Author: Muhammad bin Jarir bin Yazid al-Tabari. His interpretation is for the sake of interpretations and the greatest of them, and it was distinguished by the following: • Collecting the hadiths of the Companions and others in the interpretation. • Attention to grammar and poetic evidence. • exposure to direct statements. • Weighting between sayings and readings. • Diligence in jurisprudential issues with accuracy in deduction. • He is free of heresies, and his victory is for the doctrine of the Sunnis. • And his approach in his book is that he issues his interpretation of the verses by mentioning what is narrated from the Prophet - may God bless him and grant him peace - and the Companions and those without them.

Al-Tabari used to talk to himself since his youth about writing this interpretation, and Yaqut Al-Hamwi narrated that he used to pray to God Almighty three years before he started writing it. Every day, there are forty papers.” And it is narrated that al-Tabari, when he wanted to dictate his interpretation, said to his companions: “Are you active in interpreting the Qur’an? They said: How much is his value? He said: Thirty thousand papers, and they said: This is from what ages vanish before its completion, so he shortened it to about three thousand papers. Then he said: Are you interested in the history of the world from Adam to our time? They said: How much is it? So he mentioned a way of what he mentioned in the interpretation, and they answered him in the same way, so he said: Indeed, to God, the determination has died, so he shortened it in a way that shortened the interpretation.

Al-Tabari dictated his interpretation to Abu Bakr bin Kamel in the year 270 AH, then he dictated it to Abu Bakr bin Balweh from the year 283 AH to the year 290 AH. Thirty-six years. Ibn Jarir al-Tabari is considered one of the first to single out interpretation by authorship, and make it a stand-alone science, as Sheikh Manaa bin Khalil al-Qattan says: The first to interpret the Qur’an according to the arrangement of the Qur’an: Ibn Majah (d. 273 AH) and Ibn Jarir al-Tabari (d. 310 AH), but The interpretation of Ibn Majah is one of the lost interpretations, so the interpretation of al-Tabari is the oldest book of interpretation that has reached the present era in full, and al-Tabari is called the imam of the interpreters.