Razavi University of Islamic Sciences Quranic Doctrines 2251-9378 22 42 2025 12 22 A Critical Re-examination of Contemporary Quranic Scholars’ View on the Non-Ijtihādī Nature of Shiʿi Narrative Exegeses A Critical Re-examination of Contemporary Quranic Scholars’ View on the Non-Ijtihādī Nature of Shiʿi Narrative Exegeses 223 258 2018 10.30513/qd.2025.6928.2533 FA Mahdi Pichan PhD Graduate in Quranic and Hadith Sciences, Faculty of Humanities, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran. 0000-0002-2739-317X Nosrat Nilsaz Associate Professor, Department of Quranic and Hadith Sciences, Faculty of Humanities, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran. Journal Article 2025 04 08 Most authors in the field of Shiʿi exegetical methods and trends have classified narrative (riwāyī) exegeses as non-ijtihādī, viewing them as mere compilations of traditions that directly address the wording of Quranic verses, assembled without any authorial reasoning or intellectual engagement. This article challenges and refutes this view, arguing that the authors of Shiʿi narrative exegeses, like other interpreters, exercised ijtihād in their quest to understand the verses. They applied their intellectual judgment through the deliberate selection, organization, and prioritization of sources and narrations, thereby expressing their own exegetical stances. The most effective method to demonstrate this is a comparative analysis of these exegeses, focusing on their points of divergence—differences that reveal the distinct perspectives and concerns of their authors. A comparative study of early and later Shiʿi exegeses—namely Tafsīr al-Qummī (attributed to ʿAlī ibn Ibrāhīm al-Qummī), Tafsīr al-ʿAyyāshī, Tafsīr Furāt al-Kūfī (all from the late 3rd/early 4th century AH), al-Ṣāfī by Fayḍ al-Kāshānī (d. 1091 AH), al-Burhān by Sayyid Hāshim al-Baḥrānī (d. 1107 AH), and Nūr al-Thaqalayn by ʿAbd ʿAlī al-Ḥuwayzī (d. 1112 AH)—in the domains of jurisprudence, theology, and Quranic sciences reveals significant divergence on eleven fundamental issues. These include: the permissibility of interacting with the ruling authority, the Friday prayer, land tax (kharāj), the one-fifth levy (khums), the infallibility of prophets, the inimitability of the Quran, Meccan and Medinan revelations, abrogation, textual corruption of the Quran, variant readings, and occasions of revelation. Most authors in the field of Shiʿi exegetical methods and trends have classified narrative (riwāyī) exegeses as non-ijtihādī, viewing them as mere compilations of traditions that directly address the wording of Quranic verses, assembled without any authorial reasoning or intellectual engagement. This article challenges and refutes this view, arguing that the authors of Shiʿi narrative exegeses, like other interpreters, exercised ijtihād in their quest to understand the verses. They applied their intellectual judgment through the deliberate selection, organization, and prioritization of sources and narrations, thereby expressing their own exegetical stances. The most effective method to demonstrate this is a comparative analysis of these exegeses, focusing on their points of divergence—differences that reveal the distinct perspectives and concerns of their authors. A comparative study of early and later Shiʿi exegeses—namely Tafsīr al-Qummī (attributed to ʿAlī ibn Ibrāhīm al-Qummī), Tafsīr al-ʿAyyāshī, Tafsīr Furāt al-Kūfī (all from the late 3rd/early 4th century AH), al-Ṣāfī by Fayḍ al-Kāshānī (d. 1091 AH), al-Burhān by Sayyid Hāshim al-Baḥrānī (d. 1107 AH), and Nūr al-Thaqalayn by ʿAbd ʿAlī al-Ḥuwayzī (d. 1112 AH)—in the domains of jurisprudence, theology, and Quranic sciences reveals significant divergence on eleven fundamental issues. These include: the permissibility of interacting with the ruling authority, the Friday prayer, land tax (kharāj), the one-fifth levy (khums), the infallibility of prophets, the inimitability of the Quran, Meccan and Medinan revelations, abrogation, textual corruption of the Quran, variant readings, and occasions of revelation. https://qd.razavi.ac.ir/article_2018_fa5837686fb00b46dfa9baf6ad6dbf6a.pdf