Abu ʻAmr bin al-ʻAlāʼ al-Basri (; (689/90-770/71; c.70-154 AH) was the Qur'an reciter of Basra, Iraq and an

Arab Arabs (, , ; , , ) are an ethnic group mainly inhabiting the Arab world in West Asia and North Africa. A significant Arab diaspora is present in various parts of the world. Arabs have been in the Fertile Crescent for thousands of years ...

linguist Linguistics is the scientific study of language. The areas of linguistic analysis are syntax (rules governing the structure of sentences), semantics (meaning), Morphology (linguistics), morphology (structure of words), phonetics (speech sounds ...

. He was born in

Mecca Mecca, officially Makkah al-Mukarramah, is the capital of Mecca Province in the Hejaz region of western Saudi Arabia; it is the Holiest sites in Islam, holiest city in Islam. It is inland from Jeddah on the Red Sea, in a narrow valley above ...

. Ibn Khallikan's Biographical Dictionary, translated by William McGuckin de Slane.

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

: Oriental Translation Fund of Great Britain and Ireland. Sold by

Institut de France The ; ) is a French learned society, grouping five , including the . It was established in 1795 at the direction of the National Convention. Located on the Quai de Conti in the 6th arrondissement of Paris, the institute manages approximately ...

and

Royal Library of Belgium The Royal Library of Belgium ( ; ; , abbreviated ''KBR'' and sometimes nicknamed in French or in Dutch) is the national library of Belgium. The library has a history that goes back to the age of the Duke of Burgundy, Dukes of Burgundy. In ...

. Vol. 2, pg. 402. Descended from a branch of the Banu Tamim, Ibn al-ʻAlāʼ is one of the seven primary transmitters of the chain of narration for the

Qur'an The Quran, also romanized Qur'an or Koran, is the central religious text of Islam, believed by Muslims to be a revelation directly from God ('' Allāh''). It is organized in 114 chapters (, ) which consist of individual verses ('). Besides ...

.Ibn Khallikan, vol. 2, pg. 399. He founded the Basran philology school of

Arabic grammar Arabic grammar () is the grammar of the Arabic language. Arabic is a Semitic languages, Semitic language and its grammar has many similarities with the Semitic languages#Grammar, grammar of other Semitic languages. Classical Arabic and Modern St ...

.al-Aṣmaʿī
at the

Encyclopædia Britannica Online An encyclopedia is a reference work or compendium providing summaries of knowledge, either general or special, in a particular field or discipline. Encyclopedias are divided into articles or entries that are arranged alphabetically by artic ...

. ©2013 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. Accessed 10 June 2013. He was as well known as a grammarian as he was a reader, though his reading style was influenced by those of Nafi‘ al-Madani and Ibn Kathir al-Makki.Peter G. Riddell
Early Malay Qur'anic exegetical activity
p. 164. Taken from ''Islam and the Malay-Indonesian World: Transmission and Responses''. London: C. Hurst & Co., 2001. In between his study of Qur'an reading in his hometown of Mecca and in Basra, he also travelled to learn more about the practice in the Kufan school and in

Medina Medina, officially al-Madinah al-Munawwarah (, ), also known as Taybah () and known in pre-Islamic times as Yathrib (), is the capital of Medina Province (Saudi Arabia), Medina Province in the Hejaz region of western Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, ...

. Ibn al-ʻAlāʼ studied under Ibn Abi Ishaq and among his own pupils were

Al-Khalil ibn Ahmad al-Farahidi Abu ‘Abd ar-Raḥmān al-Khalīl ibn Aḥmad ibn ‘Amr ibn Tammām al-Farāhīdī al-Azdī al-Yaḥmadī (; 718 – 786 CE), known as al-Farāhīdī, or al-Khalīl, was an Arab philologist, lexicographer and leading grammarian of Basra in ...

, Yunus ibn Habib, Al-Asma'i and Harun ibn Musa. Al-Asma'i related that Ibn al-ʻAlāʼ was asked a thousand grammatical questions, and answered each with an example. Another student of his was Abu ʿUbaidah, who called Ibn al-ʻAlāʼ the most learned of all men in

philology Philology () is the study of language in Oral tradition, oral and writing, written historical sources. It is the intersection of textual criticism, literary criticism, history, and linguistics with strong ties to etymology. Philology is also de ...

, grammar,

Arabic poetry Arabic poetry ( ''ash-shi‘r al-‘arabīyy'') is one of the earliest forms of Arabic literature. Pre-Islamic Arabic poetry contains the bulk of the oldest poetic material in Arabic, but Old Arabic inscriptions reveal the art of poetry existe ...

and the Qur'an. Although he never met Sibawayhi, the ethnic Persian , Sibawayhi quotes from Abu Amr 57 times in his ''Kitab'', mostly by transmission from Ibn Habib and al-Farahidi. The Qur'an reciter Al-Duri was the student of al-Yazīdī, who was Ibn al-ʻAlāʼs student, and preserved his recitation, passing on his method to Niftawayh and Muhammad bin Dawud al-Zahiri. Ibn al-ʻAlāʼ was a contemporary of many early Muslim notables; he remarked that in his experience,

Hasan al-Basri Abi Sa'id al-Hasan ibn Yasar al-Basri, often referred to as al-Hasan al-Basri, was an ancient Muslim preacher, ascetic, theologian, exegete, scholar, and judge. Born in Medina in 642,Mourad, Suleiman A., “al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī”, in: ''Encyc ...

and Al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf were the first and second most eloquent and pure speakers of the Arabic language.Ibn Khallikan, vol. 1, pg. 370. On his return from a visit to the governor of

Syria Syria, officially the Syrian Arab Republic, is a country in West Asia located in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Levant. It borders the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Turkey to Syria–Turkey border, the north, Iraq to Iraq–Syria border, t ...

, Ibn al-ʻAlāʼ experienced a series of fainting fits and died in

Kufa Kufa ( ), also spelled Kufah, is a city in Iraq, about south of Baghdad, and northeast of Najaf. It is located on the banks of the Euphrates, Euphrates River. The estimated population in 2003 was 110,000. Along with Samarra, Karbala, Kadhimiya ...

in 770CE (154AH). He was buried in that city.

References

Further reading