02
محمد بن جرير
224–310 AH
He was born in Amul, Tabaristan, in 224 AH. He travelled for hadith and fiqh as the great ones travelled — Rayy, Baghdad, Kufa, Basra, Egypt, Sham. He sat with the students of Ibn Hanbal’s generation. He wrote a tafsir that later mufassirun cannot walk around, and a history that later historians still open. He died in Baghdad in 310 AH. They buried him at night; some of the Hanabilah of the city had stirred against him. The books outlived the noise.
Two works made his name: Jami al-Bayan an tawil ay al-Quran, and Tarikh al-Rusul wa al-Muluk. The first is tafsir with isnad. The second is history with isnad. The method is one method.
The shelf of his books
The tafsir method is opened on the Tafsir shelf: Quran by Quran, then the Prophet, then the Companions, then their students — then ‘Abu Jafar said.’
Ibn Kathir, al-Suyuti, and the later tafsir tradition drink from Jami al-Bayan even when they do not name the cup. The Tarikh is the same water poured into years instead of ayahs.
How later scholars used him
How to weigh this
He had a madhhab of his own for a time; it did not survive as a school. His tafsir and his tarikh did. That is the measure of the man.