The emergence of the word tafsir as both a process and a literary genre is unclear. The word tafsir appears only once in the Quran (25:33), suggesting that no formal science of interpretation was established early in the Islamic tradition. Traditionally, tafsir can be traced back to Muhammad. However, within hadith collections, only a small amount of tafsir is ascribed to the Prophet; much of the early exegesis is attributed to one of his companions, 'Abdallah ibn 'Abbas. During the first three centuries of Islam, the words ta'wil and tafsir were used interchangeably to mean “interpretation of the Quran,” and many authors employed either one of these terms (or none at all) to describe their exegetical enterprises. For example, Ibn Ishaq (d. 768), in his biography of the Prophet (Sirat rasul Allah), surrounds his citings of scripture with contextual detail, which serves to explain many vague, ahistorical Quranic passages; however, his activity was never formalized or labeled as tafsir. Other early exegetical works focus on explicating legal issues or theological rhetoric, such as Muqatil ibn Sulayman’s (d. 804) Tafsir khams mi'a aya min al-Qur'an, and Ibn Qutayba’s (d. 889) Ta'wil mushkil al-Qur'an (respectively), but again, each author uses a different term to describe his activities. After the tenth century, a gradual distinction was drawn between ta'wil, which came to refer to exegesis based upon reason or personal opinion, and tafsir, which relied on hadith reports going back to Muhammad and his early companions. Throughout history, individ'ual tafsir works emphasize either opinion or tradition, but sometimes rely on both. With the rapid expansion of Islam, problems arose in non-Arabic speaking communities with regard to the Quran and its translation and interpretation, which called for more formalized exegetical commentary that extended beyond the words of Muhammad or his companions. During the time of the successors, schools of tafsir evolved within distinct geographical regions: Mecca, Medina, and Iraq, along with their corresponding exegetical “specialists” (mufassirun). The jus'tification for the development of tafsir schools rests on Quran 3:5–6, which lays out two categories of Quranic verses: clear (muhkamat) and unclear (mutashabihat). The role of the exegete (mufassir) is to reiterate what is already “clear” and to clarify what is “unclear.” Much debate arose concerning what passages fell into either of these categories, as well as to what extent finite human reason could be relied upon to make such determinations. The resolution of this debate served to shape tafsir works (and continues to do so) on into the twenty-first centur
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