Passions and trials multiplied, and people began to champion their own opinions so fiercely that this escalated into mutual hostility and even fighting among Muslims. As a result, their disputes over the interpretation of Allah’s words became more numerous than those of the Companions. The farther one moves from the Prophetic age, the graver the tribulation and the more entangled truth becomes with falsehood. Indeed, in our own day we see that under every pillar of a mosque sits someone who fancies himself Ibn Taymiyyah, and in every tent in Mina there is someone who imagines he is Ahmad ibn Hanbal or al-Shafiʿi.

For this reason passions have proliferated to the point that, on questions which formerly admitted only one or two opinions, one now finds several. Knowledge is scarce while desire is abundant, and the inevitable consequence of scant knowledge and rampant passion is confusion, dispute, discord, and the loss of unity.

Among the Successors were those who received the whole of Qur’anic exegesis from the Companions. Mujahid said, “I presented the entire Mushaf to Ibn ʿAbbas, stopping him at every verse and asking him about it.” Hence al-Thawri declared, “When the tafsir of Mujahid reaches you, that suffices you.” For this reason his commentary was relied upon by al-Shafiʿi, al-Bukhari, and many other scholars; likewise, Imam Ahmad and others who authored works of tafsir cite chains through Mujahid more than through anyone else.

The point, then, is that the Successors took Qur’anic interpretation from the Companions just as they took from them the knowledge of the Sunnah, even though they sometimes spoke on certain matters by way of deduction and inference, just as they did with some reports of the Sunnah.