Machine summary:
Ahmad Rahnamaei Introduction Although the emergence of formal written tafsir in the history of Shi‘i interpretation of the Qur’an can be dated almost to the third and fourth centuries AH (10-11th CE), there is enough evidence to suggest that the first generation of Shi‘a traditionist (muhaddith) exegetes belonged to the first century AH.
As two examples of Shi‘i classical commentary on the Qur’an, I will deal with an early traditional Shi‘i tafsir of the third century (9th CE) Tafsir al-Qummi, as well as with a work of the fifth century (11th CE), al-Shaykh al-Tusi’s theological commentary Al-Tibyan, describing both of their approaches to tafsir.
From the Shi‘a point of view the infallibility of the Prophet and the Imams of the Ahl al-Bayt was taken as guaranteed, so their ideas, approved through authentic chains of reliable authorities and sources, have been made use of in most Shi‘i tafsirs.
Thus, the first generation of Shi‘i commentators include those Shi‘i traditionists and scholars who narrated the interpretation of the Qur’an from the Prophet and from the Imams.
The method employed by this group in interpreting the Qur’an was to relate the traditions from the first generation and include them along with their full chains of transmission in their books of tafsir.
While the Shi‘i tafsirs in general and those by Qummi and Tusi in particular utilize many hadiths from the Imams of the Ahl al-Bayt,68 the Sunni works on the Qur’an, with the exception of very few cases, lack such hadiths.