Murji>īs of Kūfa who
fled from this town because of al-=ajjāj b. Yūsuf in around 90/708,
taking refuge in Mecca. According to the orders of the governor of
Mecca, Khālid b. *Abd Allāh al-Qa;rī (d. 126/743),18 *Amr b. Dīnār
(d. 126/743), *A^ā> b. Abī Rabā: (d. 114/732),19 _alq b. =abīb
(d. c. 95/714)20 and Mujāhid were arrested along with the Kūfan
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Sa*īd b. Jubayr (d. 95/714),21 who had fought for Ibn al-Ash*ath, who
was from Ba;ra, although he lived in Kūfa. *Amr and *A^ā> were
released because they were Meccans; the others were sent to =ajjāj
at Wāsi^. _alq died during the journey (or in Wāsi^, or was executed
there with Sa*īd b. Jubayr); Mujāhid remained in jail until the death
of al-=ajjāj b. Yūsuf in 95/714, and Sa*īd b. Jubayr was executed in
Wāsi^. All five belonged to Ibn *Abbās’ circle of pupils, in which
could perhaps be found the origin of the concept of irjā! (suspending
judgement). Mujāhid, *Amr and *A^ā> do not figure in the lists of the
Murji>īs, but they were close to irjā!.22
Concerning the acquisition of his knowledge, Mujāhid was
later criticised for three reasons by the specialists in transmission
of Hadith and knowledge, who did not exist in his time. First
of all, they said, he is said to have used written materials, for
instance the notebooks (&a+īfa) of Jābir b. *Abd Allāh al-An;ārī
(d. 78/697), to transmit hadiths,23 that is, instead of having heard
it directly from the master. Such a practice seems to be attested
at this time and also after wards.24 Second, Mujāhid was blamed
for his ‘loose’ hadiths (marāsīl) from *Ā>isha and *Alī.25 The
third criticism concerns the suspicion that he took information
from the ‘People of the Book’.26 Nevertheless, only Ibn =ibbān
al-Bustī (Abū =ātim Mu:ammad b. =ibbān b. A:mad al-Tamīmī
al-Dārimī, d. 354/965) included him among the weak tradition-
ists.27 Be that as it may, Abū Nu*aym28 gathered a large number of
hadiths transmitted by Mujāhid29 and from him,30 with the chains
of transmission.
We will now call attention to some of Mujāhid’s pupils and trans-
mitters, as these give us information on their local and family
environment and are important for the ways in which his legacy
was collected and composed (that is, selected and put into writing)
by his pupils. Let us begin with Mujāhid’s son, *Abd al-Wahhāb
b. Mujāhid, who we might expect to have played a role in the trans-
mission of his father’s legacy. This was, however, not the case;
although he did indeed transmit some hadiths31 and exegetical
traditions from his father,32 Sufyān al-Thawrī (d. 161/778)33 called
him a liar. He is considered a weak transmitter, and it is said that he
never attended the lessons delivered by his father.34
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said that Sufyān, when he was in Ba;ra, married the mother of Abū
=udhayfa.98
Shibl’s tafsīr appears to be a branch of the version of Mujāhid’s
tafsīr in the recension of Ibn Abī Najī:, so in _abarī99 it is,
for instance, quoted as from al-Muthannā (b. Ibrāhīm al-Āmulī
al-_abarī)100 ← Abū =udhayfa ← Shibl ← Ibn Abī Najī: ← Mujāhid. It
is also quoted in the Tafsīr of Ibn Abī =ātim al-Rāzī:101 my father
(i.e. Abū =ātim al-Rāzī) ← Abū =udhayfa ← Shibl ← Ibn Abī Najī:
← Mujāhid. According to Mehmet Akif Koç, this sub-recension
is repeated there seventy-one times. Ibn =ajar al-*Asqalānī
(d. 852/1449) had a license to transmit this recension.102
(A.4.) The recension by Muslim b. Khālid b. Sa*d b. Jurja al-Zanjī
Abū Khālid al-Makhzūmī (mawlā) al-Makkī (d. 179/795, 178/794
or 180/796),103 who was from Syria. In Mecca he had some tafsīr
notebooks from Ibn Abī Najī:, especially related to juridic material.
After the death of Ibn Jurayj (d. 150/767), he was considered, like
his master Ibn Abī Najī:, the best counsellor (muftī) of Mecca in
Islamic law. He was a Qadarī. This version is known by Tha*labī and
by Sa*īd b. Man;ūr, who was one of his pupils: Sa*īd ← Muslim b.
Khālid ← Ibn Abī Najī: ← Mujāhid;104 some elements of it are trans-
mitted by _abarī105 and others. A fragment of this recension is
extant in a manuscript in Damascus.106
(B) The version of Mujāhid’s tafsīr by Layth b. Abī Sulaym
al-Qurashī (mawlā) al-Kūfī (d. after 140/757).107 It is found in the
works of *Abd al-Razzāq,108 _abarī,109 Tha*labī,110 Sa*īd b. Man;ūr111
and Abū Nu*aym.112
(C) The version of al-=akam b. *Utayba al-Kindī (mawlā) al-Kūfī
(d. 115/733), who was a Shi‘i Butrī.113 This version is quoted in
_abarī114 and in Abū Nu*aym’s $ilyat al-awliyā!.115
(D) The version of Man;ūr b. al-Mu*tamir al-Sulamī al-Kūfī
(d. 132/749).116 This version is transmitted by Jarīr b. *Abd al-=amīd
b. Qur^ al-Kūfī al-Rāzī (d. 188/804). Jarīr was born near I;fahān,
was educated in Kūfa and established himself in Rayy.117 Jarīr said,
‘I saw Ibn Abī Najī:, but I wrote nothing from him [. . .]. Ibn Abī
Najī: professed belief in liberium arbitrium [free will, al-qadar].’118
He should not be confused with Jarīr b. =āzim al-Jah
amī
(d. 170/786).119 Man;ūr’s version is found in Sa*īd b. Man;ūr’s tafsīr
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Abū Zur*a al-Rāzī (d. 264/878),197 and his relative and friend Abū
=ātim al-Rāzī, that is Ibn Abī =ātim’s father, etc.198
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not support the argument for the physical vision of God in the
Hereafter, and his only concern is to support the latter interpreta-
tion and to reject definitively the interpretation ‘waiting for’
(inti/ār), explaining that ‘the Arabs do not say: “na/artu ilā’l-shay!i”
with the meaning of “I wait for it (inta/artuhu).” ’ To support this
conviction, he refers to Abū Man;ūr Azharī’s Tahdhīb al-lugha.242
However, Wā:idī acknowledges that the argument of language is
not sufficient, because na/ara could be understood in the sense ‘to
look with the heart’ (bi-ma)nā na/ari’l-qalbi). For Wā:idī, this
sense is possible, but the ‘look’ (na/ar) in the verse is said of the face
(wajh), so it cannot be said to have the meaning ‘the heart’s look’.
Wā:īdī is clearly combining here the method of a philologist and
that of a dialectic theologian who has an Ash*arī orientation.243
Thus he writes:
If the two meanings (i.e. ‘waiting for’ and ‘seeing with the heart’)
are untenable (ba#ala) for this verse, those who rebut the vision
have nothing more to object to (lam yabqa li-nufāti’l-ru!yati
kalāmun); moreover, the sound Sunna and the transmitted tradi-
tions buttress those who interpret ‘the look’ (al-na/ar) in this
verse as ‘the vision’ (bi’l-ru!yati), and we shall mention them in
Musnad al-tafsīr, God willing.244
In this argumentation, the first rank seems to be attributed to
language, but this is not the case. The first rank is actually attrib-
uted to the so-called Sunna and to the theological doctrine of
the so-called ‘pious first generations’ (salaf ): lingua ancilla sacrae
doctrinae!
If we compare Wā:idī with _abarī, we find that the latter prefers
(‘awlā’l-qawlayn fī dhālika )indanā bi’l-&awābi’)245 the meaning
‘They look at their Lord’, like *Ikrima (d. 105/723) and ‘masters of
Kūfa’ (ashyākh min ahli’l-Kūfa).246 Nevertheless, _abarī had previ-
ously quoted the interpretation of those, in particular Mujāhid,
who interpreted ilā rabbihā nā/ira as ‘waiting for’.247 He also
supported the doctrine of the vision of God with exegetical tradi-
tions and with the hadith transmitted by Ibn *Umar. Here he did
not argue as a dialectic theologian (pre-Ash*arī), although he had
done so before, especially at Q. 6:103.248
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Mujāhid interprets Q. 83:15 (No indeed; but upon that day they
shall be veiled from their Lord), in the following way: ‘They are
deprived of obtaining his generosity and his mercy ()an karāmatihi
wa ra+matihi mamnu)ūn).’249 This explanation, quoted from Mujāhid
by Qur^ubī (Shams al-Dīn Mu:ammad b. A:mad b. Abī Bakr b.
Far:, d. 671/1273) and others, significantly, is not in the edited
recension of Ibn Shādhān, where it is replaced by an interpretation
in favour of the idea that God can be seen in the Hereafter, attrib-
uted to =asan al-Ba;rī (d. 110/728) with the following chain of
authorities:250
*Abd al-Ra:mān [i.e. Ibn *Ubayd] ← Ibrāhīm [i.e. Ibn Dīzīl]251 ←
Abū Ma*mar *Abd Allāh b. *Amr b. Abī’l-=ajjāj [al-Minqarī
al-Muq*ad al-Ba;rī; d. 224/838] ← *Abd al-Wārith b. Sa*īd [d.
180/796]252 ← *Amr b. *Ubayd [d. 144/761]253 ← al-=asan: ‘None of
His creatures who believe shall remain without seeing Him: the
unbelievers shall be separated from Him by a veil; but the
believers shall see Him. Such is the meaning of No indeed; but
upon that day they shall be veiled from their Lord [Q. 83:15].’
It is also said (in the recension of Ibn Abī Najī:) that Mujāhid
interpreted a surplus (ziyāda) in Q. 10:26 as ‘the forgiveness and the
agreement’ (of God),254 and not the vision of God in the Hereafter.
This interpretation of Mujāhid is an interesting piece of early evid-
ence, predating the so-called Sunni tradition of the vision of God.255
Not only were many of Mujāhid’s pupils Qadarīs, but al-Qā
ī
*Abd al-Jabbār (d. 415/1025) included Mujāhid in the ranks of the
Mu*tazilīs;256 however, according to a narrative transmitted by Ibn
Wa
ā: al-Qur^ubī (Mu:ammad b. Wa
ā:, d. 287/900), Ghaylān
al-Dimashqī (put to death c. 115/734),257 when in Mecca, visited
Mujāhid, who is supposed to have said to the people (al-nās, i.e.
those who wanted to attend his lessons), ‘Do not sit down with him
(lā tujālisūhu); he is a Qadarī.’258 Both Qadarīs and Mu*tazilīs,
however, could agree with Mujāhid’s exegesis of Q. 2:7, God has set
a seal on their hearts and on their hearing, as transmitted by
A*mash. Mujāhid is said to have shown, using his hands and
fingers, that God seals man’s heart only gradually and as a result of
the sins committed.259
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and =usayn Asad. 25 vols (Beirut, Mu>assasat al-Risāla, 1981–88), vol. IV,
pp. 449–57; Mizzī, Tahdhīb al-kamāl, vol. XVII, pp. 440–4, no. 6374; Stauth,
Überlieferung; Claude Gilliot, ‘La sourate al-Baqara dans le Commentaire de
_abarī (Le développement et le fonctionnement des traditions exégétiques à la
lumière du commentaire des versets 1 à 40 de la sourate)’ (Unpublished first
doctoral dissertation [i.e. Doctorat de troisième cycle], Université Paris–III,
1982), pp. 252–5; van Ess, Theologie und Gesellschaft, vol. II, pp. 640–4 et
passim.
