Abū Muḥammad ʿAbd Allāh ibn Muslim ibn Qutayba al-Dīnawarī al-Marwazī better known simply as Ibn Qutaybah (Arabic: ابن قتيبة, romanized: Ibn Qutaybah; c. 828 – 13 November 889 CE / 213 – 15 Rajab 276 AH)[3] was an Islamic[4] scholarofPersian descent.[5][6][7][8] He served as a judge during the Abbasid Caliphate, but was best known for his contributions to Arabic literature.[9][10] He was an Athari theologian[2][11] and polymath[12][13][14] who wrote on diverse subjects, such as Qur'anic exegesis, hadith, theology, philosophy, law and jurisprudence, grammar, philology, history, astronomy, agriculture and botany.
Abū Muḥammad ʿAbd Allāh ibn Muslim ibn Qutayba al-Dīnawarī al-Marwazī
| |
|---|---|
| Title | ibn Qutaybah |
| Personal | |
| Born | 828CE, 213 AH |
| Died | 15 Rajab 276 AH/ 13 November, 889 |
| Religion | Islam |
| Era | Islamic golden age |
| Region | Abbasid Caliphate |
| Denomination | Sunni |
| Creed | Athari[1][2] |
| Main interest(s) | politics, history, Tafsir, Hadith, Kalam and Arabic literature |
| Notable work(s) |
|
| Occupation | Scholar of Islam |
His full name is Abū Muḥammad ʿAbdullāh b. Muslim ibn Qutaybah ad-Dīnawarī. He was born in Kufa in what is now Iraq.[15][16] He was of Persian descent; his father was from Merv, Khorasan. Having studied tradition and philology he became qadiinDinawar during the reign of Al-Mutawakkil,[10] and afterwards a teacher in Baghdad.[15][16] He was the first representative of the school of Baghdad philologists that succeeded the schools of Kufa and Basra.[17] He was known as a vocal opponent of "gentile" or shu'ubi Islam, i.e. openness to non-Islamic wisdom and values.[18]
He was viewed by Sunni Muslims as a hadith Master, foremost philologist, linguist, and man of letters. In addition to his literary criticism and anthologies, he was also known for his work in the problems of Tafsir or Qur'anic interpretation.[9] He also authored works on astronomy and legal theory.[16][19] His book Uyun al-Akhbar, along with the romantic literature of Muhammad bin Dawud al-Zahiri and Ibn Abi Tahir Tayfur, were considered by lexicographer Ibn Duraid to be the three most important works for those who wished to speak and write eloquently.[20][21]
There can be no government without an army,
No army without money,
No money without prosperity,
And no prosperity without justice and good administration.— Ibn Qutaybah on good government.[22]
His work Taʾwīl mukhtalif al-ḥadīth was an influential early Atharite treatise that rebuked rationalists on the nature of Tradition. In his treatise, Ibn Qutayba censures the mutakallimūn (scholastic theologians) for holding contradictory and differing views on the principles of religion.[23]
Ibn Muṭarrif al-Ṭarafī (d. 1062 CE) gathered passages from Ibn Qutayba's Kitāb mushkil al-Qurʾān and Kitāb ghafīb al-Qurʾān and arranged them to be in the same order as the relevant Qurʾān chapters in a work called Kitāb al-Qurṭayn.[24]: 135
He wrote more than 60 books,[25] including :
One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Thatcher, Griffithes Wheeler (1911). "Ibn Qutaiba". In Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 14 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 222.
