Although the origin of writing tafsīrs (commentaries) and hāshiyas (marginalias)
goes back to the early period of Islam, it was not widespread before the 7th century
hijra. e fact that this genre gained prevalence can be seen as the result of a number of factors. e first of these was that as the main sources of Islamic knowledge
had been written by this period, there was now a need to correctly understand
and interpret them. e second factor was the emergence of summary texts from
the Madrasah education as well as the tradition of discussing and explaining
them. And the third factor was the need to gain continuity of thought through a
main text. Another type of writing that can be considered to be part of this genre
(tafsīrs and hāshiyas) is the study of muhākamāt (adjudications), which was the
result of a search for solutions to eradicate disagreements between authors and
commentators or between commentators and hāshiya writers. In these works, the
authors arbitrate disagreements between scholars and try to determine whether
their arguments are accurate or inaccurate. Starting most probably with Avicenna’s
al-Insāf, muhākamāt writings soon became a common genre in all other Islamic
disciplines. is literature is important for the late Islamic literary tradition, allowing us to observe the dynamism and continuity of Islamic disciplines. is article
aims to examine the muhākamāt tradition in the context of three important tafsīrs,
al-Kashshāf by Zamakhsharī, Anwār al-Tanzīl by Baydāwī and al-Bahr al-Muhīt
by Abū Hayyān