8 Heribert Horst, Die Gewährsmänner im Korankommentar des >abarī. Ein
Beitrag zur Kenntnis der exegetischen Überlieferung im Islam (Dissertation,
Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhems-Universität Bonn, 1951), pp. 15, 21, 24; Idem,
‘Zur Überlieferung im Korankommentar a^-_abarīs’, Zeitschrift der Deutschen
Morgenländischen Gesellschaft (ZDMG) 103 (1953), pp. 290–307, at pp. 295–8
(chains of transmission of Mujāhid’s tafsīr apud _abarī); Stauth, Überlieferung,
pp. 70–229; Gilliot, ‘Baqara’, p. 255–61; Herbert Berg, The Development of
Exegesis in Early Islam: The Authenticity of Muslim Literature from the
Formative Period (Richmond, Surrey, RoutledgeCurzon, 2000), pp. 73–8 et
passim.
9 Ibn al-Jazarī, Ghāyat al-nihāya fī #abaqāt al-qurrā!, ed. Gotthelf Bergsträsser
and Otto Pretzl as Das Biographische Lexikon der Koranleser, 3 vols in 2
(Leipzig, Brockhaus, 1933–35), vol. II, pp. 41–2, no. 2659; al-Dhahabī, Ma)rifat
al-qurrā! al-kibār )alā’l-#abaqāt wa’l-a)&ār, ed. Tayyar Altıkulaç, 4 vols
(Istanbul, İslam Araştırmaları Merkezi, Türkiye Diyanet Vakfı, 1995),
pp. 163–5, no. 25; Arthur Jeffery, Materials for the History of the Text of the
Qur!ān (Leiden, Brill, 1937; repr. New York, AMS Press, 1975), pp. 276–84;
Gilliot, ‘Baqara’, p. 254; Cornelis [Kees] H. M. Versteegh, Arabic Grammar
and Qur!anic Exegesis in Early Islam (Leiden, Brill, 1993), pp. 79–80, has
found one variant in the edited text of Ibn Shādhān’s version, and another
considered by Mujāhid to be the mistake of a copyist. According to Versteegh,
‘The remaining few variant readings derive from other authorities’.
10 *Abd Allāh b. *Ubayd Allāh al-Qurashī al-Makkī al-A:wal al-Mu>adhdhin;
Dhahabī, Siyar, vol. V, pp. 88–90.
11 al-_abarī (Abū Ja*far b. Jarīr), Jāmi) al-bayān )an ta!wīl āy al-Qur!ān, ed.
Ma:mūd Mu:ammad Shākir and A:mad Mu:ammad Shākir, 16 vols
(incomplete: to Q. 14:27) (Cairo, Dār al-Ma*ārif, 1954–68), vol. I, p. 90, nos 107
and 108 (for Q. 14:28 [vol. XIII, p. 219] onwards of _abarī’s tafsīr, see Jāmi)
al-bayān, ed. Mu;^afā al-Saqqā et al., 30 vols [Cairo, Mu;^afā al-Bābī al-=alabī,
1373–77/1954–57]); Anonym (now identified as Ibn Bis^ām al-_a:īrī [or
al-_akhīrī or _ukhayrī] Abū Mu:ammad =āmid b. A:mad b. Ja*far), Kitāb
al-Mabānī, in Arthur Jeffery, ed., Muqaddimatān fī )ulūm al-Qur!ān wa-humā
muqaddimat Kitāb al-Mabānī wa muqaddimat Ibn )A#iyya (Cairo, Maktabat
al-Khānjī, 1954), pp. 5–250, at p. 193, where read ‘alwā+uhu’, not ‘al-wāhid’;
See Stauth, Überlieferung, pp. 24–5, for more details.
12 For more on A*mash, see n. 129.
13 Dhahabī, Siyar, vol. IV, p. 455.
14 Ibn Sa*d, al->abaqāt al-kubrā, foreword by I:sān *Abbās, ed., on the basis of
the edition by Eduard Sachau et al., 9 vols (Beirut, Dār ~ādir li’l-_ibā*a wa’l-
Nashr, 1957–59), vol. V, pp. 466–7; Stauth, Überlieferung, p. 19.
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Mujāhid’s Exegesis: Origins, Paths of Transmission and Development
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37 Fasawī, al-Ma)rifa, vol. I, pp. 703–5; van Ess, Theologie und Gesellschaft, vol.
II, p. 645.
38 Fasawī, al-Ma)rifa, vol. I, p. 704.
39 On al-Qāsim b. (Nāfi* b.) Abī Bazza, see n. 6.
40 Ibn Sa*d, >abaqāt, vol. V, p. 491 (one line only); Mizzī, Tahdhīb al-kamāl, vol.
XII, pp. 384–7, no. 4378; van Ess, Theologie und Gesellschaft, vol. II, p. 645 and
n. 3.
41 Sa*īd b. Man;ūr, Sunan Sa)īd b. Man&ūr, ed. Sa*d b. *Abd Allāh b. *Abd al-*Azīz
Āl =umayyid, 2nd edn, 5 vols (Riyadh, Dār al-~umay*ī, 1420/2000).
42 Ibn Abī =ātim al-Rāzī, Tafsīr al-Qur!ān al-a/īm musnadan )an rasūl Allāh wa’l-
&a+āba wa’l-tābi)īn, ed. As*ad Mu:ammad al-_ayyib, 10 vols (Mecca and Riyadh,
al-Maktaba al-*Arabiyya al-Sa*ūdiyya, 1417/1997); cf. Mehmet Akif Koç, ‘Isnāds
and Rijāl Expertise in the Exegesis of Ibn Abī =ātim (327/939)’, Der Islam 82
(2005), pp. 146–68, for his criticism of al-_ayyib’s edition, see pp. 146–7.
43 For instance, for ‘Ibn Abī *Alī’, read: Ibn Abī Laylā; Ibn Abī =ātim al-Rāzī,
Tafsīr, vol. IX, p. 2961, no. 16804, at Q. 29:28. Al-Qāsim b. Abī ‘Murra’, read:
Bazza; vol. VI, p. 2035, no. 10904, at Q. 11:43.
44 Koç, ‘Isnāds and Rijāl Expertise’, p. 147, n. 3. The same wrote that: ‘Despite
these mistakes the publisher made no corrections in its second print ing
(1999), although this did include four-volume indices and takhrīj prepared by
Kāmil *Uway
a’, p. 147. See also Koç, İsnad Verileri Çerçevesinde Erken
Dönem Tefsir Faaliyetleri. İbn Ebî Hâtim (ö. 327/939) Tefsiri Örneğinde Bir
Literatür İncelemesi (Ankara, Kitâbiyât, 2003), p. 28, n. 98.
45 See n. 6.
46 Ibn Abī =ātim al-Rāzī, Tafsīr, vol. III, p. 846, no. 4682, at Q. 3:199.
47 Fasawī, al-Ma)rifa, vol. II, p. 154.
48 On Ibn Abī Najī: personally, Ibn Qattān said: ‘He did not hear the whole
tafsīr from Mujāhid, but from al-Qāsim Ibn Abī Bazza’. See Dhahabī, Mīzān,
vol. II, p. 515, no. 4651.
49 Ibn =ibbān al-Bustī, Kitāb al-Thiqāt, 9 vols (Hyderabad, Majlis Dā>irat
al-Ma*ārif al-*Uthmāniyya, 1393–1403/1973–83), vol. VII, pp. 330–1; idem,
Kitāb Mashāhīr )ulamā! al-amsār, ed. Manfred Fleischhammer as Die berühm-
ten Traditionarier der islamischen Länder (Wiesbaden, Steiner, 1959), p. 146;
Ibn =ajar, Tahdhīb al-tahdhīb, vol. VIII, p. 310, gives only the first part of this
quotation. Mizzī, Tahdhīb al-kamāl, vol. XV, pp. 136–7, no. 5368, who also
refers to Ibn =ibbān, does not quote this passage at all.
50 Fasawī, al-Ma)rifa, vol. II, p. 154.
51 Ibn =ibbān, Die berühmten Traditionarier der islamischen Länder, p. 146, no.
1156; Abbott, Studies in Arabic Literary Papyri, vol. II, p. 98; Gilliot, ‘Baqara’,
pp. 255–6.
52 On ‘misrepresentation’ (tadlīs), see Ibn al-~alā: al-Shahrazūrī, Muqaddimat
Ibn al-Xalā+, tr. Eerik Dickinson as An Introduction to the Science of the
$adīth. Kitāb Ma)rifat anwā) )ilm al-+adīth of Ibn al-Xalā+ al-Shahrazūrī
(Reading, Garnet, 2005), ch. 12, pp. 55–6; al-Nawawī, al-Taqrīb wa’l-tafsīr, tr.
William Marçais as Le Taqrìb de en-Nawawi (Paris, Imprimerie Nationale,
1902), pp. 45–53, ch. 12.
53 _abarī, Jāmi) al-bayān, ed. Shākir, vol. I, p. 477, no. 631, on Q. 2:30; Stauth,
Überlieferung, p. 131; cf. Gregor Schoeler, Écrire et transmettre dans les débuts
92
Mujāhid’s Exegesis: Origins, Paths of Transmission and Development
de l’islam (Paris, Presses universitaires de France, 2002); idem, The Oral and
the Written in Early Islam, tr. Uwe Vagelpohl and ed. James E. Montgomery
(London, Routledge, 2006), p. 32.
54 Dhahabī, Siyar, vol. VI, pp. 310–16; Mizzī, Tahdhīb al-kamāl, vol. XVI,
pp. 496–8, no. 5995.
55 Claude Gilliot, Exégèse, langue et théologie en Islam: L’exégèse coranique de
Tabarī (Paris, Librairie Philosophique J. Vrin, 1990), pp. 21–2.
56 Mizzī, Tahdhīb al-kamāl, vol. V, pp. 77–8, no. 1403; Fasawī, al-Ma)rifa, vol. I,
p. 181; vol. III, pp. 83, 233.
57 Mizzī, Tahdhīb al-kamāl, vol. XIV, pp. 430–31, no. 5115; Fasawī, al-Ma)rifa,
vol. III, p. 83; al-Khalīlī, Kitāb al-Irshād fī ma)rifat )ulamā! al-+adīth, ed.
