A BRIEF OVERVIEW TO THE HISTORY OF TAFSIR

The last divine book, the Qur'an, is advice and remedy for all mankind; and a guide and grace for the believers. A Muslim learns the meaning and purpose of life from the Qur'an; and shapes his words and actions in the guidance of the Qur’an. Therefore, he needs to understand it correctly. Yet, the science of tafsir (Quranic exegesis) that endeavours to interpret the Qur’an, the Word of Almighty Allah, in a way that is appropriate to His will, aims at meeting this need. The Prophet (pbuh) who completely communicated and declared the revelation he received from Allah to the people is the first interpreter (mufassir) of the Qur'an. After the Prophet, the companions of the Prophet (sahabah) and the successors of the companions (tabi？n) have also played an important role in such interpretation. Until the period of the companions and the successors of the companions, the tafsir was not edited (tadvin), so it was transmitted orally. The narration of tafsir, which was a branch of the science of hadith initially, then became an independent science and works were begun to be written in this field. The science of tafsir is divided into two as Tafsir bi’l-Riwayah (Narration-Based Tafsir) and Tafsir bi’l-Dirayah (Opinion-Based Tafsir). In addition to these, new ecoles have emerged as sectarian, ishari, fiqhi, sociological, scientific and modernist exegesis, which are rather sub-ecoles of Tafsir bi’l-Dirayah (Opinion-Based Tafsir)