Tafsı̄r and Islamic

Intellectual History
Exploring the Boundaries of
a Genre

EDI T ED BY

Andreas Görke and Johanna Pink

3
in association with
T HE I N ST I TU TE OF I S MAI LI S T U D IE S
LON DON
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 3
The Qur’anic Commentary of
Muqātil b. Sulaymān and the
Evolution of Early Tafsı̄r Literature*

N IC OL A I SI NA I

1 Muqātil: The Man and his Work

C LASSICAL TAFSĪR, the basic characteristics of which were master-

fully described in a seminal article by Norman Calder,1 is a
literary genre whose formal and methodological boundaries crys-
tallised only gradually during the first few centuries of Islamic
intellectual history. This chapter will examine a chief source for the
reconstruction of the evolution of early tafsīr literature: the Qur’anic
commentary ascribed to Muqātil b. Sulaymān from Balkh, who is
said to have died in 150/767, 155/772 or 158/775, and who may have
been born as early as the 690s (although this is far from certain).2
The commentary attributed to Muqātil constitutes one of the
earliest existing texts exhibiting the first of the three defining char-
acteristics of a tafsīr work as defined by Calder, namely, ‘the pres-
ence of the complete canonical text of the Qur$ān [. . .], segmented
for purposes of comment and dealt with in canonical order’.3 The
present chapter will analyse the literary format and hermeneutical
approach of Muqātil’s work, in particular the function of narrative
within it (Sections 1 and 2), and then employ it as a springboard for
an inevitably hypothetical sketch of the history of early Qur’anic
exegesis in general (Sections 3 and 4).
Muqātil himself appears to have been a controversial figure: as a
transmitter of Hadith he is squarely described as a ‘liar’ (kadhdhāb),4
and as a theologian he is accused of gross anthropomorphism and
of holding the heterodox doctrine of irjā# (literally: ‘suspending

113

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. 113-43.
Copyright Islamic Publications Ltd 2014
 Nicolai Sinai

judgement’ on whether somebody else is a believer; more generally:

the position that righteous works do not enter into the definition
of faith).5 His exegetical competence, however, is paid conspicu-
ous respect: Mu&ammad b. Idrīs al-Shāfi+ī (d. 204/820) is said to
have compared his rank as an exegete with the importance of Mālik
b. Anas (d. 179/795) for the transmission of Hadith.6 Claude Gilliot
has accordingly summed up Muqātil’s ambivalent status in the
concise formula ‘grand exégète, traditionniste et théologien
maudit’.7 As far as the Qur’anic commentary ascribed to him is
concerned, it is immediately obvious that it belongs to a relatively
primitive stage of Qur’anic exegesis: grammatical analyses, quota-
tions from Arabic poetry and reading variants are absent or used
only very sparingly, and chains of transmitters (asānīd, sg. isnād)
are rarely given in the text. All of this strongly suggests a default
dating of the work to the second/eighth century, which could
only be overridden by significant counter-evidence. It is true that
the commentary is prefaced with a list of Muqātil’s supposed
sources, among whom figure such prominent scholars as
al->a&&āk b. Muzā&im (d. 106/724?) and Nāfi+, the mawlā of
Ibn +Umar (d. 117/735?). Yet, given that the respective section is
reported on the authority of a later transmitter, it may plausibly
be viewed as a retrospective add-on designed to enhance the
commentary’s respectability in the eyes of later scholars, for
whom Qur’anic exegesis had to conform to the norms of hadith
transmission. Significantly, the main body of the commentary
only features isnāds where a transmitter has patently included
additional material, which in some cases is explicitly marked as
not stemming from Muqātil himself – for instance, the comment-
ary’s first transmitter, al-Hudayl b. @abīb, occasionally, uses the
phrase wa-lam asma$ Muqātilan, ‘I did not hear (this from)
Muqātil’.8
The fact that Muqātil’s alleged sources were only summarily
prefixed to the commentary rather than being worked into the main
body of the text, as well as the seemingly scrupulous identification
of later additions, are apt to inspire trust that the work we have today
does indeed go back to Muqātil himself. Although there are some
instances where unmarked additions appear to have been made,9

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 The Qur’anic Commentary of Muqātil b. Sulaymān

these do not really form part of what one might call the basic stratum
of the work. This latter consists of a cursory treatment of the full text
of the Qur’an, broken up into short segments and interspersed with
normally brief glosses that provide synonyms, paraphrases and
interpretive expansions of the Qur’anic wording. A representative
example is provided by the interpretation of Q. 14:1–3, cited below.
Note that Qur’anic quotations are transliterated in bold face,
and that I have included classifications of the various types of
glosses employed in order to convey an impression of the exegetical
repertoire with which Muqātil mostly operates.
a-l-r kitābun anzalnāhu ilayka yā Mu&ammadu, (allā llāhu
$alayhi wa sallam
‘Alif, Lām, Rā#. A scripture which We have sent down to you, O
Muhammad, may God bless him and grant him peace’
> insertion of vocative
li-tukhrija’l-nāsa mina’l-!ulumāti ilā’l-nūri ya$nī mina’l-shirki
ilā’l-īmāni
‘that you may lead the people from darkness into light, meaning
from poly theism (shirk) to faith (īmān)’
> double equation ()ulumāt = shirk; nūr = īmān)
bi-idhni rabbihim ya$nī bi-amri rabbihim
‘with the permission of their Lord, meaning on the command of
their Lord’
> equation (idhn = amr)
ilā #irā$i ya$nī ilā dīni
‘to the path of, meaning to the religion of’
> equation ((irāt = dīn)
al-%azīzi fī mulkihī
‘the Mighty with regard to his sovereignty’
> insertion of prepositional syntagm
al-(amīd fī amrihī $inda khalqihī
‘the Laudable with regard to His command when He created [the
world]’
> insertion of prepositional syntagm

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 Nicolai Sinai

thumma dalla $alā nafsihī ta$ālā dhikruhu fa-qāla

‘then He, may His mention be exalted, referred to Himself and
said:’
> stage direction10
Allāhu’lladhī lahu mā fī’l-samawāti wa-mā fī’l-ar)i wa waylun
li’l-kāfirīna min ahli Makkata, bi-taw&īdi’llāhi
‘God, to whom belongs all that is in the heavens and all that is on
earth. Woe to those who disbelieve from among the inhabitants of
Mecca, [disbeliev ing] in the oneness of God’
> insertion of two prepositional syntagms
min %adhābin shadīdin thumma akhbara $anhum fa-qāla ta$ālā
‘because of a severe torment; then He – may He be exalted –
described them and said:’
> stage direction
alladhīna yasta(ibbūna’l-(ayāta’l-dunyā’l-fāniya
‘those who prefer the life of this world, which perishes’
> extension of syntagm by an adjective
%alā’l-ākhirati’l-bāqiya
‘to the next, which is permanent’
> extension of syntagm by an adjective

This basic stratum of the work, as exemplified by the preceding

excerpt, certainly comes across as forming a unified whole rather
than an editorial composite – a feature which distinctly separates
the Tafsīr Muqātil from the commentary ascribed to Mujāhid b.
Jabr [d. 104/722], which is clearly a compilation of originally inde-
pendent exegetical traditions on select verses.11
Of course, the unitary character of the basic layer of the Tafsīr
Muqātil does not as such entail that it actually stems from Muqātil
himself. Yet the latter, due to his reputation as an anthropomorphist
and a notorious ‘liar’, could hardly have been an attractive pseud-
onym. While it is true that such indictments only concern Muqātil’s
standing as a transmitter of Hadith and his theological outlook,
Muqātil’s conspicuous absence from the roster of earlier exegetes
cited by Mu&ammad b. Jarīr al-Fabarī (d. 310/923) indicates that by

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the third/ninth century even Muqātil’s reputation as an exegete had

to a large degree dissipated. At least after the scholarly standards of
hadith transmission had infiltrated Qur’anic exegesis and the use of
transmission chains became de rigueur, pseudepigraphical misa-
scription to Muqātil appears rather unlikely. Consequently, we can
with some confidence accept the text’s attribution to Muqātil and
operate with a terminus ante quem of c. 152/770 (it may well be
considerably earlier).

