Abu al-'Ala'

Background

He was born in Mecca in 689/690CE (70AH). Descended from a branch of the tribe of Banu Tamim, Ibn al-'Ala' is one of the seven primary transmitters of the chain of narration for the Qur'an.

Education

According to Asma'i, he once asked his teacher one-thousand grammatical questions, and Ibn al-'Ala' answered every one of them with examples.

Career

Ibn al-'Ala's other student, Abu ʿUbaidah, claimed that he was the most learned of all men in philology, grammar, Arabic poetry and the Qur'an. Although he never met Sibawayhi, the ethnic Persian considered the father of Arabic grammar, Sibawayhi quotes from Abu Amr 57 times in his infamous Kitab, mostly by transmission from Ibn Habib and al-Farahidi. The famous Qur'an reciter Hafs al-Duri was also from Abu 'Amr's students, who preserved his recitation.

In turn, al-Duri passed on Abu 'Amr's method of recitation to Niftawayh and Muhammad bin Dawud al-Zahiri. He died in Kufa in 770CE (154AH). Having just come back from a visit to the governor of Syria, Ibn al-'Ala' experienced a series of fainting fits while in Kufa, where he was buried.

Achievements

• He is also considered the founder of the Basran school of Arabic grammar.

Connections

teacher:

Abi Ishaq