WITHIN THE COMPARATIVE STUDY of religious traditions, prediction motifs abound. The prior, often scriptural, annunciation of prophets, founder figures and other such charismatic individuals is a common topos in most of the world's literate religions. Not infrequently it forms a canonical point of connection between an earlier tradition and that which followed it. Buddhist biographical literature creates lineage links between Gautama and those who are seen as his previous embodiments or forerunners. Classical Christian biblical interpretation is replete with typological and prophetical identification. The Islamic tradition shares this topos, and early Muslim literature attests to its prevalence and popularity. A prominent instance may be found in the work of the tenth-century historian and exegete Abū Ja'far Muḥammad ibn Jarīr al-Tabarī, who treats the scriptural prediction of Muḥammad in both his Tafsīr and Taʾrīkh. The two works represent, of course, very different genres. The Tafsīr is an exegetical source structured as a musalsal commentary, while the later Taʾrīkh adopts an annalistic framework commencing with the world's creation. Although in many respects these two works are incommensurate, a host of commonly held, underlying assumptions connects them, assumptions which surface as they treat the prediction and annunciation of Muḥammad, albeit in quite different ways.

Tafsīr

In three well-known verses Muslims have long found their principal Qurʾānic evidence for the biblical attestation of Muḥammad. Taken together these passages have provided a scriptural mandate for what can be called Muslim biblical scholarship. Through the lens of al-Ṭabarī's Tafsīr these will be addressed in their textual order rather than through any attempt to establish their chronological order. Within the Islamic exegetical tradition, textual order is tafsīr order, a formal structure quite independent of the chronological rearrangement of sūras and verses. As it happens, these three verses, in their textual order, recapitulate the revelatory chronology of the three principal prototypes to Muḥam- mad's prophethood, i.e. Abraham, Moses and Jesus.