2 Narrative in the Tafsı̄r Muqātil

In the wake of John Wansbrough’s pioneering study of early Islamic
exegesis, published in 1977, the commentary of Muqātil has often
been characterised as belonging to the genre of ‘narrative’ exegesis,
which is sometimes set in opposition to ‘paraphrastic’ exegesis as
exemplified by the collection of glosses ascribed to Mujāhid b.
Jabr.12 Yet as the preceding sample from the text shows, the literary
physiognomy of large chunks of the work is characterised not by
narrative, but by brief explanatory glosses; Wansbrough’s conclu-
sion that for Muqātil ‘the scriptural text was subordinate, concep-
tually and syntactically, to the narratio’13 thus appears difficult to
defend in its generalised form.
On the other hand, however, it is obvious that narrative does play
an important role in the Tafsīr Muqātil. For one thing, Muqātil
extensively employs narratives about the ‘occasions of revelation’
(asbāb al-nuzūl) of Qur’anic passages. It is a distinctive feature of
his commentary that in many cases it appears to exhibit a conscious
effort to extend the interpretive catchment area of such asbāb as far
as possible:14 whereas many of the asbāb narratives that are
collected, for instance, in Lubāb al-nuqūl by Jalāl al-Dīn al-SuyūZī
(d. 911/1505) refer to individual verses, Muqātil often places an
entire section of the Qur’anic text within an overarching narrative
framework. In this regard, the commentary displays a certain
concern with textual coherence beyond the limits of the individual
verse, although it is true that such coherence is exclusively under-
stood in narrative, rather than properly literary terms: Muqātil’s
paradigm of textual coherence is a story-line.15

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Even in most of Muqātil’s asbāb narratives, however, structural

primacy still rests with the Qur’anic text: the narrative is
constructed and deployed in order to illuminate and accommodate
a pre-given primary text, and the Qur’anic wording is clearly fore-
grounded by means of verbatim citation and by connectives that
mark off primary and secondary text, or, as Calder says, ‘lemma
and comment’.16 Nevertheless, some of Muqātil’s asbāb narratives
do exhibit a richness of detail and a dramatic force that strik ingly
differs from the stripped-down shape such stories possess in
SuyūZī’s Lubāb al-nuqūl. For Muqātil, storytelling clearly has a
value in and of itself, beyond the exegetical purposes which a given
narrative may serve. On occasion one even witnesses a sudden
mushrooming of the commentary from its normally terse gloss-
atory style into much more extensive narratives and eschatological
scenes in which the Qur’anic primary text is decisively submerged.
The longest such narrative excursus occurs in Muqātil’s treatment
of Sūrat al-Inshiqāq (Q. 84), an English translation of which is given
as an appendix to this chapter (divided into four sections for ease of
reference). In order to gain a better understanding of Muqātil’s use
of narrative, I now propose to take a closer look at this text.
§ 1 opens with a sabab narrative which continues to function
as an interpretive background to the entire sequence of verses
Q. 84:1–15. The story features two brothers, called +Abd Allāh and
al-Aswad, who are obviously meant to personify the essential
dichotomy of believer and unbeliever, their respective roles being
tellingly indicated already by their names (‘servant of God’ and ‘the
black one’). Al-Aswad accosts his believing brother with a query
about the Resurrection, itself couched in Qur’anic language:
‘Muhammad claims that after we die and become dust, we will be
raised in the next world [see Q. 23:82, 37:16, 56:47]. He also claims
that the world will come to an end. So tell me, what will be the state
of the earth on that day?’ It is in response to this query, Muqātil
claims, that Q. 84:1–15 was revealed. The remainder of § 1 then
offers a conventional glossatory treatment of the first eight verses of
the sura. However, subsequent to Q. 84:8 (he will receive an easy
reckoning), the commentary launches into an extended narrative
account (qi((a) of the eschatological reckoning awaiting the two

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brothers, introduced by the same formula (wa-dhālika anna) as the

sabab at the beginning of § 1. This excursus, contained in § 2 of my
translation, exhibits many of the stylistic peculiarities of popular
storytelling (qa(a(), such as fantastic distances and quantities as
well as descriptive tree structures (‘The fire is held in check by 9,000
bridles, and from each bridle hang 7,000 angels’).17 Although the
density of scriptural quotations can be high, in various instances
these are simply woven into the text in a suitably adapted shape.18
Even where explicit Qur’anic quotations occur, they frequently
function merely as ornamental flourishes and afterthoughts.
Furthermore, the scriptural material is eclectically chosen from a
wide variety of suras, while Sūrat al-Inshiqāq, which supposedly
forms the primary text that is being commented upon, is repres-
ented only by a single verse (Q. 84:9). At its climax, § 2 even briefly
turns into a narrative amplification of a passage from Sūrat
al-/āqqa (Q. 69:19–20 and 25–8) rather than of Sūrat al-Inshiqāq,
probably due to the fact that the literal transcript of the unbeliever’s
exclamation in Q. 69:25–8 provides for much greater dramatic
effect than the indirect speech of Q. 84:11 (he will call out destruc-
tion). §§ 3 and 4 then revert to much calmer waters and proceed
with the task of providing brief glosses on the remainder of Sūrat
al-Inshiqāq.
Clearly, § 2 aims at painting as vivid and terrify ing a picture of
Judgement Day as possible. Qur’anic allusions and quotations are
deployed in support of this aim; they do not function as objects of
interpretation in their own right.19 Properly speak ing, Muqātil’s
eschatological qi((a is therefore not exegetical in purpose, despite
being embedded in what is obviously an exegetical literary frame-
work. However, it would be inaccurate to view § 2 merely as
unbridled storytelling, as the passage does articulate a coherent
theological message, namely, the doctrine of irjā#. Both brothers,
it is made very clear, have committed good and evil deeds.
Nonetheless, only the believer +Abd Allāh is given an ‘easy reck-
oning’, which involves his misdeeds being hidden inside his ‘book’
and his good deeds being placed on the outside, while al-Aswad –
who ‘has not believed with [true] faith’20 – has his misdeeds placed
on the outside and his good deeds hidden from view. In the medium

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 Nicolai Sinai

of popular narrative, § 2 thus promotes the view that salvation

occurs sola fide, by faith only.21 From this perspective, § 2 arguably
bears some resemblance to the extended excursuses on theological
or linguistic matters or on prophetic traditions which occur in later
tafsīr works and which, like § 2, are often only tangentially relevant
to understanding the particular scriptural passage to which they
are linked.22
Nevertheless, Muqātil’s treatment of Sūrat al-Inshiqāq does high-
light a general tension between the Tafsīr Muqātil’s glossatory
exegetical macrostructure, on the one hand, and the narrative fibre
which frequently fleshes out this structure, on the other. This
tension doubt lessly results from the fact that Muqātil, in working
through the Qur’anic corpus, consciously utilised material whose
original Sitz im Leben was oral storytelling and which at times, as
in § 2 of the commentary on Sūrat al-Inshiqāq, retains its own
narrative dynamic. It is interesting to observe that elsewhere in the
Tafsīr Muqātil some of the motifs occurring in § 2 are brought
under much tighter exegetical control:
• In Muqātil’s commentary on Q. 89:23, the text corresponds
almost verbatim to the description of the angels in his
interpretation of Q. 84, yet immediately after wards the
commentary returns to the text of the sura at hand, rather
than plunging into a narrative excursus.
• At Q. 22:23 (wa libāsuhum fīhā &arīrun [their clothes there
will be silk]) Muqātil states, in a description similar to one
found in § 2 on Q. 84, that the blessed will be dressed in
garments of silk and brocade, under which they will wear a
layer of pure silk (&arīr). As in the previous case, the wider
narrative context of this detail is suppressed.
• The same applies to the two verses from Sūrat al-Zukhruf,
Q. 43:68–9, which § 2 of Muqātil’s commentary on Q. 84 puts
into the mouth of an angelic herald. At Q. 43:68–9, the Tafsīr
Muqātil briefly describes, in accordance with § 2, how the
believers raise their heads while the unbelievers bow theirs.
Again, the commentary immediately after wards proceeds to
the next verse of Sūrat al-Zukhruf.

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 The Qur’anic Commentary of Muqātil b. Sulaymān

• Muqātil’s interpretation of Q. 69:19–28, which functions as

the dramatic climax of § 2 of the commentary on Q. 84, actu-
ally mentions the two prototypical brothers Abū Salama
(+Abd Allāh) and al-Aswad by name,23 yet likewise refrains
from providing any details not directly relevant to the
passage at hand.
• At Q. 78:38, the Tafsīr Muqātil refers to an eschatological
silence of forty years which is also mentioned in § 2 of the
commentary on Q. 84, but again does so only in the form of a
succinct gloss (‘they do not speak, out of fear, for forty years’);
and just as in the commentary on Q. 84, the remainder of
Q. 78:38 (except those to whom the Merciful has granted
permission and who speak aright) is construed, but again only
in a concise gloss, as referring to the first part of the shahāda.
I would submit that the modus operandi emerging from these
examples can be appropriately described as a cannibalisation of
qa(a( material: the latter is dismantled into disconnected glosses
slotted into the appropriate places of a running commentary, or
exegetically lemmatised. A similar procedure occurs elsewhere in
the Tafsīr Muqātil,24 and can even be detected in the commentary
of Fabarī.25 The exegetical recycling of popular narrative thus
appears to have been a common literary operation during the first
two Islamic centuries. Narrative traditions in which Qur’anic
segments are subordinated to the exigencies of a story-line, and
which might accordingly be perceived to threaten the primacy of
scripture, are domesticated by being in their turn exegetically
subordinated to scripture. Arguably, such transformations bespeak
a growing concern to foreground the pre-eminence of scripture,
and thus bear witness to the gradual consolidation of the Qur’an’s
canonical status.
In sum, it is crucial to appreciate the agonistic quality of the
Tafsīr Muqātil: its defining characteristic is not the consistent
subordination of the Qur’anic text to extra-Qur’anic narrative, as
implied by characterisations of it as exemplify ing ‘narrative’
exegesis, but, rather, the tension between two very different literary
stances, namely, a tafsīr-like deference to the structural priority of

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scripture, on the one hand, and sporadic outbursts of narrative that

disrupt the work’s overarching exegetical framework, on the other.

