Tafsir al-Quran min al-Jami li-Ibn Wahb
- Author died
- 197 AH
- Editions
- Dār al-Gharb al-Islāmī
Tafsir al-Quran min al-Jami li-Ibn Wahb (The Exegesis of the Quran from the Compendium of Ibn Wahb) is an early collection of traditional Quranic commentary compiled by the Egyptian jurist and traditionist Abdullah ibn Wahb (125–197 AH / 743–812 CE) as part of his encyclopedic work al-Jami' .
Transmission and Manuscript Tradition
The surviving work is preserved through the North African recension transmitted by the Maliki jurist Sahnun ibn Sa'id (160–240 AH) from Ibn Wahb, which was subsequently transmitted by 'Isa ibn Miskin (d. 295 AH) to 'Abdullah ibn Masrur al-Tujibi . Audition records (sama'at) preserved on the manuscript document that it was read before Abu 'Abdullah Muhammad ibn Nasr al-Andalusi in Sha'ban and Ramadan of 405 AH by students including 'Umar ibn 'Abdullah ibn Abi Zayd and Muhammad ibn 'Abd al-'Aziz ibn Khalaf al-Ukhwah alongside his son 'Ali . Other classical scholars, such as al-Tha'labi, accessed Ibn Wahb's tafsir through an alternate line transmitted by Yunus ibn 'Abd al-A'la .
Content and Method
The work is characterized by elevated chains of transmission (asanid 'aliyah) documenting early exegesis from the first two Islamic centuries . Unlike standard tafsir works that follow the canonical order of the Quran from Surah al-Fatihah to al-Nas, the reports in Ibn Wahb's collection are organized according to his teachers (shuyukh) rather than the sequential layout of the Quranic text .
The collection preserves exegetical traditions from prominent early authorities of the Medinese school, such as Muhammad ibn Ka'b al-Qurazi (d. 117 AH), Zayd ibn Aslam (d. 136 AH), Malik ibn Anas (d. 179 AH), and 'Abd al-Rahman ibn Zayd ibn Aslam (d. 182 AH), alongside Egyptian traditionists including al-Layth ibn Sa'd (d. 175 AH) and Ibn Lahi'ah (d. 174 AH) . In addition to general commentary, the text preserves an early treatise on Quranic abrogation (al-nasikh wa-l-mansukh) attributed to Zayd ibn Aslam via al-Qasim ibn 'Abdullah ibn 'Umar ibn Hafs .
Modern Publication
The surviving manuscript fragments of the work were discovered, reconstructed, and edited by the German scholar Miklos Muranyi of the University of Bonn . His critical edition was published in three volumes by Dar al-Gharb al-Islami in 2003 .
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