Ibn Abbas

Abd Allah ibn al-Abbas was born around 619, the son of Muhammad's uncle al-Abbas, and was a boy when the Prophet died. He became one of the most respected scholars among the Companions, collecting what others remembered of Muhammad's words and of the meaning of the Quran. Britannica calls him the first exegete of the Quran.

After the civil wars of the early caliphate he refused to recognize Ibn al-Zubayr as caliph and withdrew to Taif, where he died around 687 or 688. His descendants later founded the Abbasid dynasty.

Explanations attributed to him fill the later commentaries of al-Tabari, Ibn Kathir and others. Not all of them are reliably his; scholars recognize that many sayings were credited to him to give them authority. On the site, Ibn Kathir cites him in identifying the unnamed man of Surah 27:40, who brings the Queen of Sheba's throne in the blink of an eye, as Asif ibn Barkhiya, Solomon's vizier.