3 The Emergence of Qur’anic Exegesis

In the remainder of this chapter I would like to offer a hypothetical
sketch of the evolution of early Qur’anic exegesis, and of the place
that the Tafsīr Muqātil might be seen to occupy within it.26 Islamic
sources often convey the notion that following the death of the
Prophet Muhammad, the early Muslims immediately set about
subjecting the Qur’an to a sustained exegetical treatment. Indeed,
there are traditions to the effect that Muhammad himself was the
first exegete of the Qur’an.27 Nevertheless, it seems highly doubtful
whether genuine exegetical activity can be assumed to have taken
place during the first fifty years or so after Muhammad’s death.
Although the Arab conquerors of the Middle East certainly
acknowledged the Qur’an as their canonical scripture, this does not
entail that it was in a more than nominal way.28 As a matter of fact,
the earliest scholars who appear to have pursued a systematic
interest in Qur’anic exegesis, and who are credited with a sizable
body of exegetical traditions, are men who were active in the last
decades of the first/seventh and the early decades of the second/
eighth centuries, such as Mujāhid, Sa+īd b. Jubayr (d. 95/714) and
Qatāda b. Di+āma (d. 118/736). While the Islamic tradition identi-
fies these scholars as students of the famous Ibn +Abbās, the alleged
ancestor of Qur’anic exegesis,29 Claude Gilliot has demonstrated
the strik ingly ‘mythical’ manner in which the latter is portrayed.30
One may therefore suspect that the character of Ibn +Abbās serves
above all to bridge the gap in time between the emergence of
Qur’anic exegesis between c. 60/680 and 80/700, and the death
of the Prophet some fifty years earlier. This suspicion is further
borne out by an isnād-cum-matn analysis of exegetical traditions
on Q. 15:90–91 that has been under taken by Harald Motzki.31
According to Motzki, the earliest historically tangible interpreters
of the passage are figures like Sa+īd b. Jubayr, >a&&āk, Mujāhid and
Qatāda rather than Ibn +Abbās; interestingly, it is only the genera-
tion after them who seem to have claimed Ibn +Abbās as their

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ultimate source. On the basis of Gilliot’s and Motzki’s work, then, it

appears highly probable that the exegetical activities with which
Ibn +Abbās is traditionally credited are, by and large, a later retro-
jection. Glosses that actually originated with later scholars would
thus have been moved forward to the earlier figure of Ibn +Abbās.
This does not need to be viewed as conscious fabrication, for ascrip-
tion to Ibn +Abbās might simply have been a default way of pinning
down traditions which were believed to be old and representative of
some notional exegetical mainstream.
If, as I argue elsewhere, the consonantal skeleton of the Qur’anic
corpus is likely to have reached closure by the middle of the seventh
century CE,32 what was its function before becoming a proper
object of exegesis? Chiefly, I would envisage the Qur’an as having
constituted a potent symbol of the identity of the Arab conquerors
and as having been used, probably in a highly selective manner,
for purposes of ritual and devotional recitation. Examples from
religious history show that the recitation of a sacred text by no
means presupposes that the reciter has a detailed understanding
of what he is reciting.33 In this respect, Daniel Madigan has
illuminatingly employed Bronislaw Malinowski’s concept of ‘phatic
communication’ – in other words, communication that is not
primarily geared to the transmission of specific information, but
rather serves to affirm community and belonging: ‘One might say
that the principal function of the Qur$ān was to stand more as a
reminder and as evidence that God had addressed the Arabs than
as the complete record of what God has, or had, to say.’34 Of course,
it would be an exaggeration to suggest that the Qur’an was gener-
ally unintelligible to early post-prophetic Muslims – it is an Arabic
text, after all. However, it would also be an anachronism to picture
the Arabic tribesmen who came to join the Qur’anic Urgemeinde
after the death of Muhammad as devoting extensive time to a
meticulous study of the Qur’an while at the same time being occu-
pied with forcing two empires to their knees.35 The disembedding
of the Qur’anic corpus from its @ijāzī context of origin may accord-
ingly have entailed not merely a loss of knowledge about how the
Qur’anic texts were understood by their original recipients, but a
general loss in semantic status.

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 Nicolai Sinai

How did the Qur’anic corpus reacquire a semantic status? The

need to identify theological and legal prooftexts must certainly
have played a role: given a controversial theological or legal
issue, early Muslims are likely to have scoured the Qur’an for
effective ammunition against their opponents, as a result of which
they would have become increasingly familiar with the literary
corpus that they acknowledged as their scriptural canon.36 Yet the
most important way in which the Qur’an came to reacquire
semantic value was probably by means of a gradual infiltration of
Qur’anic expressions and verses into qa(a( material of the sort on
which Muqātil must plainly have drawn. This probably occurred
by means of an organic process of literary seepage rather than
as the result of deliberate exegetical efforts: popular stories
about Muhammad and earlier prophets, as well as about the Last
Judgement, would have come to absorb decontextualised Qur’anic
segments that happened to be familiar to the transmitters of such
narratives by virtue of the employment of these scriptural segments
for purposes of ritual and devotional recitation. At the same time,
particularly conspicuous Qur’anic expressions would have inspired
narrative amplification, often without any attention being paid
even to their immediate Qur’anic context. This seems to have been
the case, for example, with many of the keywords that dot the
extra-Qur’anic narrative about Muhammad’s ascension to heaven
(mi$rāj), such as the sidrat al-muntahā (the lote tree of the boundary)
from the Qur’anic vision account in Q. 53:14, or the expression
al-kawthar (literally: abundance) from Q. 108:1 (We have given you
al-kawthar).37
Since this ‘re-oralisation’38 of isolated Qur’anic elements through
narrative amplification appears to have been a defining factor in the
earliest stage of the Qur’an’s reception history, it seems in order to
illustrate the process in more detail. The following traditions, which
I cite without isnāds, are found in Fabarī’s commentary on Sūrat
al-Kawthar (Q. 108).39
no. 38136: [. . .] Al-kawthar is a river in Paradise, whose banks are
of gold and silver, and which flows on sapphires and pearls. Its
water is whiter than snow and sweeter than honey.

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no. 38148: [. . .] When the Prophet, may God bless him and grant
him peace, was taken on his night journey (usriya) [see Q. 17:1],
Gabriel passed with him through the lowest heaven, and lo, there
he was next to a river, above which there was a castle made of pearls
and chrysolites. He went to smell its mud, and lo, it was musk! He
said: ‘O Gabriel, what river is this?’ And Gabriel answered: ‘It is
al-kawthar, which your Lord has kept hidden for you.’
no. 38169: [. . .] During the ascension of the Prophet (may God
bless him and grant him peace) to Paradise [. . .], a river was shown
to him, the banks of which were made of hollow sapphire [. . .].
Then the angel who was with him dipped the Prophet’s hand into it,
and he drew out musk. Muhammad said to the angel who was with
him: ‘What is this?’ He [the angel] answered: ‘It is al-kawthar,
which your Lord has given to you.’ And he [the report’s transmitter]
said: And the lote tree of the boundary (sidrat al-muntahā) [Q. 53:14]
was brought up to him, and there he beheld a mighty sight [. . .].
no. 38171: [. . .] The Messenger of God, may God bless him and
grant him peace, said: ‘During my ascension to Paradise, I came
to a river, the banks of which were domes of hollow pearls. I said:
“What is this, O Gabriel?” He answered: “This is al-kawthar,
which your Lord has given to you.” And the angel stretched out
his hand, and the mud which he brought out was fragrant musk.’
no. 38183: [. . .] One day the Messenger of God, may God bless
him and grant him peace, came to @amza b. +Abd al-MuZZalib and
did not find him at home. He asked his wife, who belonged to the
Banū al-Najjār, about him, and she said: ‘He just left together with
my father for your house, and I think he missed you somewhere in
the alleys of the Banū al-Najjār. Will you not come in, O Messenger
of God?’ So he went in, and she served him date mash, and he ate
from it. Then she said: ‘O Messenger of God, may it be wholesome
to you! Now you have come when I was wanting to come to you
and congratulate you. Abū +Amāra has told me that you have been
given a river in Paradise called al-kawthar.’ And he replied: ‘Yes,
and its earth is of sapphires, corals, chrysolites and pearls.’
The first tradition, no. 38136, shows how the enigmatic Qur’anic
address We have given you al-kawthar (Q. 108:1) gave rise to – or

