﴿Mention of the reports﴾

﴿from some of the predecessors concerning those among the early exegetes whose knowledge of exegesis was praised﴾

﴿and those among them whose knowledge of it was blameworthy﴾

104- Muḥammad ibn Bashshār narrated to us, he said: Wakīʿ narrated to us, he said: Sufyān narrated to us, from Sulaymān, from Muslim, he said: ʿAbd Allāh said: "What an excellent interpreter of the Qurʾān Ibn ʿAbbās is!"

105- Yaḥyā ibn Dāwūd al-Wāsiṭī narrated to me, he said: Isḥāq al-Azraq narrated to us, from Sufyān, from al-Aʿmash, from Abū al-Ḍuḥā, from Masrūq, from ʿAbd Allāh ibn Masʿūd, he said: "What an excellent interpreter of the Qurʾān Ibn ʿAbbās is!"

106- And Muḥammad ibn Bashshār narrated to me, he said: Jaʿfar ibn ʿAwn narrated to us, he said: al-Aʿmash narrated to us, from Abū al-Ḍuḥā, from Masrūq, from ʿAbd Allāh, similar to it.

107- Abū Kurayb narrated to us, he said: Ṭalq ibn Ghannām narrated to us, from ʿUthmān al-Makkī, from Ibn Abī Mulayka, he said: I saw Mujāhid asking Ibn ʿAbbās about the exegesis of the Qurʾān while having his wooden tablets with him, and Ibn ʿAbbās would say to him: "Write!" He said: Until he asked him about the entirety of the exegesis. (1)

108- Abū Kurayb narrated to us, he said: al-Muḥāribī and Yūnus ibn Bukayr both said: Muḥammad ibn Isḥāq narrated to us, from Abān ibn Ṣāliḥ, from Mujāhid, he said: I presented the Qurʾānic text to Ibn ʿAbbās three times, from its beginning to its end, stopping him at every verse of it and asking him about it.