History?

 The first examples of tafsir can be traced back to Muhammad. According to Islamic belief, as the Quran was revealed to him, he recited the verses to his companions, usually explaining their meanings to teach them, as it was one of Muhammad's responsibilities.^[4] Elements of Muhammad's explanations including clarifying verses whose intents are not understood, the indication of names, places, times etc. which have not been mentioned in the verse, restriction of meanings which have been given as absolute and reconciliation of expressions which seem contradictory.^{[citation needed]} Although scholars including ibn Taymiyyah claim that Muhammad has commented on the whole of the Quran, others including Ghazali cite the limited amount of narratives (hadith), thus indicating that he has commented only on a portion of the Quran.^[1]

After the death of Muhammad, his companions (sahabah) undertook the task of interpretation, thus starting a new age in tafsir. Most of the sahabah, including Abu Bakr, refrained from commenting based on their personal views, and only narrated comments by Muhammad. Others including ibn Abbas used their own knowledge from the Arabic language to interpret the Quran. At this stage, tafsir was selective and concise regarding its coverage, and only certain words, phrases and verses were explained.^[1] The Quran was still not fully interpreted, and commentaries were not separated from the hadith collection nor written separately, mainly due to other occupations such as the collection of the Quran.^[5]

By the time of the next generations ensuing the sahabah, scholars in the age of the successors (tabi'in) started using a wide range of sources for tafsir. The whole of the Quran is interpreted, and narrations are separated from tafsir into separate books and literature. Grammatical explanations and historical data are preserved within these books; personal opinions are recorded, whether accepted or rejected. During this time, a whole range of schools of tafsir came into existence in different scholastic centers, including Mecca, Medina and Iraq. Iraqi schools of tafsir came to be known for an approach relied on personal judgment aside from the transmitted reports, and Jewish apocryphal reports were also widely employed.^[1] Notable compilers on this age including Sufyan al-Thawri.^[1]

Until this age, tafsir had been transmitted orally and had not been collected independently in a book, rather, they had been gathered by muhaddithun (lit. scholars of hadith) in their hadith books, under the topic of tafsir, along with other narrations of Muhammad.^[6] This indicates that tafsir, in its formative age, used to be a special domain within hadith. Widening of the scope of tafsir and emergence of mufassirun in the age of the successors lead to the development of an independent discipline of tafsir.^[1