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merged with – the Cockaignesque vision of a paradisiacal river. The

next tradition, no. 38148, affords a glimpse of how the keyword
al-kawthar fused with another keyword, the notion of a mysterious
night journey (isrā#) on which the Prophet was taken according to
Q. 17:1. In the third quotation, no. 38169, this web of scriptural
keywords is extended to include a third element, the the lote tree
of the boundary (sidrat al-muntahā) referred to in Q. 53:14. Note
that these reports exhibit a marked difference in dramatic vivacity:
while no. 38136 provides a static description of al-kawthar, no.
38148 provides a dynamic recap of Muhammad’s night journey in
which mention of the scriptural keyword al-kawthar is deferred
to a concluding dialogue between Muhammad and Gabriel. Instead
of simply stating that the river has a bed of fragrant musk, as the
Tafsīr Muqātil does (see below), here the Prophet is surprised to
find that it does not smell of mud, but of musk. In no. 38171, the
narrative is recast as a first person eye-witness account, thus further
enhancing its vivacity and credibility, while no. 38183 relates a
highly detailed frame story set in the realm of ordinary human
experience in which Muhammad confirms his encounter with the
river al-kawthar.
Similarly to § 2 of Muqātil’s commentary on Sūrat al-Inshiqāq,
all these traditions are likely to have originally circulated independ-
ently of the exegetical framework into which Fabarī inserts them.
Whether the development of the material was towards increasing
dramatisation (with a tradition along the lines of no. 38136 as the
starting point) or of exegetical compression and reduction (with no.
38136 as the end result) is difficult to determine. In any case, the
material documents a process whereby spoils of Qur’anic text were
unhinged from their original literary context and migrated into
extra-Qur’anic storytelling, in many cases without any explicit
trace of the Qur’anic origin of such keywords. The first part of
Muqātil’s commentary on Sūrat al-Kawthar (Q. 108) affords a
glimpse of what the resulting narratives may have looked like:
[Q. 108:1] We have given you al-kawthar, because it is the most
excellent river in Paradise. That river is a roaring torrent, swift
like an arrow, with a bed of fragrant musk. Its pebbles are of

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sapphires, chrysolites and pearls. It is more radiant than snow,

softer than cream and sweeter than honey. Its banks are domes
of hollow pearls, and every dome has the length and width of
a square parasang. Over it are 4,000 golden gates, and in every
dome there is one of the black-eyed girls who has seventy servants.
And the Messenger of God (may God bless him and grant him
peace) said: ‘O Gabriel, what are these tents?’ And Gabriel (peace
be upon him) said: ‘These are the habitations of your wives in
Paradise.’ For the inhabitants of Paradise, four rivers spring forth
from al-kawthar, which the mighty and glorious God has
mentioned in Sūrat Mu&ammad (may God bless him and grant
him peace): water, wine, milk and honey [see Q. 47:15].
[Q. 108:2] Then He said: Pray to your Lord, meaning, the five
prayers, and sacrifice the sacrificial camels [cf. Q. 22:36] on the
day of slaughtering, for the poly theists do not pray, nor do they
slaughter in the name of God.
[Q. 108:3] The one who hates you is the one cut off (al-abtar), and
this [refers to the following:] The Prophet (may God bless him and
grant him peace) once entered the Sacred Mosque through the
gate of Banū Sahm b. +Amr b. Hu}ay} when some people of the
Quraysh were sitting inside, and the Prophet (may God bless him
and grant him peace) went on without sitting down until he left
through the gate of al-~afā. The people inside looked at the
Prophet (may God bless him and grant him peace) when he went
out, but had not seen him enter, and thus did not recognise him.
Al-+Ā} b. Wā$il al-Sahmī b. Hishām b. Sa+d b. Sahm, who was
entering at this moment, met him at the gate of al-~afā. The son of
the Prophet (may God bless him and grant him peace), +Abd Allāh,
had just passed away, and when a man died without leaving a son
who would inherit from him, he was called ‘cut off’ (al-abtar).
When al-+Ā} arrived at the place, the people inside said: ‘Whom
did you meet?’ He answered: ‘The one cut off’, and The one who
hates you is the one cut off was revealed, meaning, the one who
detests you is cut off, meaning, al-+Ā} b. Wā$il al-Sahmī is the one
who is cut off from all good things, while you, O Muhammad, will
be mentioned with Me when I am mentioned. The mighty and
glorious God thus elevated the mention of Muhammad among all

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of mankind, so that on every festival of the Muslims the Prophet

(may God bless him and grant him peace) is mentioned in their
prayers, in the calls to prayer, and on all sorts of other occasions,
such as betrothals, sermons and in times of need.
The exchange between Muhammad and Gabriel in Muqātil’s
commentary on Q. 108:1 clearly presupposes that the keyword
al-kawthar has already fused with the Prophet’s isrā#, as in no. 38148
of Fabarī’s commentary, and it would seem, accordingly, that this
section of the commentary draws on a more comprehensive
retelling of the mi$rāj story. The apparently unabridged manner in
which Muqātil has incorporated this scene bears a distinct simil-
arity to § 2 of the commentary on Sūrat al-Inshiqāq, and contrasts
with the way in which the latter is exegetically dismembered else-
where in the Tafsīr Muqātil. The subsequent narrative about the
Prophet’s encounter with al-+Ā}, climaxing with God’s revelation of
The one who hates you is the one cut off (Q. 108:3), can also plausibly
envisaged as originating in paraenetic storytelling. There is no
reason to suppose that in their original oral Sitz im Leben, the
kawthar scene and the abtar story must have been in any way
linked: the fact that both keywords are close neighbours in the
Qur’anic text is in no way reflected in the narratives themselves;
and, as just pointed out, the kawthar scene naturally belongs in the
context of the mi$rāj story. In all likelihood, the cohabitation of
both stories is due to Muqātil, who would also have supplied the
glosses on Q. 108:2 which now form a sort of watershed between
the two narratives.
As the preceding examination of some of the material on
al-kawthar illustrates, the increasing permeation of popular
narrative with scriptural vocabulary which appears to have charac-
terised an early stage of the Qur’an’s reception history cannot yet be
described as genuinely exegetical: narrative amplification of this
sort does not cater to an interest in the Qur’anic text per se, and
only picks out isolated and narratively useful spoils, as it were,
rather than systematically scanning the text in a linear fashion.
Here, indeed, it ‘was the story that mattered’, as Wansbrough has
put it.40 On the other hand, this kind of literary osmosis did at least

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endow disconnected segments of the Qur’anic text with a genuine

semantic value – and thus paved the way for the Qur’an’s gradual
change of status from a text used primarily for recitational purposes
to a scriptural canon in the proper sense (assuming that a charac-
teristic of canonical texts consists in the fact that they are inter-
preted and not just recited).
The true turning point appears to have occurred towards the end
of the first/seventh century, when scholars like Mujāhid systematic-
ally began to turn their attention towards the Qur’anic text in its
own right.41 Expressions that for some reason or other were
perceived as obscure were ‘translated’ by means of simple equations
and paraphrases.42 Many of the glosses ascribed to Mujāhid and
other early exegetes – which might of course have come to include
apocryphal material that is now extremely difficult to tease out
from the original core – are apt to strike a contemporary scholar as
somewhat trivial, since they frequently do not seem to be motivated
by any implicit theological, legal or political agenda of the sort
which we modern readers are so fond of digging up; very often, one
gets the sense that the respective gloss is really only rooted in the
exegete’s genuine curiosity about what the lexical meaning of a
particular word is, or to whom an elusive phrase like those who
incur anger (Q. 1:7) might refer in concrete terms. Yet such exeget-
ical queries, straightfor ward though they may seem, are actually
predicated on a consequential change of focus: for the first time, it
is the Qur’anic text – rather than the stories that isolated Qur’anic
elements can be melted into – that is the centre of attention. To
engage in a bit of counterfactual speculation, without this crucial
shift of focus it does not seem inconceivable that the Qur’an, in
spite of all explicit affirmations of Muhammad’s prophetical status,
could simply have dissolved into oral storytelling of the sort codi-
fied in later works about the biography of Muhammad (sīra) or the
history of earlier prophets (qi(a( al-anbiyā#).
It is telling that sometimes the brief glosses ascribed to Mujāhid
and his peers can plausibly be held to form abbreviations and
condensations of earlier narratives which early Qur’anic inter-
preters trimmed down to their exegetical core value.43 This makes
it likely that glossatory exegesis only arose at a time when the

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infiltration of disconnected Qur’anic elements into popular

narrative had already been going on for a certain period. If this
timeline is correct, then the conflictual interplay of qa(a( and of
text-focused exegesis that we had occasion to notice in the Tafsīr
Muqātil would have been a characteristic of early Qur’anic exegesis
in general, as plot-oriented storytelling, occasionally decorated
with Qur’anic embellishments as the respective qā(( saw fit, gave
way to exegesis proper.