Mu:ammad Sa*īd b. *Umar Idrīs, 3 vols (Riyadh, Maktabat al-Rushd,
1409/1989), vol. II, pp. 664–5, no. 421.
58 _abarī, Jāmi) al-bayān, ed. Shākir, vol. I, p. 477, no. 61, at Q. 2:30; vol. IX,
p. 509, no. 11055, at Q. 5:3; vol. XI, p. 552, no. 13590, at Q. 6:94; p. 555, no.
13600, at Q. 6:96; vol. XII, p. 284, no. 14296, at Q. 6:162; vol. XIII, p. 464, no.
15871, at Q. 8:24; vol. XV, pp. 447–8, no. 18478, at Q. 12:86; p. 468, no. 18536,
at. Q. 12:99; ed. Saqqā, vol. XV, p. 126, at Q. 17:71; vol. XVI, p. 132, at Q. 19:97;
p. 226, at Q. 20:124; vol. XVII, p. 156, at Q. 22:32, etc.
59 _abarī, Jāmi) al-bayān, ed. Shākir, vol. II, p. 380, at Q. 2:93.
60 Ibn Abī =ātim al-Rāzī, Tafsīr, vol. I, p. 283, no. 1523, at Q. 2:172; vol. III,
p. 2207, no. 12035, at Q. 12:106; vol. VIII, p. 2584, no. 14492, at Q. 24:33; vol.
IX, p. 2961, at Q. 28:22, after correction of ‘Ibn Abī *Alī’ to Ibn Abī Layla;
p. 2967, no. 46844, at Q. 28:26 (the same inter pretation is given in _abarī,
Jāmi) al-bayān, ed. Saqqā, vol. XX, p. 54, with the follow ing isnād: Waraqā> ←
Ibn Abī Najī: ← Mujāhid); p. 3052, no. 17661, at Q. 29:27: but here not from
Mujāhid, but from *Ikrima.
61 Ibn Abī =ātim al-Rāzī, Tafsīr, vol. I, p. 110, no. 528, at Q. 2:53: Ibn Abī Bazza
has heard Sa*īd b. Jubayr and Mujāhid giving the same inter pretation.
62 Ibid., vol. VIII, p. 2562, no. 14317, at Q. 24:26.
63 Joseph van Ess, Zwischen $adī und Theologie: Studien zur Entstehung prädes-
tinatianischer Überlieferung (Berlin and New York, Walter de Gruyter, 1975),
p. 78.
64 _abarī, Jāmi) al-bayān, ed. Shākir, vol. IX, pp. 119–20, nos 10454–55, at
Q. 4:119; p. 218, no. 10468; p. 219, nos 10470, 10477.
65 Bukhārī, Xa+ī+, ch. 65 (Tafsīr), ch. 25 (Furqān), bāb 2, see al-Jāmi) al-&a+ī+, ed.
Ludolf Krehl and Theodor Juynboll as Recueil des traditions mahométanes, 4
vols (Leiden, Brill, 1862–1908), vol. III, p. 302, ll. 11–15, at Q. 25:68; Ibn =ajar,
Fat+ al-bāri, vol. VIII, p. 492–3, no. 4762 in the numbering of Mu:ammad
Fu>ād *Abd al-Bāqī, the only occurrence of a tradition transmit ted by Ibn Abī
Bazza in Bukhārī’s Xa+ī+; el-Bokhâri, Les Traditions islamiques, translated
into French by Octave Houdas and William Marçais, 4 vols (Paris, Adrien
Maisonneuve, 1977; 1st edn 1903–14), vol. III, pp. 405–6; Sahîh al-Bukhârî, tr.
Muhammad Muhsin Khan, 9 vols (Riyadh, Darussalam, 1997), vol. VI, p. 248,
no. 4762; cf. _abarī, Jāmi) al-bayān, ed. Saqqā, vol. XIX, p. 42, without Ibn Abī
Bazza, but with Ibn Jubayr: *Abd al-Ra:mān b. Abzā al-Khuā*ī al-Kūfī orders
Ibn Jubayr to ask Ibn *Abbās about the same verse.
66 van Ess, Theologie und Gesellschaft, vol. I, pp. 292–4.
93
Claude Gilliot
67 Mizzī, Tahdhīb al-kamāl, vol. VIII, pp. 344–56, no. 3723; Gilliot, Exégèse,
p. 116.
68 _abarī, Jāmi) al-bayān, ed. Saqqā, vol. XVI, p. 9; _abarī, ibid., also gives this
tradition of Abū _ufayl transmit ted by: Sufyān al-Thawrī ← =abīb b. Abī
Thābit ← Abū _ufayl, with a different text at the end; Brannon M. Wheeler,
Prophets in the Quran. An Introduction to the Quran and Muslim Exegesis
(London, New York, Continuum, 2002), p. 229: the last sentence is not in
Wheeler’s translation; Ibn *Asākir, Ta!rīkh madīnat Dimashq, ed. Mu:ibb
al-Dīn al-*Amrawī and *Alī Shīrī, 80 vols (Beirut, Dār al-Fikr, 1995–2001), vol.
XVII, p. 334, with a different text at the end.
69 Ibn al-Nadīm, Kitāb al-Fihrist, ed. Gustav Flügel, completed by Johannes
Rödiger and August Müller, 2 vols in 1 (Leipzig, F. C. W. Vogel, 1872), vol. I,
p. 90; ed. and tr. Bayard Dodge as The Fihrist of al-Nadīm: A Tenth-Century
Survey of Muslim Culture, 2 vols (New York, Columbia University Press,
1970), vol. I, p. 195; Ibn Durayd, al-Ishtiqāq, ed. *Abd al-Salām Mu:ammad
Hārūn (Cairo, 1958), p. 430. al-Shahrastānī, Kitāb al-Milal wa’l-ni+al, trans-
lated into French by Daniel Gimaret and Guy Monnot as Livre des religions et
des sectes, 2 vols (Louvain and Paris, Peeters and UNESCO, 1986), vol. I,
p. 367, n. 3. In _abarī, Annales quos scripsit Abu Djafar Mohammed ibn Djarir
at-Tabari, ed. Michael Jan De Goeje et al., 3 vols in 16 (Leiden, Brill, 1879–
1901), vol. II, p. 67: ‘Ibn al-Kawwā’s name was *Abd Allāh b. Awfā’, i.e. Awfā
with alif maq&ūra. But in the Cairo edition, al-_abarī, Ta!rīkh al-rusul wa’l-
mulūk, ed. Mu:ammad Abū’l-Fa
l Ibrāhīm, 11 vols (Cairo, Dār al-Ma*ārif,
1960–69), vol. V, p. 212: ‘*Abd Allāh b. Abī Awfā’; so a confusion has been
made with *Abd Allāh b. Abī Awfā *Alqama b. Khālid al-Aslamī, a Companion
who died in 86/705, 87 or 88; Mizzī, Tahdhīb al-kamāl, vol. X, pp. 30–31, no.
3154. In The History of al->abarī, vol. XVIII: Between Civil Wars: The
Caliphate of Mu)āwiyah, tr. Michael G. Morony (Albany, NY, State University
of New York Press, 1987), p. 72, follows the reading of the Leiden edition: *Abd
Allāh b. Awfā, and has the good identification of Ibn al-Kawwā>, p. 31, n. 132.
The confusion is, among others, in The History of al->abarī, vol. I: General
Introduction and From the Creation to the Flood, tr. Franz Rosenthal (Albany,
NY, State University of New York Press, 1989), p. 244, n. 5.
70 Shahrastānī, vol. I, Livre des religions et des sectes, p. 365, n. 5.
71 Ibn =ajar al-*Asqalānī, Lisān al-mīzān, ed. Amīr =asan al-Nu*mānī et al., 7
vols (Hyderabad, Dā>irat al-Ma*ārif al-Niāmiyya, 1330–31/1912–13), vol. III,
p. 329–30, no. 1367.
72 _abarī, Jāmi) al-bayān, ed. Saqqā, vol. XIII, p. 220, at Q. 14:28–29, and two
others ibid., but without the mention of Ibn al-Kawwā>; vol. XXVI, p. 186, at
Q. 51:1; vol. XV, p. 49, at Q. 17:12: with Ibn al-Kawwā>, but not transmit ted by
Ibn Abī Bazza; _abarī, Annales, vol. II, pp. 74–5, on the same Qur’anic verse;
The History of al->abarī, vol. I, pp. 244–5.
73 Ibrāhīm al-Thaqafī, al-Ghārāt (aw al-Istinfār wa’l-ghārāt), ed. al-Sayyid
*Abd al-Zahrā> al-=usaynī al-Kha^īb (Beirut, Dār al-A
wā>, 1407/1987),
pp. 103–5.
74 Dhahabī, Siyar, vol. IV, pp. 280–1, and Ibn *Asākir, Ta!rīkh Dimashq, vol.
XVIII, pp. 278–91, no. 2223 have: Abū *Umar; al-Zabīdī, Tāj al-)arūs min
jawāhir al-qāmūs, ed. *Abd al-Sattār A:mad Farrāj et al., 40 vols (Kuwait,
94
Mujāhid’s Exegesis: Origins, Paths of Transmission and Development
95
Claude Gilliot
86 See clande Gilliot, ‘Abū =ātim al-Rāzī Mu:ammad b. Idrīs’, EI THREE, vol.
2011–3, pp. 7–8.
87 al-Kha^īb al-Baghdādī, Ta!rīkh Baghdād, vol. VII, pp. 426–9; Dhahabī, Siyar,
vol. IX, pp. 559–60, no. 4000.
88 See Gilliot, Exégèse, p. 29, and n. 5; _abarī, Jāmi) al-bayān, ed. Saqqā, vol.
XIX, p. 134, at. Q. 27:8: vol. XXVIII, p. 96, at Q. 62:3; vol. XXIX, p. 57, at Q.
69:17.
89 Mizzī, Tahdhīb al-kamāl, vol. XIV, pp. 582–3, no. 5252; Dhahabī, Mīzān, vol.
III, p. 327, no. 6619.
90 Dhahabī, Siyar, vol. IX, pp. 480–5. For this version see Horst, ‘Überlieferung’,
pp. 296–7.
91 See Gilliot, Exégèse, p. 29, and n. 4; Horst, Gewährsmänner, pp. 12, 15.
92 Sa*īd b. Man;ūr, Sunan, vol. II, p. 548, no. 18; p. 606, no. 213; p. 609, no. 214;
p. 614, no. 218.
93 GAS, vol. I, p. 35; Dhahabī, Ma)rifat al-qurrā! al-kibār, vol. I, pp. 241–2, no. 57;
Mizzī, Tahdhīb al-kamāl, vol. VIII, pp. 269–70, no. 2671; Ibn =ajar, Tahdhīb
al-tahdhīb, vol. IV, pp. 305–6; van Ess, Theologie und Gesellschaft, vol. II,
pp. 647–8; Gilliot, ‘Baqara’, pp. 257–8.
