Abu Mijlaz

If you haven't heard of Lahiq bin Humayd, kunya Abu Mijlaz, that's the point - said Andreas Goerke in JSAI last year. Where later exegetes had incentive to foist tafasir upon al-Suddi and Qatada and (G-d help us) Ibn 'Abbas, Goerke believes that Abu Mijlaz sailed under the notice of later forgers.

Therefore, says Goerke, Abu Mijlaz traditions are worthy of being taken seriously. Hey look, it's the same assumption Harald Motzki (pbuh) made for Ibn Abi Muhammad! I'll just repeat (again) that I love this plan and I am happy to be a part of it.

The argument is not bulletproof; we have seen later authorities foist stuff on obscure early authorities when they know nobody will believe them should they dare cite (say) Qatada. I'll also tweak Goerke on dating these traditions to Abu Mijlaz's Basri sojourn, ending 86 AH so with 'Abd al-Malik (al-Hajjaj continued for another decade, ruling up in Wasit). I can well imagine a circle of Abu Mijlaz in Basra, maintaining a consensus after he left - a certainty if the teacher and his students interchanged messengers. But yes, 'tis a good place to start.

I don't know if Goerke stated the following as bluntly as I'm about to, but his argument implies as one point in favour of authenticity that Abu Mijlaz sometimes disputed the "'Uthmanic" text, which was of course al-Hajjaj's text. Arthur Jeffery lists several of Abu Mijlaz's variant readings, which Goerke (usually) cannot find - possibly because they are in Marandi's Escorial MS which is still unedited. In its place, though, Goerke finds plenty other variants. This mattered to Abu Mijlaz because he believed the Quran was a source for Divine Shari'a. That there existed an Umayyad mushaf, and that many well-informed Muslims outside Damascus quibbled it, is exactly what I'd expect of the Iraq of al-Hajjaj mid-80s / 700s.