Mujāhid ibn Jabr and His Exegetical Legacy: A Critical Study of His Biography, Scholarly Authority, Sources, Methodology, and Reported Objections

امام مجاہد بن جبرؒ اور ان کی تفسیری روایت: سوانح، علمی مقام، مصادر، منہج اور منقول اعتراضات کا تحقیقی و تنقیدی جائزہ

Abstract

This article presents a critical introduction to Mujāhid ibn Jabr, one of the most influential Meccan Successors in the formative history of Qurʾanic exegesis. It distinguishes three matters that are often conflated: Mujāhid’s personal authority as a transmitter and interpreter, the dispersed exegetical reports attributed to him in early compilations, and the later printed work commonly entitled Tafsīr Mujāhid. Drawing upon biographical dictionaries, works of narrator criticism, early tafsīr collections, and modern scholarship, the study examines his lineage, teachers, pupils, intellectual formation under Ibn ʿAbbās, and reception among hadith critics and exegetes. It then reconstructs the main features of his method, including explanation of rare vocabulary, contextual interpretation, recourse to transmitted knowledge, juristic inference, qirāʾāt, historical reports, and restrained reasoning. Particular attention is given to two recurrent criticisms: his reported consultation of the People of the Book and the report attributing to him an interpretation of al-maqām al-maḥmūd as the Prophet’s seating upon the Throne. Rather than dismissing or accepting these materials categorically, the article evaluates their transmission routes, textual settings, and relation to stronger reports. It concludes that Mujāhid’s authority in tafsīr is firmly established, while individual reports and the printed compilation must each be assessed through independent isnād and textual criticism.