Part 1 of this article (JQS 25:3) shared the results of a multi-year project to convert the most important union catalogue of Arabic tafsīr manuscripts, al-Fihris al-shāmil, into a searchable database. The paper used this database to identify the most longitudinally popular commentaries on the Qur’an and assess the extent to which academic scholarship had previously studied them. The present article (Part 2) seeks to provide a preliminary profile of the top 50 tafsīr works and their authors. It examines the geographical and chronological patterns that characterise these ‘best-sellers’ and explores how these works may have achieved their fame. Part 2 concludes with new questions for the field and a consideration of the potential relevance of the top 50 tafsīr works for the field of academic Qur’anic Studies itself.
Samuel J. Ross (2025) studied this question.