Abū Ishāq al-Fazārī, he was Ibrahīm ibn Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥārith, Abū Isḥāq al-Fazārī, () (d. ca. 804), an Islamic
historian
A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human species; as well as the ...
,
traditionalist and jurist of Iraqi descent.
Life
Al-Fazārī received his training first 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 ...
, where his ancestors, the
Banū Fazāra, originated. He later moved to
Baghdad
Baghdad ( or ; , ) is the capital and List of largest cities of Iraq, largest city of Iraq, located along the Tigris in the central part of the country. With a population exceeding 7 million, it ranks among the List of largest cities in the A ...
and
Damascus
Damascus ( , ; ) is the capital and List of largest cities in the Levant region by population, largest city of Syria. It is the oldest capital in the world and, according to some, the fourth Holiest sites in Islam, holiest city in Islam. Kno ...
, before finally settling in
Mopsuestia
Mopsuestia ( and Μόψου ''Mopsou'' and Μόψου πόλις and Μόψος; Byzantine Greek: ''Mamista'', ''Manistra'', ''Mampsista''; Arabic: ''al-Maṣṣīṣah''; Armenian: ''Msis'', ''Mises'', ''Mam(u)estia''; modern Yakapınar) is an a ...
; at one of the
frontier stations to the
Byzantine Empire
The Byzantine Empire, also known as the Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire centred on Constantinople during late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Having survived History of the Roman Empire, the events that caused the ...
, where he mainly deals with the organization of Islamic foreign and martial law (
siyar) according to the teachings of his master
al-Awzā'ī. He also acted as legal advisor to
Hārūn ar-Rashīd on war-related issues.
al-Mizzī, says he studied under more than 80 teachers. In Mopsuestia, whose ribat was expanded at the beginning of the eighth-century and inhabited by Muslim troops, he always had a large circle of pupils. The scholars
Ibn 'Asākir and
Ibn Hajar al-'Asqalānī report in their biographies that he instructed the Ribatians, taught them the
Sunnah
is the body of traditions and practices of the Islamic prophet Muhammad that constitute a model for Muslims to follow. The sunnah is what all the Muslims of Muhammad's time supposedly saw, followed, and passed on to the next generations. Diff ...
and the ''
Enjoining good and forbidding wrong
Enjoining good and forbidding wrong () are two important duties imposed by God in Islam as revealed in the Quran and Hadith.
This expression is the base of the classical Islamic institution of ''ḥisba'', the individual or collective duty (depe ...
''
[Miklos Muranyi (1985), p.69.] Although a legal theorist, he also served in the military and his participation in a summer campaign in 772 is attested.
Ibn Sa'd
Abū ‘Abd Allāh Muḥammad ibn Sa‘d ibn Manī‘ al-Baṣrī al-Hāshimī or simply Ibn Sa'd () and nicknamed ''Scribe of Waqidi'' (''Katib al-Waqidi''), was a scholar and Arabian biographer. Ibn Sa'd was born in 784/785 CE (168 AH) and di ...
mentions in his ''class book'' that he, like his teacher
al-Awzā'ī, was among the scholars who stayed and worked in the Ribats.
Works
*''Kitāb as-Siyar'' ; A book on legal issues of war and foreign law, in which al-Fazārī relied primarily on the teachings of al-Auzā'ī and other representatives of the early
fiqh
''Fiqh'' (; ) is the term for Islamic jurisprudence.[Fiqh](_blank)
Encyclopædia Britannica ''Fiqh'' is of ...
. A 9th-century transcript of
parchment
Parchment is a writing material made from specially prepared Tanning (leather), untanned skins of animals—primarily sheep, calves and goats. It has been used as a writing medium in West Asia and Europe for more than two millennia. By AD 400 ...
is held in the
Qarawiyyin Library in five parts.
Variant titles exist:
*''Kitāb as-siyar fī'l-aḫbār'' (, ‘The
Sira in the Accounts’) begins with a biography of
Muḥammad
Muhammad (8 June 632 CE) was an Arab religious and political leader and the founder of Islam. Muhammad in Islam, According to Islam, he was a prophet who was divinely inspired to preach and confirm the tawhid, monotheistic teachings of A ...
. Fuat Sezgin (1967), p. 292, erroneously cites the book in the chapter "The Prophet's Biography".
The ''Siyar'' is one of the oldest extant legal texts on
Umayyad
The Umayyad Caliphate or Umayyad Empire (, ; ) was the second caliphate established after the death of the Islamic prophet Muhammad and was ruled by the Umayyad dynasty. Uthman ibn Affan, the third of the Rashidun caliphs, was also a membe ...
legal practice and accounts of the period of their confrontation with the
Dār al-Harb. In 1987 the Moroccan researcher Fārūq Ḥammāda published the second, and best preserved, of the five damaged parts. From the remaining manuscript fragments, Ḥammāda lists the legible chapter headings in the appendix.
Among the subjects in the Prophetic biography al-Fazārī addresses, insofar as these are discernible, are the military campaigns of Muḥammad, questions on the distribution of spoils, and the treatment of prisoners considered
Prophet Sunna, or juridical practitioners of the first generations.
By the mid-10th century in
Guadalajara
Guadalajara ( ; ) is the capital and the most populous city in the western Mexican List of states of Mexico, state of Jalisco, as well as the most densely populated municipality in Jalisco. According to the 2020 census, the city has a population ...
- (Wādī al-Hijajra, Wādī 'l-Ḥiǧāra, stony
Wadi
Wadi ( ; ) is a river valley or a wet (ephemerality, ephemeral) Stream bed, riverbed that contains water only when heavy rain occurs. Wadis are located on gently sloping, nearly flat parts of deserts; commonly they begin on the distal portion ...
) - the book was still being consulted as a teaching resource when it came into the possession of the Andalusian scholar
Ibn Bashkuwāl
Ibn Bashkuwāl, Khalaf ibn ‘Abd al-Malik ibn Mas'ud ibn Musa ibn Bashkuwāl ibn Yûsuf al-Ansârī, Abū'l-Qāsim () (var. Ḫalaf b.'Abd al- Malik b. Mas'ūd b. Mūsā b. Baškuwāl, Abū'l-Qāsim; September 1101 in Córdoba (Spain), Córdoba ...
(d. 1183) in an already irreproducible condition. Al-Fazārī's legal work was available and
at-Tabarī, in his commentary
ikhtilāf al-fuqahā', or iḫtilāf al-fuqahā' (), ‘The controversial doctrines of the jurists’, contains several references.
[For the references to at-Tabari see Miklos Muranyi (1985), p. 84 and notes 63-65]
Literature
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References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Fazari, Abu Ishaq
805 deaths
8th-century historians from the Abbasid Caliphate
8th-century jurists
Hadith scholars
Taba‘ at-Tabi‘in hadith narrators