The Formative Development of Shiʿi Qur'anic Exegesis

Abstract

Shi'i Qur’anic exegesis, like other Shi'i religious sciences, has its formative roots in a very different experience and reading of early Islamic history than Sunnis have. This is reflected in a distinctive set of intellectual principles that define the Shi'i approach to these various religious sciences – from theology and law, to hadith compilation and Qur’anic interpretation. Qur'anic exegesis, particularly in relation to the Imams and their status, was a central preoccupation for many early Shi'i writers, and Shi'i bibliographers attribute works of tafsir or qira'at (concerning differences in the recited text) to many of the Imams’ close disciples. In the absence of the Imams, Shi'i scholars developed their own religious sciences – from hadith transmission, to jurisprudence, to Qur’anic exegesis – in a manner less directly dependent on the guidance of the Imams, and in many ways, similar to their Sunni counterparts.