Muḥammad ibn Tamīm ibn Tammām al-Tamīmī (; died 945) more commonly known as Abu al-Arab (; ) was a 10th-century
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 ...
Muslim
Muslims () are people who adhere to Islam, a Monotheism, monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God ...
historian, poet, traditionist and ''
faqih'' of the
Maliki
The Maliki school or Malikism is one of the four major madhhab, schools of Islamic jurisprudence within Sunni Islam. It was founded by Malik ibn Anas () in the 8th century. In contrast to the Ahl al-Hadith and Ahl al-Ra'y schools of thought, the ...
school.
His most celebrated work is ''Tabaqat 'Ulama Ifriqiya'' () which include numerous scholars of his time.
Biography
Abu al-Arab year of birth is unknown, though he most probably was born between 864 and 873 in the city of
Kayrawan, the cultural center of
Ifriqiya
Ifriqiya ( '), also known as al-Maghrib al-Adna (), was a medieval historical region comprising today's Tunisia, eastern Algeria, and Tripolitania (roughly western Libya). It included all of what had previously been the Byzantine province of ...
(corresponds to modern-day
Tunisia
Tunisia, officially the Republic of Tunisia, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It is bordered by Algeria to the west and southwest, Libya to the southeast, and the Mediterranean Sea to the north and east. Tunisia also shares m ...
), at the time was under the control of the
Fatimid Caliphate
The Fatimid Caliphate (; ), also known as the Fatimid Empire, was a caliphate extant from the tenth to the twelfth centuries CE under the rule of the Fatimids, an Isma'ili Shi'a dynasty. Spanning a large area of North Africa and West Asia, i ...
. He belonged to a noble Arab family of governors. His great-grandfather held the governorship of
Tunis
Tunis (, ') is the capital city, capital and largest city of Tunisia. The greater metropolitan area of Tunis, often referred to as "Grand Tunis", has about 2,700,000 inhabitants. , it is the third-largest city in the Maghreb region (after Casabl ...
and he also successfully managed to seize control of Kayrawan in the year 799.
Abu al-Arab studied under a number of scholars who were themselves took knowledge from the renowned Kayrawani jurist
Sahnun
Sahnun ibn Said ibn Habib al-Tanukhi () (c. 776/77 – 854/55) (160 AH – 240 AH ) was a jurist in the Maliki school from Qayrawan in modern-day Tunisia.
Biography
His full name was Abu Said Abd al-Salam ibn Said ibn Habib ibn Hassan ibn Hi ...
(d. 854/55), and he wrote a detailed account of Sahnun's life. Sequentially, Abu al-Arab devoted his time to teaching in Kayrawan, his most notable student was
Ibn Abi Zayd al-Kayrawani (d. 996).
Abu al-Arab participated in Abu Yazid's revolt against the Fatimids, eventually he was imprisoned. Few years later, he died in 945.
Abu al-Arab relied also on the work of
Issa ibn Abi al-Mouhajir for his writings about
Ifriqiya
Ifriqiya ( '), also known as al-Maghrib al-Adna (), was a medieval historical region comprising today's Tunisia, eastern Algeria, and Tripolitania (roughly western Libya). It included all of what had previously been the Byzantine province of ...
..
Works
According to
al-Zirkili, Abu al-Arab works consist of 3,000 books which are mostly lost.
* ''Tabaqat 'Ulama Ifriqiya'' (; ''Classes of Scholars of Ifriqiya'')
* ''
'Ibad Ifriqiya'' (; ''People of Ifriqiya'')
* ''Kitab al-Tarikh'' (; ''Book of History'') in seventeen volumes.
* ''Manaqib Bani Tamim'' (; ''Merits of Bani Tamim'')
* ''Al-Mihan'' (; ''Adversities'')
* ''Fada'il Malik'' (; ''Merits of Malik'')
* ''Manaqib Sahnun'' (; ''Merits of Sahnun'')
* ''Mawt al-'Ulama'' (; ''Death of Scholars'') in two volumes.
See also
*
List of pre-modern Arab scientists and scholars
Arab scientists and scholars from the Muslim World, including Al-Andalus (Spain), who lived from Ancient history, antiquity up until the beginning of the Modern era, modern age, include the following. The list consists primarily of scholars durin ...
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Abu al-Arab
9th-century births
945 deaths
Year of birth uncertain
9th-century Arab people
9th-century Arabic-language poets
10th-century Arabic-language poets
10th-century historians from the Fatimid Caliphate
Hadith scholars
10th-century Arab people
Maliki fiqh scholars
People from Kairouan