94 al-Tha*labī, ed. Goldfeld as Qur!ānic Commentary in the Eastern Islamic
Tradition, p. 44.
95 van Ess, Theologie und Gesellschaft, vol. II, pp. 647–8.
96 GAS, vol. I, p. 41; Dhahabī, Siyar, vol. X, pp. 137–9; idem, Mīzān, vol. IV,
pp. 221–2, no. 8923; Mizzī, Tahdhīb al-kamāl, vol. XVIII, pp. 508–10, no.
6894; Ibn =ajar, Tahdhīb al-tahdhīb, vol. X, pp. 370–1; Fasawī, al-Ma)rifa, vol.
I, p. 717.
97 For more on Sufyān al-Thawrī, see n. 156.
98 Dhahabī, Siyar, vol. X, p. 139.
99 This recension of Shibl ← Ibn Abī Najī: ← Mujāhid’s tafsīr figures 680 times in
the exegesis of Sūrat al-Baqara (Q. 2) to Sūrat Yūnus (Q. 10) in _abarī’s
commentary; Horst, ‘Überlieferung’, p. 298; idem, Gewährsmänner, p. 15;
Gilliot, Exégèse, p. 22.
100 _abarī’s master in Āmul, when he was young; al-Muthannā remains uniden-
tified, and we do not know other pupils of this shaykh. Not a single notice on
him is found in the prosopographical literature. In his commentary, _abarī
transmits around 1,400 exeget ical sayings directly from him, coming from
twenty-seven masters or more; see Gilliot, Exégèse, p. 22.
101 Ibn Abī =ātim al-Rāzī, Tafsīr, vol. I, p. 133, no. 672, at Q. 2:65; p. 144, no. 746,
at Q. 2:77; p. 213, no. 1129, at Q. 2:116; p. 239, no. 1277, at Q. 2:132; p. 240, no.
1284, at Q. 2:133; p. 252, no. 1372, at Q. 2:146; vol. VIII, p. 2613, no. 14684, at
Q. 24:39; vol. IV, p. 1144, no. 6437, at Q. 5:44.
102 Ibn =ajar al-*Asqalānī, al-Mu)jam al-mufahras, aw Tajrīd asānīd al-kutub
al-mashhūra wa’l-ajzā! al-manthūra, ed. Mu:ammad Shakūr et al. (Beirut,
Mu>assasat al-Risāla, 1418/1998), p. 117, no. 377.
103 Dhahabī, Siyar, vol. VIII, pp. 176–8; idem, Mīzān, vol. IV, pp. 102–3, no. 8485;
van Ess, Theologie und Gesellschaft, vol. II, pp. 650–1.
104 See Tha*labī, ed. Isaiah Goldfeld as Qur!ānic Commentary in the Eastern
Islamic Tradition, p. 27; Sa*īd b. Man;ūr, Tafsīr, within his Sunan, vol. II,
p. 606, no. 213; vol. III, p. 1069, no. 510.
96
Mujāhid’s Exegesis: Origins, Paths of Transmission and Development
105 _abarī, Jāmi) al-bayān, ed. Saqqā, vol. XIX, p. 94, at Q. 26:128.
106 Tafsīr, MS āhiriyya mağ. 95, f. 121r–126r, fifth century AH; GAS, vol. I, p. 38.
107 Fasawī, al-Ma)rifa, vol. II, p. 713; Dhahabī, Siyar, vol. VI, pp. 179–84; idem,
Mīzān, vol. III, pp. 420–3, no. 6997; Ibn =ajar, Tahdhīb al-tahdhīb, vol. VIII,
pp. 465–8; van Ess, Theologie und Gesellschaft, vol. II, p. 644; vol. IV, p. 753.
108 *Abd al-Razzāq, Tafsīr, vol. I, pp. 272, 355, 391: *Abd al-Razzāq ← Thawrī ←
Layth ← Mujāhid.
109 Gilliot, Exégèse, pp. 250–3; _abarī, Jāmi) al-bayān: Ya*qūb ← Ibn *Ulayya ←
Layth ← Mujāhid; ed. Shākir, vol. V, pp. 96–7, no. 5106, at Q. 2:235; p. 105, no.
5134; p. 109, no. 5168; ed. Saqqā, vol. XXV, p. 117, at Q. 44:16; Abū Kurayb ←
Wakī* ← Sufyān al-Thawrī: ed. Shākir, vol. XVI, p. 331, no. 20067 at Q. 13:4;
p. 342, no. 20115, at Q. 13:4. Sufyān ← Layth ← Mujāhid: vol. V, p. 110,
no. 5169, at Q. 2:235; p. 114, no. 5174; p. 115, no. 5180; vol. VI, p. 402, no. 7045,
at Q. 3:43; vol. XVI, p. 331, nos 20068–69; p. 342, no. 20116; [. . .] Layth ←
Mujāhid: ed. Shākir, vol. VI, p. 402, nos 7041–2, at Q. 3:43; vol. XV, at Q. 11:
nos 18703, 18707, 18709, 18718, 18730, 18733–4. [. . .] *Āisha, the wife of Layth
← Layth ← Mujāhi: ed. Saqqā, vol. XXVII, p. 178, at Q. 56:24.
110 Tha*labī, ed. Isaiah Goldfeld as Qur!ānic Commentary in the Eastern Islamic
Tradition, p. 28.
111 Sa*īd b. Man;ūr, Sunan, vol. III, pp. 837, 921, 971; vol. IV, pp. 1290, 1458, 1616.
112 Abū Nu*aym, $ilyat al-awliyā!, vol. III, pp. 282–5.
113 Dhahabī, Siyar, vol. V, pp. 208–13; Ibn =ibbān al-Bustī, Kitāb Mashāhīr,
p. 111, no. 842, adds the nick name ‘al-Na::ās’, probably a confusion with
another of the Banū *Ijl; van Ess, Theologie und Gesellschaft, vol. I, pp. 242–3.
114 Stauth, Überlieferung, p. 127
115 Abū Nu*aym, $ilyat al-awliyā!, vol. III, pp. 284–6.
116 On Man;ūr, see n. 35.
117 Mizzī, Tahdhīb al-kamāl, vol. III, pp. 357–64, no. 901.
118 Ibid., p. 359.
119 Stauth, Überlieferung, p. 132, on the isnād Jarīr ← Man;ūr ← Mujāhid in
_abarī’s commentary, wrongly identifies Jarīr as Jarīr b. =āzim.
120 Sa*īd b. Man;ūr, Sunan, vol. II, pp. 634, 638; vol. III, pp. 880, 1151; vol. IV, p. 1367.
121 Mizzī, Tahdhīb al-kamāl, vol. VII, pp. 384–6, no. 2400; Dhahabī, Siyar, vol.
XII, pp. 152–3; Gilliot, Exégèse, p. 24: contrary to what we wrote at this time,
Ibn Wakī* is included in the books devoted to transmit ters of hadith.
122 _abarī, Jāmi) al-bayān, ed. Shākir, vol. XII, p. 378, no. 14463; vol. XIII, p. 489,
nos 15936–7, at Q. 8:29.
123 _abarī, Jāmi) al-bayān, ed. Saqqā, vol. XX, p. 146, at Q. 29:29: these two chains
with two others that also include Man;ūr; vol. XXX, p. 19, at Q. 78:34: Sufyān
← Man;ūr, and Shu*ba ← Man;ūr; vol. XXX, p. 249, at Q. 95:7: Sufyān ←
Man;ūr (twice).
124 Stauth, Überlieferung, pp. 130, 132.
125 Abū Nu*aym, $ilyat al-awliyā!, vol. III, pp. 281 ff.
126 Dhahabī, Siyar, vol. VI, pp. 129–32; idem, Mīzān, vol. VI, pp. 423–5, no. 9695,
not identified by Stauth, Überlieferung, pp. 119, n. 8 and 130, n. 4; van Ess,
Theologie und Gesellschaft, vol. I, p. 255; vol. II, p. 472.
127 _abarī, Jāmi) al-bayān, ed. Shākir, vol. VI, p. 102, no. 6449, at Q. 2:284.
128 Sa*īd b. Man;ūr, Sunan, vol. III, pp. 819, 986, 1004.
97
Claude Gilliot
129 See Brockelmann–Pellat, ‘al-A*mash’, EI2, vol. I, pp. 443–4; Dhahabī, Siyar,
vol. VI, pp. 226–48: ‘he had Shi‘i tendencies (fīhi tashayyu))’; Mizzī, Tahdhīb
al-kamāl, vol. VIII, pp. 106–14, no. 2553; van Ess, Theologie und Gesellschaft,
vol. I, pp. 237–9.
130 van Ess, Theologie und Gesellschaft, vol. I, p. 238.
131 Jeffery, Materials, pp. 314–29.
132 Ibn Abī =ātim al-Rāzī, Tafsīr, vol. I, p. 77.
133 _abarī, Jāmi) al-bayān, ed. Shākir, vol. I, p. 259, no. 301, at Q. 2:7; ed. Saqqā,
vol. XIV, p. 162, at Q. 16:88; vol. XXVII, pp. 134–5, at Q. 55:29.
134 Abū Nu*aym, $ilyat al-awliyā!, vol. III, pp. 282, 284.
135 GAS, vol. I, p. 91; Dhahabī, Siyar, vol. VI, pp. 325–36; Gilliot, ‘Baqara’,
pp. 149–60; van Ess, Theologie und Gesellschaft, vol. II, pp. 644, 650, 653.
136 *Abd al-Razzāq, Tafsīr, vol. I, p. 355, no. 301, at Q. 2:240: *Abd al-Razzāq ← Ibn
Jurayj ← Mujāhid.
137 Gilliot, Exégèse, pp. 27–8.
138 Horst, Gewährsmänner, p. 18, isnād no. XV, and p. 24; idem, ‘Überlieferung’,
p. 295; _abarī, Jāmi) al-bayān, ed. Shākir, vol. VIII, p. 213, no. 9131, at Q. 4:27;
vol. XVI, p. 268, no. 19889, at Q. 12:100; _abarī, Jāmi) al-bayān, ed. Saqqā, vol.
XIII, p. 242 (Q. 14:44), p. 243 (Q. 14:45).
139 Ibn Abī =ātim al-Rāzī, Tafsīr, vol. I, pp. 70, 82, 92.
140 Tha*labī, ed. Isaiah Goldfeld as Qur!ānic Commentary in the Eastern Islamic
Tradition, p. 28.
141 Dhahabī, Siyar, vol. V, pp. 318–22; idem, Ta!rīkh al-islām wa #abaqāt al-mashāhīr
wa’l-a)lām, ed. Bashshār *Awwād Ma*rūf, 17 vols (Beirut, Dār al-Gharb
al-Islāmī, 2003), vol. III, pp. 263–4; idem, Ma)rifat al-qurrā! al-kibār, vol. I,
pp. 197–203, no. 37.
142 Zabīdī, Tāj, vol. XI, p. 334. The name is said to be of Persian origin.
143 Dhahabī, Ma)rifat al-qurrā! al-kibār, vol. I, p. 198; van Ess, Theologie und
Gesellschaft, vol. II, p. 651.
