| Abstract | The reputation of Abd Allāh b. Abbās as the greatest early exegete of the Qurān began as a product of Abbasid propaganda. Even his biography is suspect. To focus exclusively on the issue of authenticity, however, is to neglect the cultural memory he represents within Sunni Muslim tafsīr. Within the matns of the thousands of hadīths attributed to him, he is the mythic embodiment, the cultural memory, of the acceptable range of diversity that 're-collects' and helps unify the (Sunni) Muslim community. The Isnāds also preserve an independent cultural memory. In them, Ibn Abbās is the embodiment of an ideal: he stands as the cipher for the exegetical methodology that bases itself on the Qurān and on the Prophet and his Companions. The Ibn Abbās of the Isnāds represents the connection to and communication with these sources of knowledge that the Ibn Abbās of the matns seems to have rarely employed.
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