Tafsir Attributed to Sufyan al-Thawri: Its Sources, Content and Effects of the Socio-Political Debates of the Period

Abstract

One of the significant hadith and Islamic law scholars of the second century hijra, Sufyan al-Thawri (d. 161/778) compiled one of the first examples of received commentary (riwaya tafsir) with the tafsir book attributed to him. Existing studies on the aforementioned tafsir are generally descriptive and far from presenting the place of the author in the field of tafsir. In order to follow the traces of Thawri's world of thought, this article aims to examine the background of his interpretations in the tafsir, analyse the narrations he compiled and focus on the reasons why these narrations concentrated around certain issues. Like all tafsir scholars, al-Thawri was the scholar of his period and he did not stay away from socio-political debates of the period. Hence, determination of effects of some historical and political developments on his work is also within the limits of this article. Thus, this study aims to make a modest contribution to better understanding of Sufyan al-Thawri's commentary.