Awn al-Din Abu'l-Muzzafar Yahya ibn Hubayra al-Shaybani al-Duri al-Baghdadi (; 1105-1165), commonly referred to as Ibn Hubayra, was a 12th-century

Iraq Iraq, officially the Republic of Iraq, is a country in West Asia. It is bordered by Saudi Arabia to Iraq–Saudi Arabia border, the south, Turkey to Iraq–Turkey border, the north, Iran to Iran–Iraq border, the east, the Persian Gulf and ...

i Arab official and a Hanbali

jurist A jurist is a person with expert knowledge of law; someone who analyzes and comments on law. This person is usually a specialist legal scholar, mostly (but not always) with a formal education in law (a law degree) and often a Lawyer, legal prac ...

, who served for sixteen years as

vizier A vizier (; ; ) is a high-ranking political advisor or Minister (government), minister in the Near East. The Abbasids, Abbasid caliphs gave the title ''wazir'' to a minister formerly called ''katib'' (secretary), who was at first merely a help ...

of the

Abbasid Caliphate The Abbasid Caliphate or Abbasid Empire (; ) was the third caliphate to succeed the Islamic prophet Muhammad. It was founded by a dynasty descended from Muhammad's uncle, Abbas ibn Abd al-Muttalib (566–653 CE), from whom the dynasty takes ...

under Caliph

al-Muqtafi Abu Abdallah Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Mustazhir (; 9 April 1096 – 12 March 1160), better known by his laqab, regnal name al-Muqtafi li-Amr Allah (), was the List of Abbasid caliphs#Abbasid Caliphs (25 January 750 – 20 February 1258), Abbasid ca ...

, and his successor

al-Mustanjid Abu al-Muẓaffar Yusuf ibn Muhammad al-Muqtafi (; 1124 – 20 December 1170) better known by his regnal name al-Mustanjid bi-llah () was the Abbasid caliph in Baghdad from 1160 to 1170. He was the son of previous Caliph al-Muqtafi. Biography ...

Biography

Ibn Hubayra was born on Rabi II 499 A.H. (December 1105 / January 1106 CE) in Dur, a village northwest of

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 ...

. As a youth, he went to Baghdad where he received a classical Arabic education under several masters, studying 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 ...

, Arabic linguistics, and the

Hanbali The Hanbali school or Hanbalism is one of the four major schools of Islamic jurisprudence, belonging to the Ahl al-Hadith tradition within Sunni Islam. It is named after and based on the teachings of the 9th-century scholar, jurist and tradit ...

school of Islamic jurisprudence (''

fiqh ''Fiqh'' (; ) is the term for Islamic jurisprudence.Fiqh
Encyclopædia Britannica ''Fiqh'' is of ...

''). He was appointed as the chief of the treasury by caliph al-Muqtafi, and in 1149, he was appointed as the

(chief minister) of the Caliphate, a post he kept for sixteen years until his death on 27 March 1165, commonly attributed to poisoning through his physician, who was in the pay of his rivals.Makdisi (1971), pp. 802–803 His vizierate marked the final decline of the

Seljuq Seljuk (, ''Selcuk'') or Saljuq (, ''Saljūq'') may refer to: * Seljuk Empire (1051–1153), a medieval empire in the Middle East and central Asia * Seljuk dynasty (c. 950–1307), the ruling dynasty of the Seljuk Empire and subsequent polities * S ...

influence in the Abbasid court (cf.

Siege of Baghdad (1157) The siege of Baghdad in 1157 was the last Seljuq attempt to capture Baghdad from the Abbasids. Caliph al-Muqtafi successfully defended his capital against the coalition armies of Seljuq Sultan Muhammad of Hamadan and Qutb ad-Din of Mosul. ...

), and saw a flowering of Hanbali learning in Baghdad. Ibn Hubayra was also involved in the conquest of

Fatimid 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 Fatimid dynasty, Fatimids, an Isma'ili Shi'a dynasty. Spanning a large area of North Africa ...

Egypt Egypt ( , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country spanning the Northeast Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to northe ...

Nur ad-Din Zangi Nūr al-Dīn Maḥmūd Zengī (; February 1118 – 15 May 1174), commonly known as Nur ad-Din (lit. 'Light of the Faith' in Arabic), was a Turkoman (ethnonym), Turkoman member of the Zengid dynasty, who ruled the Syria (region), Syrian province ...

Works

Ibn Hubayra was also an accomplished scholar. He published a multi-volume commentary on the ''

Sahih al-Bukhari () is the first hadith collection of the Six Books of Sunni Islam. Compiled by Islamic scholar al-Bukhari () in the format, the work is valued by Sunni Muslims, alongside , as the most authentic after the Qur'an. Al-Bukhari organized the bo ...

'' and the ''

Sahih Muslim () is the second hadith collection of the Six Books of Sunni Islam. Compiled by Islamic scholar Muslim ibn al-Ḥajjāj () in the format, the work is valued by Sunnis, alongside , as the most important source for Islamic religion after the Q ...

'' collections of ''

hadith Hadith is the Arabic word for a 'report' or an 'account f an event and refers to the Islamic oral tradition of anecdotes containing the purported words, actions, and the silent approvals of the Islamic prophet Muhammad or his immediate circle ...

'', entitled ''al-Ifṣāḥ ‘an ma‘ānĩ'l Ṣiḥāḥ'' or ''al-Ishrāf''. He also wrote a grammar called ''al-Muqtaṣaḍ'', an abridgment of Ibn al-Sikkit's ''Iṣlāḥ al-manṭiq'', the ''al-‘Ibādāt al-khams'', the ''Urjūza fi‘l-maqsūr wa‘l-mamdūd'', and ''Urjūza fi ‘ilm al-khaṭṭ''. A collection of his sayings was compiled by his contemporary

Abu'l-Faraj ibn al-Jawzi Abu al-Faraj Jamal al-Din Abd al-Rahman ibn Abi Hasan Ali Al-Jawzi also known as Ibn al-Jawzi (16 June 1201) was a Muslim jurisconsult, preacher, orator, heresiographer, traditionist, historian, judge, hagiographer, and philologist who played ...

(''al-Muqtabas min al-fawā‘id al-‘Awniyya''), who also published an anthology from the ''al-Ifṣāḥ''. Ibn al-Jawzi's works are the main source on Ibn Hubayra's life, along with a biography by the Hanbali scholar Ibn al-Maristaniyya

References

Sources

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Awn al-Din ibn Hubayra 1105 births 1165 deaths Iraqi Sunni Muslim scholars of Islam Viziers of the Abbasid Caliphate 12th-century Arabic-language writers Hanbalis 12th-century jurists Iraqi qadis 12th-century Arab people 12th-century people from the Abbasid Caliphate