The fourteenth and fifteenth centuries witnessed an outburst of commentary writing, especially on canonical Arabic learned religious texts (jurisprudence, Qur'anic exegesis and traditions, dialectic theology, or kalam), and works in the religious auxiliary fields (logic and grammar). This phenomenon may be related to the increasing numbers of madrasa, the main locus of commentary production. Rather than strictly comprising a genre, the commentary served as a pedagogical and interpretive mode of writing. It textually reproduced the interaction between teacher and student through the mechanism of explanation, either in an elaborated or abridged format. It was thus through commentaries that the student first familiarized himself with authoritative religious texts. Commentaries, however, were not limited to pedagogical purposes. Aspiring scholars engaged in commentary writing in order to establish themselves textually within an isnad of scholarship leading back to authoritative texts around which textual communities took shape. Finally, as a tool of interpretation, the commentary format likewise facilitated debate and discussion of an authoritative work, as well as provided a platform for critique, amendment, and even refutation of certain stances, views and texts. Thus, through the commentary mode, a canon of authoritative works was continually refashioned, updated, and even displaced within changing conditions of understanding and interpretation. Despite their integral place in Ottoman intellectual life, commentaries have received relatively little attention by scholars. Thus, in addition to briefly touching upon the role and function of commentary writing in the early Ottoman period, this paper traces a particular textual community of commentaries explicating a cluster of related late thirteenth-century works by al-Urmawi, al-Qazvini al-Katibi, and al-Baydawi, all produced under the patronage of the Ilkhanid financial minister al-Juwayni in the interrelated disciplines of tafsir, kalam and logic. Here the relationship between scholarly networks, the commentary mode of textual production, and its relationship to the original text will be considered. We will examine specifically the commentaries and super-commentaries produced by fifteenth authors such as Şemseddin Fenari, Cürcani (al-Jurjani), ‘Ala’eddin ‘Ali et-Tusi, and Molla Hüsrev.