Abû Isḥâq's Kufian tafsîr

Abû Isḥâq of al-Kûfa - brace for diacritics, tonight - was a legal specialist under the caliph Hishâm and for a few years of the chaos he left behind, d. AD 745. Most Muslims approve of him across confessional boundaries, which boundaries Najm Haider has proven already existed, especially after the Zayd bin ʿAlî mess. Andreas Görke is looking into one of Abû Isḥâq's sources, where he needed Qurânic warrant. This source is one al-Barâʾ bin ʿÂzib, d. 72/691.

That date is a banner year in Islam: the date pinned to the Dome of the Rock, and remembered as Unity Year. It falls also over a half century before the death of his best student.

Before I get into that, I must preface that Görke is one of the best scholars of early Islamic tradition we have. It's been awhile since I last looked at his take on Abû Mijlaz, and the two traditions in Tidings of Flame didn't intersect with that project's traditions (and are rejected anyhow); but I had no problem with Görke's summary, and I don't find where others had, either. Abû Mijlaz however died in the 100s AH. His floruit would have covered the final imprimatur upon the Umayyad codex under caliph Walîd and his pitbull Ḥajjâj in the ʿIrâq, flowing into the Sulaymân and ʿUmar II caliphates. Barâʾ is earlier.

I agree Barâʾ existed. I agree, further, he taught a school: Görke offers ʿAdī b. Ṯābit (d. c. 116/734), Saʿd b. ʿUbayda (d. 101/719), Khaythama (b. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, d. 82/701), Zādhān Abū ʿAmr (d. c. 83/702) and Abū Mālik al-Ghifārī (d. between 100/718 and 110/728), all of whom are Kufan.

Abû Isḥâq outlived every name in that school. Sure: he is also reported, or reputed, born 33/654, in which case Abû Isḥâq could have sat in on the Barâʾ classes in his thirties. That this one student also transmitted the most lore, I find sus.

I should like some research on when exactly Abû Isḥâq was transmitting to others. I have a feeling his transmissional peak will be under Hishâm, and not before. Most of these other students were transmitting before or during caliph ʿUmar, contemporary with Abû Mijlaz. Their students eschewed Abû Isḥâq at the time. If Abû Isḥâq was in late middle age and at the peak of his brainpower: why skip him?

Also to be added is that "Barâʾ" is recorded as transmitting relatively conservative vocalisations of the rasm. Relative to ... Abû Mijlaz, with the suras 92 and 99 I'd checked (and to repeat, I reject Abû Mijlaz on each). The "Barâʾ" readings follow what I expect of the generation of Abû Isḥâq, as Arthur Jeffery reported from al-Aʿmash (d. 148/764). By diachrony, Abû Mijlaz makes sense. Al-Barâʾ does not.

I propose that these early Barâʾ transmitters skipped Abû Isḥâq because Abû Isḥâq was, then, a student himself. Abû Isḥâq was not born in the 30s/650s. Rather, during the 100s/720s, our man compiled a Kûfic tafsîr from multiple sources, for his own use, which he ascribed to al-Barâʾ. Nobody else was allowed to copy this notebook.