TafsĪr
TAFSĪR is an Arabic word meaning "interpretation"; it is, more specifically, the general term used in reference to all genres of literature which are commentaries upon the Qurʾān.
TafsĪr and Related Terms
The word tafsīr is used only once in the Qurʾān (25:33), but this is not overly surprising, for most technical terms involved in Muslim exegesis have been derived and adapted either from the field of rhetoric or from the legal tradition. In the case of tafsīr the word appears to have evolved from a description of a poetic figure in which one hemistich contains an explanation of the preceding one.
There is much discussion in various Arabic sources concerning the precise meaning of the term tafsīr and its relationship to other technical words such as maʿānī, ta˒wīl, and sharḥ, all of which connote "interpretation" in some way. Historically, maʿānī, literally "meanings," appears to have been the earliest major term used for the title of works of interpretation; ta˒wīl, literally related to the notion of "returning to the beginning," was introduced perhaps late in the third century AH (early tenth century CE) as the general term for works of Qurʾānic interpretation, only to have been supplanted in the eleventh century CE by tafsīr.
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