Muqātil ibn Sulaymān () (d. 767 C.E.) was an 8th-century story teller of the Quran. He wrote one of the earliest, if not first, commentaries (tafsir) of the Qur'an still available today. Biography Born in Balkh in Khorasan, there are no works that date his birth, but some have estimated his birth year to be around 80 H. He spent his early life in both Balkh and Marw. In Balkh, he was impacted by the religious diversity it had in the pre-islamic era. He later migrated to Marw in order to get married. During the caliphate of Marwan II, Muqatil was involved in the civil war between the Abbasids and Umayyads. With the end of Umayyad rule he migrated to Iraq, settling in Basra and then moving to Baghdad. Due to possible Zaydi influence, he preferred the Abbasids to the previous Umayyad government, and some sources indicate that he would frequent the Abbasid court. Once, when visiting the Caliph al-Mansur, a fly sat on his face. Muqatil remarked that God had created the fly to humble the tyrants. He later returned to Basra where he died in 150 H (767 CE). Theology Muqatil's views stood in complete opposite to the views of the contemporary Mu'tazila, as his ideas related to physical aspects and likening God to human image and activity. His views on divine anthropomorphism were notorious to later generations, but in spite of his “extreme” corporealism, he employed ta'wil in his tafsir even on verses on the attributes of Allah believed by many to show the contradiction in his thought. Muqatil Ibn Sulayman also strongly associated "commanding right" with furthering the monotheism that he taught, but also with a pacifist approach. Views on Divine Attributes He interpreted the divine attributes in a literal, sometimes anthropomorphic sense, affirming Wajh Allah (the divine countenance), as a literal face, Ayn Allah (the divine eye) as a literal eye, Yad Allah (the divine hand) as a literal hand. He stated that God sat on the throne - describing Istiwa as Istaqarra (settlement), although he states that he did this before creating the creation. Closer inspection of his Tafsir yields that he inclined towards anthropomorphist interpretation of the Kursi (throne) and the right side of God (as well as the seeing of God which is seen as anthropomorphic by the Mu'tazila who thought God can only be seen if he is a Jism (body)).