4 Positioning the Tafsı̄r Muqātil in the History

of Early Qur’anic Exegesis
In contrast to the exegetical work undertaken by Mujāhid and other
early glossatory exegetes, Muqātil appears to have been among the
first scholars who worked their way through the entire Qur’an,
from beginning to end, rather than merely transmitting glosses on
selected textual segments of the sort compiled in the commentary
attributed to Mujāhid. That Muqātil’s enterprise was novel is illus-
trated by a tradition according to which >a&&āk criticised him
for ‘interpreting every word’ (fassara kulla &arfin).44 Given that
>a&&āk seems to have died when Muqātil was at most in his late
twenties or early thirties, and according to some when he was still a
child,45 >a&&āk’s repor ted utterance may well be apocryphal. Even
so, it minimally establishes that Muqātil’s exegetical approach was
seen as highly distinctive.
The fact that for Muqātil exegetical completeness was an end in
itself is also evident from the fact that his commentary contains a
significant number of glosses which by any standard can only be
described as redundant: regardless of how obvious the reference of
a given pronoun might be, for example, Muqātil is relentless in
resolv ing it by means of some equation, paraphrase or inserted
vocative. Furthermore, John Wansbrough has noted the occurrence
of circular glosses, where an expression A is equated with another
expression B that appears elsewhere in the Qur’an and is itself the
object of a gloss – a gloss which can sometimes consist in the
original A.46 In my view, the only answer to Wansbrough’s very
pertinent question about the purpose of such circular glossing is

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that, for Muqātil, completeness of exegetical treatment possessed a

value of its own, a value not conditioned on the intelligibility or
unintelligibility of the Qur’anic segment at hand.
In working through the Qur’an, Muqātil obviously relies on a set
of what Louis Massignon has termed ‘interpretative constants’,47
that is, set equations, each pairing a particular Qur’anic term
with a more readily intelligible non-Qur’anic one. Interestingly,
Mu&ammad b. A&mad al-MalaZī (d. 377/987), in his al-Tanbīh wa’l-
radd $alā ahl al-ahwā# wa’l-bida$, transmits from Muqātil a list of
181 such constants that correspond at least partially to the respective
glosses found in Muqātil’s commentary.48 Muqātil thus appears to
have operated with a rudimentary sort of Qur’anic dictionary, which
bespeaks a perception of the Qur’an as a lexically autonomous
literary corpus.49 That Muqātil had a comparatively holistic vision of
the Qur’anic text would also seem to emerge from the fact, briefly
noted above, that he sometimes extends the interpretive reach of
asbāb narratives as far as possible,50 a technique which permits him
to make some sense of the coherence of longer Qur’anic passages,
and in certain cases even of entire suras. The use of ‘stage direc-
tions’, too, can be viewed as an exegetical technique aimed not so
much at the explanation of individual scriptural segments as at the
generation of links between neighbouring segments. Still, the nature
of the material with which Muqātil operated would have severely
restricted any such holistic tendencies. This is well illustrated by his
commentary on Sūrat al-Kawthar (Q. 108), which, as we saw above,
is in all likelihood pieced together from two self-contained narra-
tives, with the effect that the sura is in effect treated as consisting of
three completely unrelated divine pronouncements.
Possibly for the first time, then, the Tafsīr Muqātil undertook to
interpret the entire Qur’an, and to do so with a view to recurrent
lexical peculiarities of the corpus as a whole and with at least a rudi-
mentary awareness of intra-textual relations of coherence (although,
as pointed out earlier, such coherence is conceived exclusively in
narrative terms). From this perspective, the subsequent tafsīr tradi-
tion follows squarely in the footsteps of Muqātil, and his commentary
appears, indeed, to form a sort of milestone. What sets the Tafsīr
Muqātil apart from classical tafsīr works, such as the commentary

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of Fabarī, is the fact that these latter, unlike Muqātil, confront the
Qur’anic text by evaluating, harmonising, refuting or elaborating
an existing scholarly tradition (which is why the literary genre of
classical tafsīr is appropriately qualified as ‘scholastic’).51 Muqātil,
by contrast, does not explicitly refer to any of his predecessors,
although he must have been aware of previous exegetical work. It is
perhaps significant that, unlike Mujāhid, Muqātil was active at a
time when a certain mass of exegetical material had already come
into existence and when respect for scholarly tradition was a rising
force across different fields of early Islamic intellectual history.
Thus, it may well be that Muqātil’s failure to explicitly engage with
earlier exegetical work was partly responsible for the fact that a later
commentator like Fabarī did not explicitly engage with him, despite
the fact that the Tafsīr Muqātil was undoubtedly a major achieve-
ment of early Qur’anic interpretation.

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APPENDIX

Muqātil b. Sulaymān’s interpretation of

Sūrat al-Inshiqāq (Q. 84)

Note: As a general rule, only Qur’anic citations which do not stem

from Q. 84 are identified in square brackets.

§ 1 (Q. 84:1–8)
When the heaven is split asunder, that is to say, it is split asunder
because the Lord of Might and the angels [cf. Q. 2:210] descend. It
continues to split asunder until its edges become visible, and then it
looks shabby and worn out.52 And this [refers to:] two brothers of
the Banū Umayya, one of whom was called +Abd Allāh b. +Abd
al-Asad, while the other one was called al-Aswad b. +Abd al-
Asad. One of them was a believer in God, and his name was +Abd
Allāh. The other one, who was called al-Aswad and who was
an unbeliever, said to his brother +Abd Allāh: ‘Do you believe in
Muhammad?’ He answered: ‘Yes.’ The other said: ‘Woe unto you!
Muhammad claims that after we die and become dust, we will be
raised in the next world [Q. 23:82, 37:16, 56:47]. He also claims that
the world will come to an end. So tell me, what will be the state of
the earth on that day?’ So the mighty and glorious God sent down:
When the heaven is split asunder, and listens to its Lord as is incum-
bent upon it, that is to say, it is split asunder and hears its Lord and
obeys Him, and this is its incumbent duty. When the earth is spread
out like skin that is spread out, and casts out what is in it of animals,
and is empty, and listens to its Lord as is incumbent upon it, that is
to say, it hears its Lord and obeys Him, and this is its incumbent
duty. O human – by ‘human’, al-Aswad b. +Abd al-Asad is meant –,
you are labouring towards your Lord, you are striving towards
your Lord, and you will meet Him through your works. Then
He said: As for him who is given his book in his right hand, and this
is +Abd Allāh b. +Abd al-Asad, called Abū Salama, he will receive
an easy reckoning – [the word] ‘easy’ saying that God does not
alter his good deeds and put him to shame, and this [refers to the
following:]

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§ 2 (contains Q. 84:9)
When the mighty and glorious God assembles all creatures on the
Day of Judgement, they throng in confusion for 300 years, until the
glorious and mighty Lord sits down on His throne in order to judge
His creation. And then the Lord, may He be blessed and exalted, and
the angels come rank on rank [cf. Q. 89:22], and they look at Paradise
and at the fire, and the fire is brought forward [cf. Q. 89:23] from a
distance of 500 years. The fire is held in check by 9,000 bridles, and
from each bridle hang 7,000 angels, who hold it back from the
creatures. Each has a neck the length and diameter of which is the
distance of one year, and between their shoulders is a distance of
fifty years. Their faces are like embers, their eyes are like lightning,
and when one of them speaks, flames scatter from his mouth. Every
one holds an iron rod in his hand that has 360 heads on it that are
like mountains, yet in his hand they are lighter than a feather. They
bring it [the fire] and drive it on until it is set up to the left of the
throne. And then Paradise is brought, and they lead it on like a bride
is led to her husband, until it is set up to the right of the throne. And
when the creatures see the fire and what God has prepared for its
inhabitants, and look at their Lord and fall silent, the sight makes
their voices cease and no one among them talks anymore, frightened
by the Lord and His majesty. And when they see the wonders of the
angels, and the carriers of the throne, and the heavenly host, and
Hell and its treasure, the sight makes their voices cease. Their joints
start to shake, and God knows the fear that overcomes his friends
[cf. Q. 10:62], and the hearts reach the throats [Q. 33:10].
Then a herald stands up at the right-hand side of the throne and
calls out: ‘O My servants, today there is no fear on you, nor will you
grieve.’ [Q. 43:68] At this, all humans and jinn raise their heads, both
believers and unbelievers, since they are all His servants. Then the
herald calls out a second time: ‘Those who believed in Our signs and
were people who surrendered [to God].’ [Q. 43:69] Then the believers
raise their heads, while the adherents of the [false] religions bow their
heads. And the people are silent for forty years, and this is [indicated
by] His saying: This is the day they shall not speak, nor are they allowed
to make excuses [Q. 77:35–6]. And [this is also indicated by] His

