Abd al-Qahir al-Jurjani

Who was Abd al-Qahir al-Jurjani?

Abu Bakr Abd al-Qāhir bin Abd ar-Rahman bin Muhammad al-Jurjānī was a renowned Persian scholar of the Arabic language, literary theorist, grammarian and Shafi'i Muslim. al-Jurjānī was an Ahsa'ari descendant, and born in the town of Gorgan in Iran.

al-Jurjānī is said not to have left his home town of Gorgan all his life, yet his reputation reached many Arabic scholars who came to see him. He excelled in the two sciences of ilm al balaghah and ilm al bayan, which he explained in his two books Asrar al Balaghah, and Dala'il al-Ijaz. Al-Jurjānī was influenced by his predecessors such as the grammarian Sibawayh, the critic Abi Helal al-'Askari al Balaghi, and the linguist and literary theorist Abu Ali al-Farisi, known for his book al-Idah.

Ali al-Farisi's nephew, Abi al-Hussein Muhammad Bin al-Hassan Bin Abd al-Wareth al-Faressi al-Nawawi, was al-Jurjānī's teacher, and used al-Idah to teach al-Jurjānī. Later al-Jurjānī was to write a thirty-volume work of commentary al-Idah entitled al Maghna fi Sharh al-Idah .