Tafsir al-Ayyashi

Tafsir Ayyashi (Arabic: تفسیر العیاشي) is an Imami Shia exegesis of the Quran, written by Mohammad ibn Masoud Ayyashi also known as al-ʿAyyashi (العيّاشي d. 320 AH / 932 CE).

Tafsir al-Ayyashi

Author	Mohammad ibn Masoud al-Ayyashi
Original title	تفسير العياشي
Language	Arabic
Subject	Quranic exegesis
Genre	Religious
Media type	Print

The surviving text covers only up to the end of sura 18, 'The Cave'; more material is quoted by later Imami scholars,^[1] for instance Tabrisi.^[2] As of the 18th century, al-Majlisi and Al-Hurr al-Aamili were not aware of the complete text of Ayyashi's work.

Similar to Tafsir Furat Kufi and Tafsir Qomi, this work is a collection of commentaries upon selected verses, not a unified commentary of the entire text. Many of its single-verse commentaries also exist, independently of ʿAyyashi, in al-Kulayni's al-kafi and al-Hakim al-Hasakani's Shawahid al-tanzil.^[3] Many of these hadiths were taken from al-Sayyari's Kitab al-Qiraat; others, from the lost tafasir of Jabir ibn Yazid al-Juʿfi and Abu'l-Jarud Ziyad ibn al-Mundhir (technically a Zaydi, founder of the Jarudiyya). Correlation with the Shawahid hints at Sunni material as well.^[1][4][5]

ʿAyyashi accepted hadiths that held that there had been alteration (tahrif) in the ʿUthmanic mushaf of the Qur'an.^[1] He also was interested in apocalyptic material, which he brought to Q. 2:148, 155 (but not 243); 3:83; 6:158 (not 65); 8:39; 9:33; 11:8; 16:1; 17:4–8.^[6] The focus of his work however was in jurisprudence, the ayat al-ahkam.^[1]

The first complete translation into English of the Tafsir al-Ayyashi was published in 2020 by the AMI Press as a bi-lingual scholarly text edition.^[7]