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saying: They do not speak, except those to whom the Merciful has
granted permission and who speak aright [Q. 78:38], and say: ‘There is
no god but God’ – for this is what is right. And [this is also indicated
by] His saying: And the voices will be hushed before the Merciful, so
that you can hear only a murmur [Q. 20:108], for God does not answer
them or speak to them, nor do they speak for forty years.
Afterwards He says to one of the angels, namely, Gabriel, peace
be upon him: ‘Summon the messengers, and begin with the illit-
erate one [cf. Q. 7:157–8]!’ He said:53 Then the angel stands up and
calls: ‘Where is the illiterate prophet?’ At this, all the prophets
answer: ‘All of us are prophets and illiterate, so state clearly [which
one you mean].’ And He says: ‘The illiterate prophet from Arabia
and from the sacred precinct [of Mecca]!’ At this, the Messenger of
God, may God bless him and grant him peace, stands up and raises
his voice in invocation, and says: ‘How many sins have you
committed and forgotten, yet God has counted them. Lord, do not
put my community to shame!’ And he keeps approaching God,
may He be exalted, until he stands right before Him, closer to Him
than all His creatures. He glorifies and praises God, may He be
exalted, until the angels and all the other creatures are amazed.
Then the mighty and glorious God says: ‘I am pleased with you, O
Muhammad. Go and call your community!’, and so he calls them.
The first one whom he calls from among his community is +Abd
Allāh b. +Abd al-Asad Abū Salama.54 He keeps approaching, and the
mighty and glorious God brings him close to Himself. Then he
receives an easy reckoning [cf. Q. 84:8] – an easy one being one
which does not hold him responsible for the sins he has committed.
The mighty and glorious God has no wrath against him and hides
his evil deeds within his writing and makes his good deeds appear
on the outside of his writing. On his head a crown made of gold is
set, on which there are 90,000 elevations, each of which is a pearl
that equals the riches of the east and the west. He is clothed with
seventy robes of brocade and silk, of which the one closest to his
body is made of white silk, and this is His saying: Their clothes there
will be silk [Q. 22:23]. He is adorned with three bracelets, one of
silver, one of gold and one of pearls, and he is given a diadem of
pearls and sapphires which shine on his face.

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He then returns to his believing brethren, and they look at him

coming back from God, and all the angels, humans and jinn say: ‘God
has surely honoured this one [cf. Q. 89:15]; God has surely bestowed
great presents on this one!’ Then they look at his book, and lo, his evil
deeds are inside it, whereas his good deeds are on its outside. The
angels therefore say: ‘This human has not committed any sin at all! By
God, this servant has feared God! It is only proper that such a servant
should be honoured!’ They do not know that his evil deeds are inside
his book. This is what happens with somebody whom God, may He
be exalted, wants to honour and does not put to shame.
He says:55 He comes to his Muslim brethren and they do not
recognise him. He says: ‘Do you know me?’ And all of them say:
‘No, by God!’ He says: ‘I just left, and you have already forgotten
me? I am Abū Salama, and I bring you glad tidings of something
similar, O Brethren! For my Lord has given me an easy reckoning
[Q. 84:8], and has honoured me [cf. Q. 89:15]’, and that is His saying
He will receive an easy reckoning [Q. 84:8]. He will return to his
family, He is saying, to his people, happy [Q. 84:9], for he is given his
book in his right hand [Q. 84:7]. ‘Here you are, read my book! I
expected to meet my reckoning!’ [Q. 69:19–20], until the end of the
pericope (qi((a).56
Then a herald summons al-Aswad b. +Abd al-Asad, the brother of
+Abd Allāh, the believer. The miserable wretch wants to draw near,
but they chase him away. His breast is cut open [cf. Q. 94:1] in order
to bring out his heart between the shoulders through his back.
Every good deed which he has done throughout his whole life is put
on the inside of his writing, for he has not believed with [true] faith,
and his evil deeds are put on the outside of his writing. He is separ-
ated from the mighty and glorious God by a veil57 so that he does
not see Him.58 But a herald next to the throne reminds him of his
evil deeds, and every time he enumerates them, he [al-Aswad? the
herald?] says: ‘I know this, God damn it!’59 Upon this, a curse comes
forth from the mighty and glorious God and falls upon him. He is
stained by the curse, and his body becomes a month’s distance in
length, the distance of three days and nights [in width?]; his body
becomes like al-Aqra+, which is an enormous mountain in Syria; his
teeth become like U&ud; his pupils become like Mount @irā$ which

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is in Mecca; his nostrils become like al-Waraqān, which are two

mountains; and his hair becomes as numerous as a thicket, as long
as reeds and as thick as spears. Upon his head a crown of fire is set;
he is made to wear a gown of molten copper; a rock of brimstone,
like a mountain of blazing fire, is hung upon him; his hands are
shackled to his neck; his face turns black, blacker than a grave in a
pitch-dark night; and his eyes turn blue.
He then returns to his brethren, and when the creatures first set
eyes on him they hold their noses because of his intense stench, and
they say: ‘God has surely humbled this servant [cf. Q. 89:16]; God
has surely disgraced this servant.’ They look at his book, and lo, his
evil deeds are apparent and he does not have any good deeds. They
say: ‘Has this servant not had any need of the mighty and glorious
God and not feared Him at all, not even for a day or an hour? It is
only proper that he should be disgraced and punished by God!’ All
the angels curse him, and when he returns to his place, his compan-
ions do not recognise him. He says: ‘Do you not know me?’ They
answer: ‘No, by God!’ He then says: ‘I am al-Aswad b. +Abd al-Asad’,
and he cries out at the top of his voice: ‘Would that I had not been
given my book, and did not know my reckoning! Would that it had
been the end! My wealth has been of no avail to me!’ [Q. 69:25–8] He
says, ‘Would that death had been such that I died and rested from
this affliction; today I have no excuse!’

§ 3 (Q. 84:10–15)
Then he says ‘Woe is me!’, and his brother gives tidings to the
believers, while he gives tidings to the unbelievers, and that is [what
is indicated by] His saying: As for him who is given his book behind
his back, he will call out destruction, and he will roast in the blaze of
hell, that is to say, he calls out ‘Woe is me!’ and enters the fire. He
[God] said: He was merry among his friends, that is to say, honoured
among his people – he said:60 and God disgraces him on the Day of
Resurrection. He [God] said: He thought that he would never return,
that is to say, that God, may He be exalted, does not raise up [the
dead]. But no, his Lord – that is to say, who created him – was
observing him, He is a witness to his deeds.

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§ 4 (Q. 84:16–25)
Then the mighty and glorious Lord uttered an oath, saying: I swear
by the twilight – as for the twilight, this is the light that remains after
sunset until the sun finally disappears – and by the night and what it
envelops, that is to say, the darkness that it brings on, and by the
moon when it is full, in the nights of the 13th, the 14th and the 15th
[of the month], which are the white ones. The moon stays the same
for three nights of the month, its light being of intense brightness,
and it contracts after the 13th night. God therefore swears by the
twilight, and by the night and what it envelops, and by the moon
when it is full, you will ride layer after layer, that is to say, state after
state; that is to say, created from a drop, then the drop becomes a clot,
then the clot becomes a lump [cf. Q. 23:14], then it becomes a lifeless
human in the belly of his mother, until He breathes the spirit into
him, whereupon it becomes a living human, who is then brought out
by God from the belly of his mother. Then he is a child, then he
reaches maturity, then he grows old, then he dies and stays in his
grave until he becomes dust, and then he is revived by God on the
Day of Resurrection. He [God] said: What is the matter with them
that they do not believe that the dead will be raised, even though
previously they were in the state just described, and when the Qur’an
is recited to them do not prostrate themselves? And this [refers to
the following:] One day the Messenger of God, may God bless him
and grant him peace, recited: So prostrate yourself and draw near!
[Q. 96:19], and then he prostrated himself, and the believers did the
same, while the Quraysh were clapping their hands above their
Leads and whistling. And the one who was whistling was very close
to the Messenger of God, may God bless him and grant him peace,
and this is [what is referred to by] His [God’s] saying: Their prayer at
the House is nothing but whistling and clapping [Q. 8:35]. When the
Messenger of God, may God bless him and grant him peace, pros-
trated himself, they did not do likewise but mocked him, and, when
he recited, they insulted him with whistling and clapping. So God
sent down: What is the matter with them that they do not believe,
and when the Qur’an is recited to them do not prostrate themselves?
Then He [God] said: Rather, those who are unbelievers, that is to say:

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but those who are unbelievers declare it a lie. God knows well what
they hide, that is to say, the sins and vices they accumulate against
Him. So give them the tidings, O Muhammad, of a painful punish-
ment, that is to say, an excruciating punishment for all inhabitants
of Mecca. Then He made an exception on account of a preceding act
of knowledge, and said: Except for those who believe and do good
deeds; they will have an unfailing reward.61

