02

Tabari — the mother book

جامع البيان للطبري

310 AH / 923

Muhammad ibn Jarir al-Tabari wrote Jami al-Bayan an tawil ay al-Quran — the earliest large tafsir that still survives whole. He walks ayah by ayah. He names who said what. Later books drink from this well even when they do not name the cup. Ibn Taymiyyah called it one of the most authentic of the reports-based tafsirs. Ahmad Shakir said Ibn Kathir is the best after it. On Nur the method and the map of Tabari live on this shelf. The Arabic file of Al-Baqarah alone is larger than a whole recitation of Al-Fatiha. We do not pull it under every ayah.

Same man as the Tarikh. Same law: he delivers the report as it was delivered to him. The isnad is the warning. The tafsir is not a sahih collection.

The next four chapters are his method. Read them before you treat a line in Tabari as ‘the meaning.’