144 Ibn al-Jazarī, Ghāyat al-nihāya, vol. II, pp. 297–8, no. 3601; van Ess, Theologie
und Gesellschaft, vol. II, pp. 650–1.
145 Dhahabī, Ta!rīkh al-islām, vol. III, pp. 264–5.
146 Dhahabī, Ma)rifat al-qurrā! al-kibār, vol. I, pp. 199–200.
147 Horst, Gewährsmänner, p. 15; idem, ‘Überlieferung’, pp. 295–7.
148 Dhahabī, Siyar, vol. VI, pp. 145–6; van Ess, Theologie und Gesellschaft, vol. II,
p. 459.
149 _abarī, Jāmi) al-bayān, ed. Shākir, vol. II, p. 195, no. 1206, at Q. 2:68; vol. XV,
p. 533, no. 18708, at Q. 11:118; ed. Saqqā, vol. XXI, p. 94, at Q. 32:7; vol. XXX,
p. 211, at Q. 91:9.
150 Ibn Abī =ātim al-Rāzī, Tafsīr, vol. I, pp. 82, 91; vol. III, p. 1020, no. 5724, at
Q. 4:85; vol. VI, p. 1871, no. 10307, at Q. 9:101; vol. IX, p. 3069, no. 17361, at
Q. 29:46; vol. X, p. 3372, no. 18978, at Q. 69:36.
151 Sa*īd b. Man;ūr, Tafsīr, in Sunan, vol. II, pp. 581–2, no. 205; pp. 605–6, nos
211–12; pp. 615–16, no. 220.
152 Abū Nu*aym, $ilyat al-awliyā!, vol. III, p. 291, l. 5; p. 299, antepenult.
153 Mizzī, Tahdhīb al-kamāl, vol. XVIII, pp. 51–4, no. 6497; Dhahabī, Mīzān, vol.
IV, p. 99, no. 8470; van Ess, Theologie und Gesellschaft, vol. I, pp. 182–3.
154 _abarī, Jāmi) al-bayān, ed. Shākir, vol. I, p. 331, no. 2503, at Q. 2:175.
98
Mujāhid’s Exegesis: Origins, Paths of Transmission and Development
155 Abū Nu*aym, $ilyat al-awliyā!, vol. III, p. 287, ll. 5 ff.: Sufyān ← Mis*ar ←
Mujāhid; ll. 19 ff.: Mis*ar ← Man;ūr ← Mujāhid.
156 The full name of Sufyān al-Thawrī is Abū *Abd Allāh Sufyān b. Sa*īd b. Masrūq
al-Kūfī; GAS, vol. I, pp. 518–19; Fasawī, al-Ma)rifa, vol. I, pp. 713–29; Dhahabī,
Siyar, vol. VII, pp. 229–79; Hans-Peter Raddatz, Die Stellung und Bedeutung
des Sufyān a-
aurī (gest. 778): Ein Beitrag zur Geistesgeschichte des frühen
Islam (Inaugural Dissertation, Bonn, 1967), p. 216; idem, ‘Sufyān al-Thawrī’,
EI2, vol. I, pp. 804–5 (French edn); van Ess, Theologie und Gesellschaft, vol. I,
pp. 221–8 et passim; Steven C. Judd, ‘Competitive Hagiography in Biographies
of al-Awzā*ī and Sufyān al-Thawrī’, Journal of the American Oriental
Society 122, no. 1 (2002), pp. 25–37; idem, ‘Al-Awzā*ī and Sufyān al-Thawrī:
The Umayyad madhhab?’ in Peri Bearman, Rudolph Peters and Frank E.
Vogel, eds, The Islamic School of Law. Evolution, Devolution, and Progress
(Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press, 2005) pp. 10–25.; Claude Gilliot,
‘Sufyān al-awrī (m. 161/778). Quelque notes sur son mode d’enseignement et
la transmission de son savoir’ in Mohammad Ali Amir-Moezzi, ed., Islam:
identité et altérité. Hommage à Guy Monnot, O.P. (Turnhout, Brepols, 2013),
pp. 169–89.
157 Stauth, Überlieferung, pp. 119–23.
158 Sa*īd b. Man;ūr, Sunan, Kitāb al-tafsīr, vol. II, pp. 548–50, no. 184, at Q. 2:30:
Sufyān ← Ibn Abī Najī: ‘or another’ ← Mujāhid; cf. _abarī, Jāmi) al-bayān, ed.
Shākir, vol. I, p. 478, no. 634: Sufyān ← a man ← Mujāhid.
159 *Abd al-Razzāq, Tafsīr, vol. I, p. 272, no. 59; p. 355, no. 300: both: *Abd
al-Razzāq ← al-Thawrī ← Layth ← Mujāhid; p. 343, no. 271, at Q. 2:225: *Abd
al-Razzāq ← al-Thawrī ← Ibn Abī Najīh ← Mujāhid; p. 355, no. 300, at Q. 2:235:
*Abd al-Razzāq ← al-Thawrī ← Layth ← Mujāhid.
160 Stauth, Überlieferung, pp. 123–4; _abarī, Jāmi) al-bayān, ed. Saqqā, vol. XIV,
p. 52, at Q. 15:51: [. . .] Sufyān ← Man;ūr ← Mujāhid ← Ibn *Abbās.
161 Ibn Abī =ātim al-Rāzī, Tafsīr, vol. I, pp. 60, 80.
162 al-Kha^īb al-Baghdādī, Ta!rīkh Baghdād, vol. IX, pp. 174–84; Dhahabī, Ta!rīkh
al-islām, vol. IV, pp. 1110–16, 20th class, no. 109; idem, Siyar, vol. VIII,
pp. 454–75. Cf. _abarī, Jāmi) al-bayān, ed. Shākir, vol. III, p. 33, no. 1991; Abū
Nu*aym, $ilyat al-awliyā!, vol. III, p. 290, l. 15, both in the recension of Ibn
Abī Najī:.
163 Claude Gilliot, ‘A Schoolmaster, Storyteller, Exegete and Warrior at Work in
Khurāsān: al-a::āk b. Muzā:im al-Hilālī (d. 106/724)’ in Karen Bauer, ed.,
Aims, Methods and Contexts of Qur’anic Exegesis (2nd/8th – 9/15th c.) (Oxford,
Oxford University Press in association with the Institute of Ismaili Studies,
2013), pp. 311–92.
164 For this reason, the study of Stauth should be used cautiously and veri fied in
its passages on Sufyān al-Thawrī.
165 _abarī, Jāmi) al-bayān, ed. Shākir, vol. VIII, p. 221, at. Q. 4:29: two chains of
transmission; vol. XVI, p. 167, at Q. 12:68, with four chains; ed. Saqqā, vol.
XIV, p. 53, at Q. 15:87: six chains of transmit ters for an exeget ical saying of
Mujāhid: al-sab) al-#uwal.
166 Is:āq b. al-=ajjāj al-_ā:ūnī was a pupil of Ya:yā b. Ādam and *Abd al-Razzāq
al-~an*ānī; Ibn Abī =ātim al-Rāzī, Jar+, vol. II, p. 217, no. 745; Sam*ānī, Ansāb,
vol. IV, pp. 25–6.
99
Claude Gilliot
167 Mizzī, Tahdhīb al-kamāl, vol. X, pp. 68–9, no. 31911: One of his pupils was
A:mad b. *Abd al-Ra:mān b. *Abd Allāh b. Sa*d al-Dashtakī (in his case,
Dashtāk is a locality near to Rayy; Sam*ānī, Ansāb, vol. II, p. 488, ll. 4–10).
According to Ibn Abī =ātim al-Rāzī, Jar+, vol. II, p. 217, no. 745, ll. 11–13 (notice
on al-_ā:ūnī), *Abd al-Ra:mān b. *Abd *Allāh al-Dashtakī got the transmission
of *Abd al-Razzāq’s Qur’anic commentary from Is:āq al-_ā:ūnī by collating it
(kataba . . . tafsīr )Abd al-Razzāq )an Is+āq . . .) from the exemplary (kataba )an)
of _ā:ūnī. (On this method of receiving hadith, tafsīr, etc., see Marçais, Le
Taqrìb de en-Nawawi, pp. 126–7; Shahrazūrī, An Introduction to the Science of
the $adīth, p. 119: one of the types of ‘transference’, munāwala.) This informa-
tion is in favour of the possiblity of Is:āq’s and *Abd Allāh’s identification.
168 _abarī, Jāmi) al-bayān, ed. Saqqā, vol. XIV, p. 49, at Q. 15:79; ed. Shākir, vol.
XVI, p. 5, at Q. 12:19: five recensions of Mujāhid’s exegesis; pp. 14–15, at
Q. 12:20: also five, et passim.
169 Mujāhid, Tafsīr Mujāhid, ed. *Abd al-Ra:mān al-_āhir b. Mu:ammad
al-Sūratī, 2 vols (Qatar, 1976).
170 al-Kha^īb al-Baghdādī, Ta!rīkh Baghdād, vol. VII, pp. 279–80; Dhahabī, Siyar,
vol. XVII, pp. 415–18; see Mujāhid, Tafsīr, vol. I, p. 67, ll. 5–6.
171 Stauth, Überlieferung, pp. 79 ff.
172 al-Kha^īb al-Baghdādī, Ta!rīkh Baghdād, vol. X, pp. 292–4, no. 5428; Dhahabī,
Siyar, vol. XVI, pp. 15–16; idem, Mīzān, vol. II, pp. 556–7, no. 4852.
173 Yāqūt, Mu)jam al-buldān, published as Jacut’s Geographisches Wörterbuch, ed.
Ferdinand Wüstenfeld, 6 vols (Leipzig, DMG, in Commission bei F.A.
Brockhaus, 1866–70), vol. III, pp. 195–6: between al-Ru;āfa and Dār al-Mamlaka;
vol. III, p. 522, l. 11; Guy Le Strange, Baghdad During the Abbasid Caliphate
(Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1924; 1st edn 1900), pp. 199–201, 206; Mu;^afā
Jawād and A:mad Sūsa, Dalīl kharī#at Baghdād al-mufa&&al fī khi#a# Baghdād
qadīman wa +adīthan (Baghdad, al-Majma* al-*Ilmī al-*Irāqī, 1378/1958),
pp. 114–15.
174 He was probably located near Qan^arat al-Tibn; Le Strange, Baghdad, pp. 124,
126. We thank Professor Abdallah Cheikh Moussa, who has helped us with
this localisation and more.
175 Tha*labī, ed. Goldfeld as Qur!ānic Commentary in the Eastern Islamic
Tradition, p. 44.
176 Ibn *Asākir, Ta!rīkh Dimashq, vol. VI, pp. 387–92; Dhahabī, Siyar, vol. XIII,
pp. 184–92; Ibn al-Jazarī, Ghāyat al-nihāya, vol. I, pp. 11–12, no. 38.