NO T E S
* I am grateful to Eleanor Payton for her extremely meticulous and competent
copy-editing of this chapter, and to Omar Alí-de-Unzaga for comments on an
earlier draft. More detailed references can be found in Nicolai Sinai, Fortschreibung
und Auslegung: Studien zur frühen Koraninterpretation (Wiesbaden, Harrassowitz
Verlag, 2009), chapters 2 and 8–12. For Muqātil’s commentary, I am using a
Lebanese reprint (published by the Mu$assasat al-Tārīkh al-+Arabī) of Shi&āta’s
edition: Muqātil b. Sulaymān, Tafsīr, ed. +Abd Allāh Ma&mūd Shi&āta, 4 vols
(Cairo, al-Hay$a, 1979–89); on the publication history of this edition, see Claude
Gilliot, ‘Muqātil, grand exégète, traditionniste et théologien maudit’, Journal
Asiatique 279, nos 1–2 (1991), pp. 39–92, at p. 39, n. 1. Translations of Qur’anic
quotations in this chapter are normally taken, with various modifications, from
Alan Jones, tr., The Qur#ān (Cambridge, Gibb Memorial Trust, 2007).
1 Norman Calder, ‘Tafsīr from Fabarī to Ibn Kathīr: Problems in the Description
of a Genre, Illustrated with Reference to the Story of Abraham’ in Gerald R.
Hawting and Abdul-Kader A. Shareef, eds, Approaches to the Qur#ān (London,
Routledge, 1993), pp. 101–40. For a brief introduction to the genre in German,
cf. Nicolai Sinai, ‘Die klassische islamische Koranexegese: Eine Annäherung’,
Theologische Literaturzeitung 136, no. 2 (2011), pp. 123–34, with references to
some important recent publications.
2 Josef van Ess, Theologie und Gesellschaft im 2. und 3. Jahrhundert Hidschra:
Eine Geschichte des religiösen Denkens im frühen Islam, 6 vols (Berlin, Walter
de Gruyter, 1991–97), vol. II, pp. 516 ff.; 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–9th/15th c.) (Oxford, Oxford University Press in
association with the Institute of Ismaili Studies, 2013), pp. 311–92, at pp. 322–8.
3 Calder, ‘Tafsīr from Fabarī to Ibn Kathīr’, p. 101.
4 +Abd al-Ra&mān al-Mizzī, Tahdhīb al-kamāl fī asmā# al-rijāl, ed. Bashshār
+Awwād Ma+rūf, 35 vols (Beirut, Mu$assasat al-Risāla, 1980–92), vol. XXVIII,
pp. 448 ff.
5 Abū’l-@asan +Alī b. Ismā+īl al-Ash+arī, Maqālāt al-islāmiyyīn wa-ikhtilāf
al-mu(allīn, ed. Helmut Ritter, 2 vols (Istanbul, MaZba+at al-Dawla, 1929–30),
vol. I, pp. 152–3; see also Gilliot, ‘Muqātil, grand exégète, traditionniste et
théologien maudit’, pp. 50–3.
6 Mizzī, Tahdhīb al-kamāl, vol. XXVIII, pp. 436–7.

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7 Cf. the title of Gilliot’s article, ‘Muqātil, grand exégète, traditionniste et théolo-
gien maudit’.
8 This has previously been pointed out by Cornelis [Kees] H. M. Versteegh,
‘Grammar and Exegesis: The Origins of Kufan Grammar and the Tafsīr
Muqātil’, Der Islam 67 (1990), pp. 206–42, see p. 208, and Paul Nwyia, Exégèse
coranique et langage mystique: Nouvel essai sur le lexique des mystiques musul-
mans (Beirut, Dar al-Machreq, 1970), p. 31.
9 For example, see the quotation from the grammarian Abū Zakariyyā$ al-Farrā$
(d. 207/822 – approx imately fifty years after Muqātil) in Muqātil, Tafsīr, at
Q. 24:2; Versteegh’s statement that additions are invariably marked as such
(‘Grammar and Exegesis’, p. 208) thus needs to be qualified. Similarly, the legal
statement that follows Q. 24:9, which is entirely uncharacteristic for Muqātil’s
style, is also not explicitly ascribed to anyone else.
10 Use of the term ‘stage direction’ in an exeget ical context was coined by John
Wansbrough, Quranic Studies: Sources and Methods of Scriptural Interpretation
(Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1977), pp. 124 and 130; see also Versteegh,
‘Grammar and Exegesis’, p. 210.
11 On this commentary, see Fred Leemhuis, ‘Origins and Early Development of
the tafsīr Tradition’ in Andrew Rippin, ed., Approaches to the History of the
Interpretation of the Qur#ān (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1988), pp. 13–30.
12 Claude Gilliot, ‘The Beginnings of Qur$ānic Exegesis’, tr. Michael Bonner, in
Andrew Rippin, ed., The Qur#an: Formative Interpretation (Aldershot, Ashgate
Variorum, 1999), pp. 1–27 (originally published as ‘Les débuts de l’exégèse
cora nique’, Revue du monde musulman et de la Méditerranée 58 (1990),
pp. 82–100), see pp. 13 and 17–18. Gilliot’s classification is of course based on
Wansbrough’s inclusion of the Tafsīr Muqātil in the genre of ‘haggadic exegesis’
(Wansbrough, Quranic Studies, pp. 122 ff.). Cf. also Andrew Rippin, ‘Tafsīr’ in
Andrew Rippin, The Qur’an and its Interpretative Tradition (Aldershot,
Ashgate Variorum, 2001), ch. 10 (reprint from ER, vol. XIV, pp. 236–44), p. 8,
where the Tafsīr Muqātil serves as the prime representative of ‘narrative tafsīr’.
13 Wansbrough, Quranic Studies, p. 127.
14 See, for example, the analysis of the beginning of Muqātil’s treat ment of Sūrat
al-Fat& (Q. 48) in Sinai, Fortschreibung, pp. 253–4. That asbāb al-nuzūl narrat-
ives among other things perform the func tion of delimiting Qur’anic sections
has been high lighted by Andrew Rippin, ‘The Function of asbāb al-nuzūl in
Qur$ānic Exegesis’, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 51
(1988), pp. 1–20, at p. 8: ‘Creating a story [. . .] performs a basic exeget ical func-
tion of providing an authoritative inter pretational context and determining
the limits of each narrative pericope.’
15 See n. 17 below.
16 Calder, ‘Tafsīr from Fabarī to Ibn Kathīr’, p. 101.
17 Cf. the characterist ics discussed in Tilman Nagel, ‘Die Qi}a} al-Anbiyā$: Ein
Beitrag zur arabischen Literaturgeschichte’ (PhD disser tation, Universität
Bonn, 1967), pp. 123 ff. In the light of Nagel’s work, the style and reper toire of
motifs employed in § 2 of Muqātil’s commentary on Q. 84 constitute sufficient
justification for describing it as a qi((a. It is never theless noteworthy that the
passage itself uses the term qi((a in a slightly different sense immediately after
the quotation of Q. 69:19–20, namely, in reference to a portion of Qur’anic text,

