Al-Tabari: Difference between revisions

Tabari was born in [[Amol]], [[Tabaristan]] (some 20&nbsp;km south of the [[Caspian Sea]]) in the winter of 838–39.{{sfn|Rosenthal|1989|pp=10–11}} He has been described as either of Persian or Arab origin.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Magdalino|first1=Paul|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gSEQ7WjngmkC&q=Persian+polymath&pg=PA279|title=The Old Testament in Byzantium|last2=Nelson|first2=Robert S.|date=2010|publisher=Harvard University Press|isbn=978-0-88402-348-7|page=279|language=en|quote=the Persian-born, Baghdādī polymath Abū Jaʿfar b. Jarīr al-Ṭabarī (d. 923/310) was putting the finishing ...}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|last1=Daniel|first1=Elton L.|date=2000–2013|title=ṬABARI, ABU JAʿFAR MOḤAMMAD B. JARIR|url=http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/tabari-abu-jafar|publisher=ENCYCLOPÆDIA IRANICA|access-date=4 December 2016|quote=...one of the most eminent Iranian scholars of the early Abbasid era... There is thus no way of knowing for certain whether Ṭabari’s family was native to the Āol region or perhaps arrived with the wave of Muslim colonists after the Abbasid revolution, either as converts or Arab settlers.}}</ref><ref>[[Gaston Wiet]], etc, "The Great Medieval Civilizations: cultural and scientific development. Volume 3. The great medieval civilizations. Part 1", Published by Allen and Unwin, 1975. pg 722:In the meantime another author, Tabari, Persian by origin, had been unobtrusively at work on two monumental pieces of writing, a commentary on the Koran .</ref><ref>{{cite web|last1=Bosworth|first1=C.E.|title=al-Ṭabarī|date=24 April 2012|url=https://referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/encyclopaedia-of-islam-2/al-tabari-COM_1133|publisher= Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition|quote=...whether the family was of indigenous stock or descended from Arab colonists in Tabaristan is unknown...}}</ref><ref>{{Citation |last=Cheung |first=Johnny |title=On the (Middle) Iranian borrowings in Qur'ānic (and pre-Islamic) Arabic |date=2016-06-06 |url=https://shs.hal.science/halshs-01445860 |language=en |access-date=2023-02-09}} "Even so, the evidence of the early philologists was so strong, that for the proponents of a “foreign free” Qur’ānic reading, the similarities between some of the Arabic forms and their foreign counterparts were just coincidental, or at least, Arabic happened to use those forms first in the Qur’ān, which is the position of the celebrated Persian historian and theologian al-Ṭabarī (839 - 923 CE) in his famous Tafsīr of the Qur’ān."</ref> [[Hafiz (Qur'an)|He memorized the Qur'an]] at seven, was a qualified [[Imam|prayer leader]] at eight, and began to study the [[hadith|prophetic traditions]] at nine. He left home to study in 236 [[Anno Hegirae|AH]]{{sfn|Rosenthal|1989|pp=15–16}} (850/1 AD), when he was twelve. He retained close ties to his hometown. He returned at least twice, the second time in 290 AH (903 AD), when his outspokenness caused some uneasiness and led to his quick departure.{{sfn|Rosenthal|1989|p=11}}

 

 

Tabari then travelled to study in Baghdad under [[Ahmad ibn Hanbal]], who, however, had recently died (in late 855 or early 856).{{sfn|Rosenthal|1989|p=19}} Tabari possibly made a pilgrimage prior to his first arrival in Baghdad.{{sfn|Rosenthal|1989|p=19}} He left Baghdad probably in 242 AH (856/7 AD){{sfn|Rosenthal|1989|p=20}} to travel through the southern cities of [[Basra]], [[Kufa]]h and [[Wasit]].{{sfn|Rosenthal|1989|p=19}} There, he met a number of eminent and venerable scholars.{{sfn|Rosenthal|1989|p=20}} In addition to his previous study of Hanafi law, Tabari also studied the [[Shafi'i]], [[Maliki]] and [[Zahiri]] rites.<ref>[[Ibn al-Nadim]], ''[[al-Fihrist]]'', p. 291. Ed. Rida Tajaddud. [[Tehran]]: Dar al-Masirah, 1988.</ref> Tabari's study of the latter school was with the founder, [[Dawud al-Zahiri]],<ref>[[Christopher Melchert]], The Formation of the Sunni Schools of Law: 9th–10th Centuries C.E., p. 185. Leiden: Brill Publishers, 1997.</ref> and Tabari hand-copied and transmitted many of his teacher's works.<ref>[[Yaqut al-Hamawi]], ''Irshad'', vol. 18, p. 78.</ref> Tabari was then well-versed in four of the five remaining Sunni legal schools, before founding his own independent, yet eventually extinct, school. His debates with his former teachers and classmates were known, and served as a demonstration of said independence.<ref>Stewart, ''Tabari'', p. 326.</ref> Notably missing from this list is the [[Hanbali]] school, the fourth largest legal school within Sunni Islam in the present era. Tabari's view of Ibn Hanbal, the school's founder, became decidedly negative later in life. Tabari did not give Ibn Hanbal's dissenting opinion any weight at all when considering the various views of jurists, stating that Ibn Hanbal had not even been a jurist at all but merely a recorder of [[Hadith]].<ref>al-Hamawi, vol. 18, pp. 57–58.</ref>