Is Ibn Taymiyya the Contemporary with Whom Abū Ḥayyān Argued About the Nature of ʿIlm al-Tafsīr?

The question of whether Qur'anic exegesis should be confined solely to the transmitted reports from early scholars or whether the exegete is permitted to offer their own interpretations has been a subject of debate since the beginning of Tafsīr. Abū Ḥayyān (654-745/1256-1344) also also stated in his muqaddimah to al-Baḥr al-Muḥīṭ that he discussed this issue with an unnamed contemporary. Today, some scholars claim that Ibn Taymiyya (661-728/1263-1328) was the contemporary whom Abū Ḥayyān criticized in the introduction to al-Baḥr al-Muḥīṭ based on the narrations in the books of ṭabaqāt. There is an interesting story of Abū Ḥayyān and Ibn Taymiyya, who lived in the same period and in the same city for a while. There have even been special studies on their relationship. The aim of this article is to evaluate this claim. The article first analyzes the relationship between the two scholars. Subsequently, the claims that Ibn Taymiyya was the contemporary of Abū Ḥayyān are reviewed. These claims are then criticized in the context of Ibn Taymiyya's understanding of tafsīr. Considering the information in the sources of ṭabaqāt and Ibn Taymiyya's method of tafsīr, it is highly probable that Ibn Taymiyya was the contemporary in the introduction of al-Baḥr al-Muḥīṭ. However, although the exegetical theory criticized in al-Baḥr al-Muḥīṭ's muqaddīmah overlaps with Ibn Taymiyya's point of view to a great extent, there are some differences in some aspects. For this reason, it is possible that the contemporary in question was someone else who only advocated the dependence on transmission in tafsīr.