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i.e., in the sense of ‘pericope’. This would seem to confirm my earlier statement
that Muqātil conceives of textual coherence in exclusively narrative terms.
18 Cf. the variation of Q. 89:22 at the beginning of § 2. Muqātil’s commentary on
Q. 76:20 goes even further in melting down the Qur’anic wording by occa sion-
ally exchanging Qur’anic expressions with synonyms.
19 Similar examples for a narrat ive ampli fication of Qur’anic material from other
works are given in Nagel, ‘Qi}a}’, pp. 19–20.
20 Muqātil, Tafsīr, vol. IV, p. 637, ll. 14–15 (a few lines after Q. 84:9 is quoted).
21 Incidentally, a further theological point is made at the very end of Muqātil’s
commentary on the sura, where it is emphasised that the concluding exception –
Q. 84:25: Except for those who believe and do good deeds; they will have an
unfailing reward – was motivated by ‘a preceding act of knowledge’. In other
words, Muqātil is concerned to emphasise that God did not suddenly change his
mind between verses 24 and 25 and consequently appears to have been committed
to the notion of divine immutability.
22 Walid Saleh has helpfully introduced the term ‘adjacent inter pretation’ in
order to describe the way in which A&mad b. Mu&ammad al-Tha+labī
(d. 427/1035) associatively links the Qur’anic text with prophetic tradition
(Walid A. Saleh, The Formation of the Classical Tafsīr Tradition: The Qur#ān
Commentary of al-Tha$labī (d. 427/1035) [Leiden, Brill, 2004], pp. 195 ff.). I
myself have spoken of ‘connect ive inter pretation’ (see Sinai, Fortschreibung,
pp. 19–21; see also ibid., pp. 231–2).
23 Al-Aswad also appears in Muqātil at Q. 20:124.
24 For example, the eschatological accounts given at Q. 76:11 (cf. Q. 6:31) and
Q. 76:20 (cf. Q. 56:21) are also exeget ically recycled.
25 See Mu&ammad b. Jarīr al-Fabarī, Tafsīr al-^abarī al-musammā Jāmi$ al-bayān
fī ta#wīl al-Qur#ān, prepared by A&mad Ismā+īl al-Shākūkānī, 12 vols (Beirut,
Dār al-Kutub al-+Ilmiyya, 1999) at Q. 20:40 (no. 24131) and Q. 28:9–11, 18, 20
(nos 27188, 27196, 27222, 27277 and 27289).
26 See, in much greater detail, Sinai, Fortschreibung, chapters 2 and 11.
27 See, for example, Fabarī, Tafsīr, nos 81–2 (vol. I, p. 60).
28 See, in detail, Nicolai Sinai, ‘When Did the Consonantal Skeleton of the Quran
Reach Closure? Part I’, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 77
(2014), pp. 273–92, nos 2 and 3.
29 Cf. Gilliot, ‘Beginnings’.
30 Claude Gilliot, ‘Portrait “Mythique” d’Ibn +Abbās’, Arabica 32 (1985),
pp. 127–84.
31 Harald Motzki with Nicolet Boekhoff-van der Voort and Sean W. Anthony,
Analysing Muslim Traditions: Studies in Legal, Exegetical and Maghāzi Hadīth
(Leiden, Brill, 2010), pp. 231–303; see in particu lar the conclusion on pp. 297–8.
32 Sinai, ‘Consonantal Skeleton’.
33 See William A. Graham, Beyond the Written Word: Oral Aspects of Scripture in
the History of Religion (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1987),
pp. 103–4 and 110 ff.; John Barton, The Spirit and the Letter: Studies in the
Biblical Canon (London, SPCK, 1997), pp. 107–8.
34 Daniel Madigan, The Qur#ân’s Self-Image: Writing and Authority in Islam’s
Scripture (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2001), p. 52. Cf. the similar
hypothesis of Jonathan E. Brockopp, Early Mālikī Law: Ibn $Abd al-/akam and

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his Major Compendium of Jurisprudence (Leiden, Brill, 2000), p. 123: ‘To

summarize, it is my theory that the Qur$ān was revealed and collected within
the Prophet’s lifetime or shortly thereafter, but that this collection was driven by
the role of the Qur$ān in ritual and devotional recitation, not as a legal text. Like
Arabic poetry, the words of the Qur$ān were memorized and chanted, main-
taining their distinctiveness in the face of conquest and expansion. Leaders were
chosen along tribal, not religious, criteria, and no institution existed that could
have interpreted and enforced Qur$ānic norms even if the leaders desired it.’
35 Cf. Richard W. Bulliet, Islam: The View from the Edge (New York, Columbia
University Press, 1994), p. 29: ‘It is hard to imagine that the hundreds of thou-
sands of mostly illiterate, geographically dispersed Arabs who identified them-
selves as Muslims knew much more about the Quran than a few favorite
passages and prayers, or certain selected verses that were reiterated as proof
texts in political and doctrinal disputes.’ See also Theodor Nöldeke and
Friedrich Schwally, Geschichte des Qorāns, vol. II: Die Sammlung des Qorāns
(Leipzig, Dieterich’sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1919), pp. 7–8.
36 The most impressive example of early theological prooftex ting is the Epistle of
al-@asan al-Ba}rī, which van Ess has dated to before 699 CE (Josef van Ess,
Anfänge muslimischer Theologie: Zwei antiqadar itische Traktate aus dem ersten
Jahrhundert der Hi~ra [Beirut, Orient-Institut, 1977]; but see now 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), pp. 161–239. On the use of Qur’anic quota-
tions in early Islamic law, see Harald Motzki, The Origins of Islamic
Jurisprudence: Meccan Fiqh before the Classical Schools, tr. Marion H. Katz
(Leiden, Brill, 2002), pp. 108–17.
37 It must be pointed out that the reverse case of ‘de-Qur’anisation’, by which
Qur’anic citations dropped out of a narrative, also occurred (Sinai,
Fortschreibung, pp. 265–7).
38 On ‘re-oralisation’ with respect to the New Testament gospels, see Samuel
Byrskog, Story as History – History as Story: The Gospel Tradition in the Context
of Ancient Oral History (Tübingen, Mohr Siebeck, 2000), pp. 138 ff.; Hans-Josef
Klauck, Apokryphe Evangelien: Eine Einführung (Stuttgart, Katholisches
Bibelwerk, 2002), p. 9.
39 Fabarī, Tafsīr, at Q. 108, vol. XII, pp. 716–21.
40 Wansbrough, Quranic Studies, p. 127. Rather than refusing to call such narrative
elaborations exegesis at all, the same point might perhaps be made by speak ing
of ‘keyword exegesis’. Cf. Angelika Neuwirth’s description of narrative ampli-
fications of isolated Qur’anic expressions in ‘From the Sacred Mosque to the
Remote Temple: Sūrat al-Isrā$ between Text and Commentary’ in Jane Dammen
McAuliffe, Barry D. Walfish and Joseph W. Goering, eds, With Reverence for the
Word: Medieval Scriptural Exegesis in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (Oxford,
Oxford University Press, 2003), pp. 376–407, at pp. 398–9.
41 Leemhuis (‘Origins and Early Development of the tafsīr Tradition’, pp. 26–7)
dates the beginning of glossatory exegesis to the mid-seventh century CE, as he
seems to accept the historicity of Ibn +Abbās’ exegetical activ ity and hence the
postu late of an uninterrupted chain of exegetes connecting the Prophet to later
mufassirūn.

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42 The need for such glosses frequently stems from the characteristic elusiveness
and referential indeterminacy of many Qur’anic expressions as much as (and
possibly even more than) from lexical opacity.
43 Cf. the examples listed in Sinai, Fortschreibung, pp. 271–2, n. 45.
44 Mizzī, Tahdhīb al-kamāl, vol. XXVIII, p. 440; see also Gilliot, ‘Schoolmaster,
Storyteller, Exegete and Warrior’, p. 325.
45 >a&&āk is said to have died in 106/724 (see Gilliot, ‘Schoolmaster, Storyteller,
Exegete and Warrior’, p. 319), while Gilliot estimates Muqātil to have been
born between 75/694 and 80/699 (see this chapter, n. 2). But see Gilliot,
‘Schoolmaster, Storyteller, Exegete and Warrior’, p. 327, referring to a report
according to which Muqātil was still a schoolboy at the time of >a&&āk’s
death. If authentic, >a&&āk’s utterance would date some version of Muqātil’s
commentary to the 720s, although it would still be likely that the text kept
expanding and evolving during subsequent decades.
46 Wansbrough, Quranic Studies, pp. 130–1.
47 Louis Massignon, Recueil de textes inédits concernant l’histoire de la mystique
en pays d’islam (Paris, Librairie orientaliste Paul Geunthner, 1929), p. 195.
48 For example, ka-dhālika = hākadha and dhālika = hādhā. These 181 constants
are followed by a further list of twenty-three constants with exceptions. The
passage has been edited in Massignon, Recueil, pp. 195 ff.
49 Muqātil is also identified as the author of a more comprehensive dictionary-
type work called the Kitāb al-wujūh (or al-Ashbāh wa’l-na)ā#ir). As I argue in
Sinai, Fortschreibung, pp. 287–8, this work is likely to have been compiled on
the basis of the Tafsīr Muqātil rather than vice versa. It is not impossible, of
course, that Muqātil should never theless be the text’s author, although it seems
equally likely that the work is by someone else, perhaps a student.
50 See this chapter, before n. 14.
51 The citation of previous authorit ies and the presence of poly valent inter preta-
tions of the Qur’anic text constitute the second of Calder’s three defining char-
acteristics of tafsīr; see Calder, ‘Tafsīr from Fabarī to Ibn Kathīr’, pp. 103–4.
52 Read either turā khalaqan bāliyatan or yurā khalaqan bāliyan (which might
still be construed as referring to heaven, despite the fact that Q. 84:1–2, of
course, treats samā# as feminine). The passage is perhaps a very distant echo of
Isaiah 51:6 (‘the earth will wear out like a garment’).
53 Qāla – perhaps a reference to the source from whom this narrative was tran-
scribed, whether that be Muqātil himself or someone else?
54 The text reads $Abd al-Aswad, which would appear to be corrupted from $Abd
al-Asad, caused by conflat ing the evil brother’s name with that of his father.
55 See this chapter, n. 53.
56 See this chapter, n. 17.
57 Possibly inspired by Q. 7:46 or Q. 17:45, even though the veil spoken of in
the present context is one separating the evildoers from God, not from the
believers.
58 Alternatively: ‘so that He does not see him [al-Aswad]’.
59 Literally: ‘may God’s curse be upon it / him [al-Aswad?]’.
60 See this chapter, n. 53.
61 See this chapter, n. 21.

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