Zamakhshari: the gunpowder-empire tafsir

If you read Arthur Jeffery's introduction to Materials, you will have seen him cite several classical works of Quranic commentary, philology, and variant-text-collection. Indeed Materials itself exists as the introduction to one of the latter, by Ibn Abi Dawud - son of that Abu Dawud. I spent rather too much of the middle 2000s tracking these texts in various libraries. (And we are all still awaiting the publication of Escorial 1337.) Today, let us consider commentary.

I noticed, checking up the tafsir side, that many interpretations seemed... similar. Walid Saleh a couple years back gave us the service of tracking how that happened.

Basically: Zamakhshari happened. Everything in Islamic commentary after him was a summary or a reaction. That is: until Salafism and the Sauds forced Ibn Kathir on everyone; but Jeffery was writing when the Sauds weren't his problem, when the Spanish Civil War was keeping him out of Madrid. Jeffery doesn't even cite Ibn Kathir!

Before Zamakhshari, Sunnis used Tha'labi (unknown to Jeffery), and then Tha'labi's abridgement by Baghawi (which Jeffery used instead). These were holdovers from the Tabari / Ibn Abi Hatim al-Razi era, where tafsir built upon older tafasir which in turn relied heavily upon the Hadith.

According to Saleh, Zamakhshari was a Mutazilite... in a time when the Mutazila was dead. Zamakhshari might even count as something of an "autistic LARPer". But he was so wise in his art that his tafsir got hailed as the best tafsir, eclipsing his predecessors. Indeed it became increasingly difficult for the Sunni to find copies of, say, Ibn Abi Hatim, Ibn Marduwayh, or even Tabari. Another Razi, and Abu Hayyan, used Zamakhshari extensively. Note also: "Razi" means from Rhages - from Tehran. A Shi'ite, also, could appreciate Zamakhshari.

Which may explain the jurist Baydawi, working in somewhat-nearby Tabriz. He did a Zamakhshari abridgement editing out that annoying Mutazilism. This made the project more Sunni-friendly.

It seems Biqaʿi (again, not used by Jeffery) was he who touted Baydawi as the best mufassir. Jalal al-Din Suyuti liked Baydawi too but credits, rather, his own teachers; Biqaʿi was... ideosyncratic, in his approach. Biqaʿi is mostly famous for taking the Bible seriously. Suyuti did two tafasir of his own: the Durr citing sources before him, like Tabari of yore; another, more "orthodox", completed the commentary begun by Mahalli.

I get the impression that rulers like the Mongols at Tabriz and, later, the Ottomans rather preferred a Mutazilite approach to Islam, over the juristic mob of the Sunnis. Zamakhshari's work got copied from On High. It was the commons who'd kept Baghawi in print; it would be the jurists who did the same for Baydawi under the Mongols' short noses.

Well... time went on, and the Arab Street got tired of losing, or at least of watching the Ottomans and Moghuls lose on their behalf. Thus: Salafism / Deobandism. Thus: Ibn Kathir.