This dissertation investigates the interpretation of the Golden Calf episode in the Quran and Islamic commentary literature (tafsīr ). Part I shows that modern scholars have misunderstood the Quranic version of the story as an example of Jewish influence on Islam. Muslim exegetes constructed an elaborate narrative around the Quranic passages depicting the Calf episode, positing that a malefactor named "Sāmirī" used magic to animate the Golden Calf and lead the Israelites astray. Scholars have assumed that this is what the Quranic story actually means, although the key Quranic verses are ambiguous. Since the Muslim interpretation of the episode corresponds to various Jewish traditions, scholars have supposed that those traditions must have been the source of the Quranic narrative, though allegations of a direct influence of Judaism on the Quran actually seem to be unwarranted in this case.

Part II examines the development of Islamic commentary on this story and demonstrates how debate over the nature of the Calf evolved in tafsīr from its beginnings up through the 5^th/11 ^th century. Although the Quranic episode does not seem to posit either an animate Calf or an autonomous character named "Sāmirī," the tafsīr elaborates upon both of these themes for specific ideological ends. Although sāmirī may have originally been an epithet of Aaron, by taking the term as the proper name of a distinct character, the exegetes distanced Aaron from the sin of the making of the Calf. Although the claim that "Sāmirī" had actually transmuted the Golden Calf into a living animal seems to have initially been widespread in tafsīr, it was suppressed by some exegetes, including T&dotbelow;abarī (d. 310/923), traditionally considered the most important of the classical commentators. Analysis of his representation of possible interpretations of the Calf shows that he distorted the views of some of his predecessors in order to marginalize the claim that Sāmirī had actually created a Calf of flesh and blood; thus, T&dotbelow;abarī's commentary cannot be treated simply as a neutral source for recovery of early tafsīr.