Finding references for the Hadiths in Sheikh Tousi’s Al-Tebyan through their correspondence with the Hadiths in the interpretations Al-Masabih by Wazir Maghrebi and Jame’ ul-Bayan by Tabari

The retrieval of references for the Hadiths in the Al-Tebyan Interpretation sheds light on the history of Shia interpretations before Sheikh Tousi and provides proximity to the early sources of Hadiths. Besides, the identification of the bibliographic identity of those Hadiths helps to assess their validity in Al-Tebyan. Through this process, some missing parts of ancient interpretations, such as the one by Wazir Maghrebi, are detected and reconstructed. Sheikh Tousi has included 1034 quotations from Imams in his Al-Tebyan. The references for a quarter of those quotations serve as a referential source for other Shia interpretations as well as Hadith books. The results of the study show that Tabari’s Jame’ ul-Bayan Interpretation provides references for 250 Hadith in the Al-Tebyan Interpretation. The Al-Masabih Interpretation by Wazir Maghrebi stands the second rank as to provide Hadiths for Al-Tebyan. Due to its link with Sunni interpretive and Hadith sources, Wazir Maghrebi’s book, though of Shia identity, serves as an intermediate source for Al-Tebyan. Of all the Hadiths written in Al-Tebyan, 140 are without references, which is due to Tousi’s customizing the original text as well as quoting from several Abu Ja’fars who may or may not refer to one of the Imams. Through the comparison of the Hadith in Al-Tebyan to those in the original sources, it emerges that, byAbu Ja’far, Tousi does not always mean Imam Baqher (pbuh). This is because Abu Ja’far has been a nickname shared by the Imam, Kalbi and Tabari.