Al tabari biography

Muhammad ibn Jarir al-Tabari

Muhammad ibn Jarir al-Tabari (839-923) was clever Moslem historian and religious academic whose annals are the maximum important source for the untimely history of Islam. He interest also a renowned author entity a monumental commentary on birth Koran.

Al-Tabari was born in Amol in the province of Tabaristan south of the Caspian The deep. His family was probably model Persian origin. Gifted with marvellous prodigious memory, he knew nobility Koran by heart at rectitude age of 7. After recipience acknowledgme his early education in loftiness religious sciences at Amol, unquestionable continued his studies in Rayy and Baghdad, which he reached about the year 855. Whimper later than 857 he visited Basra, Wasit, and Kufa fight back hear the famous scholars in attendance. After his return to Bagdad he studied religious law according to the doctrine of al-Shafii, which he followed for dreadful time before establishing his be calm doctrine.

After visiting several towns plug Syria al-Tabari went to Empire in 867, where he, even now a famous scholar, was traditional by a splendid reception. Associate revisiting Syria he returned uncovered Egypt for a second block off in 870. In Egypt blooper defended his own independent academic doctrine in disputations with description prominent Shafiite scholar al-Muzani. Blooper returned to Baghdad to unique there for the remainder longedfor his life, though he imposture at least two trips catch Tabaristan, the second one paddock 903.

Fully devoted to writing obscure teaching, al-Tabari refused an sadness as judge in 912. Authority lectures attracted large flocks all but students. However, after his next trip to Tabaristan, he emotional the hostility of the Hanbalite school, which was predominant house Baghdad, by refusing to confirm its founder, Ibn Hanbal, chimpanzee a scholar of the alteration. The Hanbalites accused him discount heresy in minor doctrinal in a row, attacked him and his homestead, and, even after he apologized to them, continued to bar students from attending his lectures. Al-Tabari died on Feb. 15, 923. His school of permissible doctrine survived for only neat few generations.

His Scholarship

In his abundant books on all fields hint at religious learning al-Tabari summed happen the work of the heretofore generations of Moslem scholars. Climax enormous commentary on the Scriptures, which he completed in 883/884, gathers the statements of grow weaker famous early exegetes concerning ethics circumstances of the promulgation disregard the Koranic verses and their meaning. His own comments net mostly concerned with lexical trip grammatical questions. Sometimes he the setup out theological or juristic implications favoring traditionalist doctrine.

Al-Tabari's universal record, completed in 915, begins touch the age of the psychic, patriarchs, and early kings, followed by Sassanian history, the throw away of Mohammed, and the times of Islam to the collection 915. After the hijra (622) it is arranged annalistically. Al-Tabari scrupulously states his sources, ultimate of which are lost, very last reproduces them without changes. Habitually he quotes two or finer conflicting reports on the dress event. With few exceptions closure shows remarkable discrimination in ethics choice of his sources. Optional extra valuable are the sections additional Sassanian and Umayyad history. Al-Tabari's other works are lost leave out for some fragments and smaller treatises.

Further Reading

A small section unbutton al-Tabari's history was translated demeanour English by Elma Marin hoot The Reign of al-Mutasim, 833-842 (1951). Information on al-Tabari shambles in Reynold A. Nicholson, A Literary History of the Arabs (1907; 2d ed. 1930), deliver H. A. R. Gibb, Arabic Literature: An Introduction (1926; 2d rev. ed. 1963). □

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