177 On Ādam b. Abī Iyās, see n. 85.
178 On Warqā> b. *Umar, see n. 79.
179 On Ibn Abī Najī:, see n. 75.
180 Both were Ash*arī in theology. Ibn Shādhān used to to drink nabīdh, but he
abstained from it when he was old!
181 al-Kha^īb al-Baghdādī, Ta!rīkh Baghdād, vol. I, p. 116, ll. 6 ff. et passim.
182 Dhahabī, Siyar, vol. XVI, pp. 15–16.
183 al-Kha^īb al-Baghdādī, Ta!rīkh Baghdād, vol. I, pp. 351–2, no. 278; Dhahabī,
Siyar, vol. XVII, pp. 258–9.
184 al-Kha^īb al-Baghdādī, Ta!rīkh Baghdād, vol. VII, p. 279, l. 11.
185 Leemhuis, ‘Origins’, p. 21, in accordance with the study of Stauth, Überlieferung;
cf. Leemhuis, ‘Ms. 1075’, pp. 169–80; Berg, Development, pp. 114–18.
100
Mujāhid’s Exegesis: Origins, Paths of Transmission and Development
186 Leemhuis, ‘Origins’, p. 21; cf. Gilliot, ‘Baqara’, pp. 252–61; idem, ‘Les débuts de
l’exégèse coranique’, Revue du monde musulman et de la Méditerranée 58
(1990), pp. 82–100, at pp. 88–9; tr. Michael Bonner as ‘The Beginnings of
Qur>ānic Exegesis’ in Andrew Rippin, ed., The Qur!an: Formative Interpretation
(Aldershot, Ashgate Variorum, 1999), pp. 13–14; cf. the traditional Islamic
point of view in al-Khu
ayrī (Mu:ammad b. *Abd Allāh b. *Alī al-Khu
ayrī),
Tafsīr al-tābi)īn: )ar* wa dirāsah muqārana, 2 vols (Riyadh, Dār al-Wa^an li’l-
Nashr, 1420/1999), vol. I, pp. 87–137.
187 van Ess, Theologie und Gesellschaft, vol. II, p. 652.
188 Abū *Ubayd al-Ājurrī Mu:ammad b. *Alī b. *Uthmān (d. after 300/912). No
information on him has yet been found in the sources. His ‘full’ name is given
by Dhahabī, Siyar, vol. XIII, p. 206, l. 13, in the list of the pupils of Abū Dāwūd;
Mizzī, Tahdhīb al-kamāl, vol. VIII, p. 9, l. 17–18, who adds: al-+āfi/, lahu
)anhu masā!il mufīda (the great memoriser, he has gathered the instruct ive
answers of Abū Dāwūd al-Sijistānī to his questions).
189 al-Kha^īb al-Baghdādī, Ta!rīkh Baghdād, vol. XIII, p. 486, ll. 19–20 (no. 7336
on Warqā>); idem, al-Kifāya fī )ilm al-riwāya (Hyderabad, Dā>irat al-Ma*ārif
al-*Uthmāniyya, 1357/1938), p. 125; 2nd edn (1390/1970), p. 166.
190 Abū Dāwūd al-Sijistānī, Su!ālāt Abī )Ubayd al-Ājurrī li-Abī Dā!ūd Sulaymān
b. al-Ash)ath al-Sijistānī (202–275 H) fī ma)rifat al-rijāl wa jar+ihim wa ta)dī-
lihim, ed. *Abd al-*Alīm *Abd al-*Aīm al-Bastawī, 2 vols (Mecca, Maktabat
al-Istiqāma and Beirut, Mu>assasat al-Rayyān, 1997); ed. Mu:ammad b. *Alī
al-Azharī (Cairo, al-Fārūq al-=adītha, 1413/2010).
191 According to al-Kha^īb al-Baghdādī, Kifāya, 1st edn, p. 125; 2nd edn p. 166, in
his list of Khārijīs, Ibā
īs, Qadarīs, Mu*tazilīs and Shi‘is, Ibn Abī Najī: is
Mu*tazilī and Shibl b. *Ubād is Qadarī.
192 Umayya b. ~afwān b. *Abd Allāh b. ~afwān b. Umayya [al-Akbar] b. Khalaf
al-Qurashī al-Juma:ī al-Makkī al-A;ghar; See Mizzī, Tahdhīb al-kamāl, vol.
II, pp. 315–16, no. 548.
193 =asan al-Ba;rī (Abū Sa*īd al-=asan b. Abī al-=asan Yasār al-Ba;rī); See
Helmut Ritter, ‘=asan al-Ba;rī’ EI (English edn), vol. I, pp. 234–5; EI (French
edn), vol. I, pp. 254–5; Gilliot, ‘Exegesis of the Qur>ān: Classical and Medieval’,
EQ, vol. II, p. 105; van Ess, Theologie und Gesellschaft, vol. II, pp. 41–121;
Gotthelf Bergsträsser, ‘Die Koranlesung des Hasan von Basra’, Islamica 2
(1926), pp. 11–57; Hans Heinrich Schaeder, ‘=asan al-Ba;rī: Studien zur
Frühgeschichte des Islam’, Der Islam 14, no. 1 (1925), pp. 1–75; Helmut Ritter,
‘Studien zur Geschichte der islamischen Frömmigkeit. =asan al-Ba;rī’, Der
Islam 21, no. 1 (1933), pp. 1–83; ~ā:ib Abū Janā:, al-awāhir al-lughawiyya fī
qirā!at al-$asan al-Ba&rī (Ba;ra, Manshūrāt Markaz Dirāsāt al-Khalīj
al-*Arabī bi Jāmi*at al-Ba;ra, 1405/1985); Mu:ammad Hādī Ma*rifa, al-Tafsīr
wa’l-Mufassirūn fī thawbihi’l-qashīb, 2 vols (Mashhad, al-Jāmi*a al-Ra
awiyya
li’l-*Ulūm al-Islāmiyya, 1997–98), vol. I, pp. 371–85; Omar Hamdan, Studien
zur Kanonisierung des Korantextes: Al-$asan al-Ba&rīs Beiträge zur Geschichte
des Korans (Wiesbaden, Harrassowitz, 2005); Suleiman A. Mourad, Early
Islam between Myth and History: Al-$asan al-Ba&rī (d. 110H/728CE) and the
Formation of His Legacy in Classical Islamic Scholarship (Leiden, Brill, 2006).
194 Dhahabī, Siyar, vol. VI, p. 126, ll. 1–2; p. 125, l. 10.
195 GAS, vol. I, p. 108.
101
Claude Gilliot
102
Mujāhid’s Exegesis: Origins, Paths of Transmission and Development
no. 4866; al-Sam*ānī, al-Ansāb, vol. IV, pp. 73–5: him and his brothers; Ibn
Abī’l-Wafā> al-Qurashī, al-Jawāhir al-mu*iyya fī #abaqāt al-+anafiyya, ed.
*Abd al-Fattā: Mu:ammad al-=ulū, 2nd edn, 5 vols (Cairo, =ijr, 1413/1993;
1st edn (Riyadh, Dār I:yā, al-Kutub al-*Arabiyya and Dār al-*Ulūm, 1397–
1408/1978–88), vol. II, p. 654, no. 1058. For the different meanings of
#infasa/#unfasa, see Zabīdī, Tāj, vol. XVI, pp. 210–11; Edward W. Lane, An
Arabic-English Lexicon, 2 vols (Cambridge, The Islamic Texts Society, 1984),
vol. II, p. 1886c.
208 _abarī, Jāmi) al-bayān, ed. Saqqā, vol. XXIX, p. 192, ll. 22–3; Suyū^ī, Durr, vol.
VI, p. 295, ll. 13–14: the only inter pretation of Mujāhid quoted by him!
209 _abarī, Jāmi) al-bayān, ed. Shākir, e.g. nos 84, 5379, 8811, 9744, 12829 and
others.
210 Mizzī, Tahdhīb al-kamāl, vol. XX, p. 7, no. 7371; Ibn =ajar, Tahdhīb al-tahdhīb,
vol. XI, pp. 174–5.
211 We have no information on this individual.
212 Mu:ammad b. Abī *Ubayda b. Ma*n b. *Abd al-Ra:mān b. *Abd Allāh b.
Mas*ūd al-Mas*ūdī al-Kūfī; Mizzī, Tahdhīb al-kamāl, vol. XVII, p. 39, no.
6040.
213 Mizzī, Tahdhīb al-kamāl, vol. XII, pp. 98–9, no. 4145, with A*mash among his
masters; Ibn =ajar, Tahdhīb al-tahdhīb, vol. VII, p. 425, where read ‘Ma*n’, not
‘Ma*īn’; Ibn Abī =ātim al-Rāzī, al-Jar+ wa’l-ta)dīl, ed. Hāshim al-Nadwī et al.,
9 vols (Beirut, Dār al-Kutub al-*Ilmiyya, n.d.; 1st edn, 8 vols, Hyderabad,
1371–72/1952–53), vol. V, pp. 368–9, no. 1725; see also Mizzī, Tahdhīb
al-kamāl, vol. VIII, p. 110, penult. (notice on A*mash), where he appears as a
master of A*mash. Our identification is confirmed by A:mad Mu:ammad
Shākir, in _abarī, Jāmi) al-bayān, ed. Shākir, vol. I, p. 81, no. 84, with this
family isnād.
214 _abarī, Jāmi) al-bayān, ed. Saqqā, vol. XXIX, p. 193, ll. 1–2. We find a similar
inter pretation given by the grammarian and mutakallim (dialectic theolo-
gian) al-Akhfash al-Awsa^ (d. 210/825, 211 or 215/830), Ma)ānī al-Qur!ān, ed.
Fā>iz Fāris, 2nd edn, 2 vols (al-~afāt, Kuwait, 1981; 1st edn 1979), vol. II, p. 518/
ed. *Abd al-Amīr Mu:ammad Amīn al-Ward, 2 vols (Beirut, *Ālam al-Kutub,
1405/1985), vol. II, p. 721; at Q. 75:23, ilā mā ya!tīhi min ni)amihi wa rizqihi
(‘waiting for what comes from His benefits and His subsistence’), one says
wa’llāhi mā an/uru illā ilā’llāhi wa ilayka (‘By God! I await only what is by
God and by you’); van Ess, Theologie und Gesellschaft, vol. II, p. 182; vol. IV,
p. 414, n. 33.
215 _abarī, Jāmi) al-bayān, ed. Saqqā, vol. XXIX, p. 193, l. 5; Wā:idī, al-Basī#, vol.
XXII, p. 509, with no isnād, as is usual in this commentary.
216 _abarī, Jāmi) al-bayān, ed. Saqqā, vol. XXIX, p. 192, pentult.
217 Ibid., p. 193, ll. 3–4.
218 Ibid., ll. 8–10.
219 The translation here can be ‘his estate’ if we read ‘milk’, or ‘his possession/
dominion’, if we read ‘mulk’, as in A:mad Mu:ammad Shākir’s edition of Ibn
=anbal’s Musnad.
220 Mizzī, Tahdhīb al-kamāl, vol. III, pp. 281–3, no. 848; Dhahabī, Ta!rīkh
al-islām, vol. III, pp. 325–6, 14th class, no. 37; Ibn *Adī, al-Kāmil li’l-*u)afā!,
ed. *Ādil A:mad *Abd al-Mawjūd and *Alī Mu:ammad Mu*awwa
, 9 vols
103
Claude Gilliot
(Beirut, Dār al-Kutub al-*Ilmiyya, 1418/1997), vol. II, pp. 315–19, 13th class,
no. 331: Mu:sin al-Amīn b. *Abd al-Karīm al-*Āmilī, A)yān al-shī)a, ed. =asan
al-Amīn, 11 vols (Beirut, Dār al-Ta*āruf li’l-Ma^bū*āt, 1406/1986), vol. IV,
pp. 26–8. He was a mawlā of Umm Hāni> bt. Abī _ālib or of her husband Ja*da
b. Hubayra. He transmit ted traditions from *Alī.
221 Ibn *Adī, Kāmil, vol. II, p. 316.
222 Ibn Sa*d, >abaqāt, vol. VII, p. 328; al-Kha^īb al-Baghdādī, Ta!rīkh Baghdād,
vol. X, pp. 311–12, no. 5459; Dhahabī, Siyar, vol. VIII, pp. 514–17; Mizzī,
Tahdhīb al-kamāl, vol. XII, pp. 236–8, no. 4246.
223 Ibn =ajar, Tahdhīb al-tahdhīb, vol. VII, p. 35, ll. 10–11; cf. Ibn Shahīn (Abū
=af; *Umar), Ta!rīkh al-asmā! wa’l-thiqāt, ed. ~ub:ī al-Sāmarrā>ī (Kuwait,
al-Dār al-Salafiyya, 1404/1984), p. 68/ed. *Abd al-Mu*^ī Amīn Qal*ajī (Beirut,
Dār al-Kutub al-*Ilmiyya, 1406/1989), p. 237, no. 911.
224 Ibn Sa*d, >abaqāt, vol. VII, p. 328.
225 al-Kha^īb al-Baghdādī, Ta!rīkh Baghdād, vol. X, p. 313; Dhahabī, Siyar, vol.
VIII, p. 515. On the majlis, see Christopher Melchert, ‘The Etiquette of
Learning in the Early Islamic Study Circle’ in Joseph E. Lowry, Devin J.
Stewart and Shawkat M. Toorawa, eds, Law and Education in Medieval Islam:
Studies in Memory of Professor George Makdisi (Warminster, E.J.W. Gibb
Memorial Trust, 2004), pp. 33–44.
226 Al-Kha^īb al-Baghdādī arrived in Syria or in Damascus in 445/1060; Dhahabī,
Siyar, vol. XVIII, p. 273; vol. IX, pp. 553–6. It is possible that a copy of this juz!
of al-Kha^īb al-Baghdādī is extant in the āhiriyya collection in Damascus;
Miklos Muranyi, Beiträge zur Geschichte der $adī- und Rechtsgelehrsamkeit
der Mālikiyya in Nordafrika bis zum 5. Jh. d. H.: Bio-bibliographische Notizen
aus der Moscheebibliothek von Qairawān (Wiesbaden, Harrassowitz, 1997),
p. 9, n. 2: The Juz! fīhi Tasmiyat mā warada bihi al-Shaykh Abū Bakr A+mad
[. . .] al-Kha#īb al-Baghdādī Dimašqa min al-kutub min riwāyatihi min al-ajzā!
al-masmū)a, manuscript āhiriyya, 1260; Yāsīn Mu:ammad al-Sawwās, Fihris
Majāmī) al-Madrasa al-)Umariyya fī Dār al-kutub al-/āhiriyya bi-Dimashq
(Damascus, al-Majma*, 1987), p. 85 Majmū* 3755, majāmī* *umariyya, text no.
10, fol. 126–132, written by Mu:ammad b. Abī al-Mālikī al-Andalusī, has been
edited in the study of Ma:mūd al-_a::ān, al-$āfi/ al-Baghdādī wa atharuhu fī
)ulūm al-+adīth (Beirut, Dār al-Qur>ān al-Karīm, 1401/1981), pp. 281–301.
Indeed, Juz! fīhi Tasmiyat, p. 283, no. 20: Tafsīr Ibn Abī Najī+ )an Mujāhid; no.
25 is: Tafsīr Shibl )Ubād (or )Abbād). In fact, al-Kha^īb al-Baghdādī spent
around eight years lecturing particularly at the Mosque of Damascus; Rudolf
Sellheim, ‘al-Kha^īb al-Baghdādī’, EI2, vol. IV, English edn, p. 1111b.
227 Abū Zakariyyā> Ya:yā b. Yamān al-*Ijlī al-Kūfī (d. 188/803 or 189); Mizzī,
Tahdhīb al-kamāl, vol. XX, pp. 267–9, no. 7547; Ibn *Adī, Kāmil, vol. IX,
pp. 91–5, no. 2137. This tradition with that manner of transmission is given by
al-Lālakā>ī (Abū’l-Qāsim Hibat Allāh; d. 418/1027), Shar+ u&ūl i)tiqād ahl
al-sunna wa’l-jamā)a, ed. A:mad b. Sa*d b. =amdān al-Ghāmirī, 5th edn, 9
vols in 5 (Riyadh, Dār _ība, 1418/1997; 1st edn 1405–09/1985–88), vols III–IV,
p. 536, no. 840.
228 Ibn *Adī, Kāmil, vol. II, p. 318 (notice on Thuwayr). Ibn *Adī adds (p. 318, ll.
9–10): ‘wa )an Ibn Yamān’: Ya:yā b. Sulaymān al-Ju*fī’ (al-Kūfī al-Muqrī;
d. 238); on him, see Mizzī, Tahdhīb al-kamāl, vol. XX, pp. 118–19, no. 7436.
104
Mujāhid’s Exegesis: Origins, Paths of Transmission and Development
229 =usayn b. *Alī b. al-Walīd al-Ju*fī al-Kūfī al-Muqrī (b. 119, d. Dhū’l-Qa*da
203/819, or 204); Mizzī, Tahdhīb al-kamāl, vol. IV, pp. 509–12, no. 1306.
230 I.e. *Abd al-Malik b. Abjar. This is the mistake of a copyist and not corrected
by the editor. See *Abd al-Malik b. Sa*īd b. =ayyān b. Abjar al-Hamdānī
(al-Kinānī) al-Kūfī; Dhahabī, Ta!rīkh al-islām, vol. III, p. 918, 15th class, no.
279; Dhahabī, Siyar, vol. IX, pp. 297–401; Mizzī, Tahdhīb al-kamāl, vol. XII,
pp. 41–3, no. 4111; Ibn =ajar, Tahdhīb al-tahdhīb, vol. VI, p. 394.
231 Ibn Abī Shayba (Abū Bakr *Abd Allāh b. Mu:ammad b. Ibrāhīm; d. 235/849);
al-Mu&annaf fī’l-a+ādīth wa’l-āthār, ed. Mu:ammad *Abd al-Salām Shāhīn, 9
vols (Beirut, Dār al-Kutub al-*Ilmiyya, 1416/1995) (bk. 30, Kitāb al-Janna),
vol. VII, p. 58, no. 33989; Lālakā>ī, Shar+, vols III–IV, p. 553, no. 866.
232 Mizzī, Tahdhīb al-kamāl, vol. II, pp. 100–6, no. 396.
233 al-Tirmidhī, al-Jāmi) al-&a+ī+, ed. A:mad Mu:ammad Shākir, Mu:ammad
Fu>ād *Abd al-Bāqī, Ibrāhīm *A^wa *Awa
, 5 vols (Cairo, Mu;^afā al-Bābī
al-=alabī, 1357–81/1938–62; repr. Beirut, Dār I:yā> al-Turāth al-*Arabī, n.d.)
(bk. 39, Xifat al-janna, ch. 17), vol. IV, p. 688, no. 2553; repeated in bk. 18, Tafsīr,
ch. 72 (at Q. 75:23), vol. V, p. 431, no. 3330; al-Ājurrī (Abū Bakr, d. 360/970),
Kitāb al-Sharī)a, ed. Mu:ammad =āmid al-Fiqī (Cairo, Jam*iyyat An;ār
al-Sunna al-Mu:ammadiyya, 1369/1950; repr. Beirut, Dār al-Kutub al-*Ilmiyya,
1403/1983), p. 269, ll. 4–8; al-Dāraqu^nī (d. 385/995), Kitāb al-Ru!ya, ed. Ibrāhīm
al-*Alī and A:mad Fakhrī al-Rifā*ī (al-Zarqā>, Maktabat al-Manār, 1411/1990),
pp. 270–2, nos 170–2; al-=ākim al-Naysābūrī, al-Mustadrak )alā’l-Xa+ī+ayn fī’l-
+adīth, ed. Mu:ammad *Arab b. Mu:ammad =usayn et al., 4 vols (Hyderabad,
Dā>irat al-Ma*ārif al-*Uthmāniyya, 1334–42/1915–23) (Kitāb al-Tafsīr), vol. II,
pp. 509–10: in the transmission of Isrā>īl and that of *Abd al-Malik b. Abjar.
234 Ibn =anbal, Musnad, ed. Mu:ammad al-Zuhrī al-Ghamrāwī, 6 vols (Cairo,
al-Ma^ba*a al-Maymaniyya, 1313/1895; repr. Beirut, al-Maktab al-Islāmī,
1978), vol. II, p. 13/ed. A:mad Mu:ammad Shākir, =amza A. al-Zayn et al.,
20 vols (Cairo, Dār al-=adīth, 1416/1995), vol. IV, p. 333, no. 4623; Dāraqu^nī,
Ru!ya, pp. 272–3, no. 173; Lālakā>ī, Shar+, vols III–IV, p. 536, no. 841. These
three authors in the transmission of *Abd al-Malik b. Abjar.
235 Abū’l-=asan *Uthmān b. Mu:ammad b. Ibrāhīm b. *Uthmān b. Khuwāstī
al-*Absī al-Kūfī (al-mufassir) (d. 239/853), the brother of Abū Bakr Mu:ammad
(Abū Bakr is the author of the edited Mu&annaf ); al-Kha^īb al-Baghdādī,
Ta!rīkh Baghdād, vol. XI, pp. 283–8, no. 6054; Dhahabī, Siyar, vol. XI,
pp. 151–4.
236 al-Wā:idī, al-Wasī# fī tafsīr al-Qur!ān al-majīd, ed. *Ādil A:mad *Abd
al-Mawjūd et al., 4 vols (Beirut, Dār al-Kutub al-*Ilmiyya, 1415/1994), vol. IV,
p. 394. For another edition of al-Wasī# fī’l-tafsīr, see Claude Gilliot, ‘Textes
arabes anciens édités en Egypte au cours des années 1996 à 1999’, Mélanges de
l’Institut Dominicain d’Études Orientales du Caire (MIDEO) 24 (2000),
pp. 115–346, at pp. 183–7, no. 66.
237 Walid A. Saleh ‘The Last of the Nishapuri School of Tafsīr. Al-Wā:idī (d.
468/1076) and his Signi ficance in the History of Qur>ānic Exegesis’, Journal of
the American Oriental Society 126 (2006), pp. 223–43, at p. 226.
238 Wā:idī, al-Basī#, vol. I, pp. 417–19.
239 See more on this in Gilliot, ‘The Use of Lexicography in the Great Qur>ān
Commentary of al-Wā:idī (d. 468/1076)’ in S. R. Burge, ed., The Meaning of
105
Claude Gilliot
the Word: Lexicology and Qur’anic Exegesis (Oxford, Oxford University Press
in association with the Institute of Ismaili Studies, forthcoming).
240 al-Qif^ī (al-Wazīr Jamāl al-Dīn Abū’l-=asan *Alī b. Yūsuf, d. 646/1248), Inbāh
al-ruwāt )alā anbāh al-nu+āt, ed. Mu:ammad Abū’l-Fa
l Ibrāhīm, 4 vols
(Cairo, Dār al-Kutub, 1950–73), vol. I, p. 154, no. 57; al-Suyū^ī, Bughyat
al-wu)āt fī #abaqāt al-lughawiyyīn wa’l-na+wiyyīn, ed. Mu:ammad Abū’l-
Fa
l Ibrāhīm, 2 vols (Cairo, al-Khānjī, 1384/1964), vol. I, p. 369, no. 720. After
Wa:īdī had completed his studies with this master, Abū’l-Fa
l al-*Arū
ī
instructed him to go to Tha*labī to study Qur’anic exegesis. See Wā:idī,
al-Basī#, vol. I, p. 419.
241 Wā:idī, al-Basī#, vol. XXII, p. 509.
242 Ibid., pp. 510–11. Azharī’s full name is Abū Man;ūr al-Azharī Mu:ammad b.
A:mad b. al-Azhar al-Harawī al-Shāfi*ī (d. 370/980, in Harāt); Régis Blachère,
‘al-Azharī’, EI2, vol. I, p. 845; Yāqūt, Mu)jam al-udabā!, ed. I:sān *Abbās, 7
vols (Beirut, Dār al-Gharb al-Islāmī, 1993), vol. V, pp. 2321–3, no. 965.
243 See the editor’s introduction in Wā:idī, al-Basī#, p. 49–55.
244 Wā:idī, al-Basī#, vol. XXII, pp. 510–11.
245 _abarī, Jāmi) al-bayān, ed. Saqqā, vol. XXIX, p. 193, l. 14.
246 Ibid., p. 192, l. 13.
247 Ibid., ll. 20 ff.
248 See Gilliot, Exégèse, pp. 246–9; cf. Wā:idī, al-Basī#, vol. VIII, pp. 330–5, on
the same verse.
249 al-Qur^ubī (Shams al-Dīn), al-Jāmi) li-a+kām al-Qur!ān ed. A:mad *Abd
al-*Alīm al-Bardūnī et al., 2nd edn, 20 vols (Cairo, al-Hay>a al-Mi;riyya
al-*Āmma li’l-Kitāb, 1952–67; repr. Beirut, Dār I:yā> al-Turāth al-*Arabī,
1965–67), vol. XIX, p. 261. Such was the inter pretation of Ibn *Abbās, Qatāda
and Ibn Abī Mulayka, according to al-Zamakhsharī: The Qoran, with the
commentary of the Imam Aboo al-Qasim Mahmood bin ‘Omar al-Zamakhshari,
Entitled ‘The Kashshaf ‘an Haqaiq al-Tanzil’, ed. W. Nassau Lees et al., 2 vols
(Calcutta, Lees, 1856–62), vol. II, p. 1589, ll. 21–22/Idem, al-Kashshāf )an
+aqā!iq ghawāmi* al-tanzīl, 4 vols (Beirut, Dār al-Fikr, 1977), vol. IV, p. 232,
at Q. 83:15: ‘They are separated from His generosity’. Zamakhsharī also
mentions the inter pretation of Ibn Kaysān, i.e., the Mu*tazilī Abū Bakr *Abd
al-Ra:mān Ibn Kaysān al-A;amm (d. 200/816 or 201/817; see van Ess,
Theologie und Gesellschaft, vol. II, pp. 396–418): ‘separated from His gener-
osity (karāma)’.
250 Mujāhid, Tafsīr, vol. II, p. 738
251 See this chapter, Section 4.
252 Abū *Ubayda *Abd al-Wārith b. Sa*īd b. Dhakwān al-*Anbarī (mawlā) al-Tannūrī
al-Muqri> al-Ba;rī; Dhahabī, Siyar, vol. VIII, pp. 300–4. *Abd Allāh b.
al-Mubārak left *Amr b. *Ubayd, because the latter preached the doctrines of
the Mu*tazilīs; but he continued to transmit the traditions of *Abd al-Wārith;
See Dhahabī, Siyar, vol. VIII, p. 302.
253 van Ess, Theologie und Gesellschaft, vol. II, pp. 280–310. On this Mu*tazilī
exegete and his transmission of the tafsīr of =asan al-Ba;rī, see ibid.,
pp. 298–300.
254 _abarī, Jāmi) al-bayān, ed. Shākir, vol. XV, p. 70, no. 17640; cf. Daniel
Gimaret, Une lecture mu)tazilite du Coran: le Tafsīr d’Abū )Alī al-Djubbā!ī
106
Mujāhid’s Exegesis: Origins, Paths of Transmission and Development
107
Claude Gilliot
108
Mujāhid’s Exegesis: Origins, Paths of Transmission and Development
109
Claude Gilliot
290 Suyū^ī, Durr, vol. II, p. 184, ll. 27–185, l. 8, refers to the three sources (_abarī,
Ibn Abī =ātim and Abū Nu*aym), but he quotes according to the version
of Ibn Abī =ātim.
291 Ibn =ajar, )Ujāb, vol. II, pp. 919–21.
292 _abarī, Jāmi) al-bayān, ed. Shākir, vol. VIII, p. 552, no. 9958.
293 Mizzī, Tahdhīb al-kamāl, vol. I, pp. 266–7, no. 103. Here there is an error
of the editor, who identified him as Mu:ammad b. Ya:yā b. Sa*īd al-Qa^^ān
(d. Rama
ān 223/July 838 or 226), the son of Ya:yā b. Sa*īd al-Qa^^ān. Due to
this false identification, he writes erroneously that a chain is lacking, which is
not the case. The kunyā of this son is Abū ~āli: and not Abū Sa*īd.
294 On this occasion of revelation narrated by Mujāhid, see Versteegh, Arabic
Grammar, pp. 68–71.
295 Qur^ubī, al-Jāmi), vol. V, p. 282: ‘This verse is a refutation of the Qadarīs
concerning the terms of death’ (hādhihi’l-āyatu taruddu )alā’l-qadariyyati
fī’l-ājāl), and of course also Q. 4:79 (Whatever good visits thee, it is of God;
whatever evil visits thee is of thyself. And We have sent thee to men a Messenger;
God suffices for a witness), Qur^ubī, al-Jāmi), vol. V, p. 287; see van Ess,
Theologie und Gesellschaft, vol. IV, pp. 494–7.
296 In a hadith considered ‘unfa miliar’ (munkar) by the Muslim specialists, trans-
mit ted by Maslama b. *Alī al-Khushānī al-Shāmī: [. . .] *Abd Allāh b. *Amr b.
al-*Ā; (but probably *Abd Allāh b. ‘Umar b. al-Kha^^āb, as apud Dhahabī) ←
Mu:ammad said: ‘The spider is a devil muted by God (al-)ankabūtu shay#ānun
masakhahu’llāhu)’; Ibn *Adī, Kāmil, vol. VIII, p. 17; Dhahabī, Mīzān, vol. IV,
p. 111. Or in a ‘loose’ (mursal) hadith, from Yazīd b. Marthad al-Mad*ī
al-Hamdānī: ‘The spider is a devil; kill it (fa-qtulūhu)’; Abū Dāwūd al-Sijistānī,
al-Marāsīl, ed. Shu*ayb al-Arnā>ū^, 3rd edn (Beirut, Mu>assasat al-Risāla,
1418/1998; 1st edn 1406/1986), p. 342, no. 500; p. 344, no. 504.
297 *Abd al-Razzāq, al-Mu&annaf, ed. =abīb al-Ra:mān al-A*amī, 11 vols
(Johannesburg and Beirut, 1390/1970) (bāb al-qadar), vol. XI, p. 118, no.
20082. Or according to Ibn al-Dalaymī (the Follower *Abd Allāh b. Fērōz [or
Fayrūz] al-Shāmī al-Maqdisī; Ibn =ajar, Tahdhīb al-tahdhīb, vol. V, pp. 358–9)
← Ubayy b. Ka*b; see Arent J. Wensinck, The Muslim Creed. Its Genesis and
Historical Development (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1932),
pp. 107–8; W. Montgomery Watt, Free Will and Predestination in Early
Islam (London, Luzac, 1948), p. 19; van Ess, Zwischen $adī und Theologie,
pp. 79–81.
298 Hasan M. El-Shamy, Folk Traditions of the Arab World: A Guide to Motif
Classification, 2 vols (Bloomington and Indianapolis, Indiana University
Press, 1995), vol. I, p. 277, no. M3451.
299 Victor Chauvin, Bibliographie des ouvrages relatifs aux Arabes publiés dans
l’Europe chrétienne de 1810 à 1885, 12 vols (Liège and Leipzig, 1802–1922), vol.
VIII, p. 104–5, no. 80.
300 René Basset, Mille et un contes, récits & légendes arabes, 3 vols (Paris,
Maisonneuve Frères, 1924–26), vol. II, pp. 207–9; al-Ibshīhī, al-Musta#raf min
kull fann musta/raf, tr. G. Rat as al-Mosta#raf. Recueil de morceaux choisis çà
et là dans toutes les branches de la connaissance réputées attrayantes, par [. . .]
Šihâb-ad-Dīn A+mad al-Abšīhī, 2 vols (Paris, Ernest Leroux, and Toulon, Th.
Isnard & B. Brun, 1899–1902), vol. II, pp. 287–89.
110
Mujāhid’s Exegesis: Origins, Paths of Transmission and Development
301 Title given by Max Henning, Tausend und eine Nacht, 24 vols (Leipzig, Universal
Reclam Verlag, 1895–99), no. 195, according to Chauvin, Bibliographie, vol. IX,
p. 74.
302 John Payne, Tales from the Arabic of the Breslau and Calcutta (1814–18),
editions of the thou sand nights and one night not occur ring in the other printed
texts of the work, 8 + 3 additional vols (London, 1882–89), vol. XI, part II,
Breslau Text, pp. 17–21.
303 al-Burūsawī (Ismā*īl =aqqī), Rū+ al-bayān fī tafsīr al-Qur!ān, 10 vols (Istanbul,
1330/1912–27), vol. II, p. 241.
111