القرطبي
Imām Al-Qurṭubī
Born
c. 585 AH, Qurṭuba (Córdoba), Almohad Caliphate
Died
671 AH/1273 CE, al-Munya, Upper Egypt
He is Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad ibn Abū Bakr ibn Farḥ al-Anṣārī al-Khazrajī al-Andalusī, Abu Abdullāh al-Qurṭubī. Abū Abdullāh was his kunyā.
Al-Anṣārī is a noun of ascription showing his lineage was traceable
back to the Madinan Anṣār, and al-Khazrajī that it specifically
connected him genealogically to the Khazārijah, one of the two main
tribes of al-Madīnah along with the Aws, though to be precise the
reference is to the Khazārijah who settled in al-Andalus. Qurṭuba (hence
al-Qurṭubī) was his city in Islamic Spain (al-Andalus).
Birth, Family and Early Life
Ambiguity permeates the date of birth of al-Qurṭubī, but from his tafsīr it can be assumed he was born during the rule of the Almoravids, probably in the course of the caliphate of Yāˈqub b. Yūsuf b. ʿAbd al-Muʾmin, between 580 and 595 AH, and Allāh knows best.
He was raised by his father, in whose custody he would remain until the latter's death as a shahīd. His father worked in the field of agriculture, and was directly overseeing the harvesting of one species of farming produce when he met his death at the hands of the assailing Christians in Qurṭuba, in the year 627 AH, during the early morning of the third day of Ramaḍān. Qurṭuba was at that stage ruled by Muḥammad b. Yūsuf b. Hūd (d. 635 AH), who had expelled the Almoravids and summoned obedience to himself which spread in a number of Andalusian fortresses including Murcia and Badajoz. For that reason, the Christians spotted a weakness in Muslim territories and carried out a number of ruthless raids against his possessions, razing villages and pillaging the countryside in the process. The assault which killed al-Qurṭubī's father might have been engineered by the troops of Ferdinand III, the then King of Castilla.
At a young age enabling him to receive the first rudiments of knowledge, he studied Arabic and poetry side-by-side with learning the Qurʾān. His furtherance of learning, with the ferocious resolution and unflinching perseverance so characteristic of the Andalusians, took him from one reputable circle of knowledge in Qurṭuba to another, up to the point when he left his city having already accumulated a wealth of 'ilm within his cognitive compass. Study circles were widespread in al-Andalus during this age, and Islamic learning rotated around mosques in conformity with the classical custom modern nation-states have wreaked havoc against.
His Teachers in al-Andalus
1) Aḥmad b. Muḥammad b. Qays b. al-Qays, Abū Ja'far, known as Ibn Abi Hijjah, eulogized by the historian Ibn al-Abbar as an alim in Arabic and Qurʾānic sciences. He wrote a number of works, including an abridgement of the Saḥīḥayn. When Qurṭuba fell into Christian hands in the year 633 AH, he moved first to Sevilla and then to Mallorca. The Christians however took him prisoner and subjected him to painful physical punishment, and he passed away shortly thereafter in Mallorca, in the year 643 AH. Many of the teachers he graduated under, including Abū al-Qasim Khalaf b. Bashkuwal (d. 578 AH), the profilic author of many books in manifold fields, and Ibn Mada Aḥmad b. Abd al-Raḥmān (d. 592 AH), especially proficient in the Qurʾānic readings and ḥadīth, beside his erudition in fiqh, uṣūl, kalām and Arabic. Ibn Farḥun described him as a person of generous temperament, courteous interaction, pure yearning, self-restraint in speech, truthfulness in word, full manhood and excellent sharing of knowledge in disparate sciences with peers and their likes.
2) Rabī b. Abd al-Raḥmān b. Aḥmad b. Abd al-Raḥmān b. Rabī al-Ashʿarī, Abū Sulaymān, also from the inhabitants of Qurṭuba and their judge. A righteous and fair man in his judgements, of eminent social rank heading from a noble family, was how Ibn al-Abbar synthetically traced the contours of his virtue. He also left his hometown following its conquest by the Christians on Sunday, 23 Shawwāl of 633 AH, setting out for Sevilla where he met his death shortly after his departure for it. One of this shuyūkh was Abū Muḥammad Hawtullah (Abdullāh b. Sulaymān b. Dāwūd b. Dāwūd al-Anṣārī, d. 612 AH in Granada), originally from Valencia, a master of many diciplines who acted by knowledge and sternly avoided the people of innovation and whims. His corpse was transferred to Malaga where he is buried.
3) His full brother Yaḥyā b. Abd al-Raḥmān b. Aḥmad b. Abd al-Raḥmān b. Rabī al-Ashʿarī al-Qurṭubī (b. 553 AH), a judge in Qurṭuba before its fall and later in Granada, who died in Malaga after being affected by hemiplegia in the year 639 or 640 AH. He was extremely humble, a precise researcher, a gentle dialectician and a staunch defender of the Sunnah.
His settlement in Egypt
His knowledge was already firmly rooted and branching out in multifarious directions when he travelled to Egypt. His age at this stage is unspecified in his biographies. We know from his tafsīr that the enemy passed by him seated in an open space two times without noticing his presence, protected by Allāh with a ḥijāb mastur, an "obscuring veil", as He similarly concealed the Prophet ﷺ from the approaching wife of Abū Lahab, al-Awra Umm Jamil bint Harb, while sitting with Abū Bakr in the mosque. [See Sūrah al-Isrā, 17:45].
After that recorded experience of miraculous divine assistance, he safely returned to Qurṭuba, which he left with the bulk of its grieving inhabitants during the month of Shawwāl, 633 AH. Surviving accounts then say he resided in Alexandria, a typical stopover for the exiled Andalusians migrating by land or by sea, prior to 648 AH, before settling down definitively in Upper Egypt, ruled at the time by the Mamluk sultāns.
In Alexandria, he studied under the imām and muḥaddith Abū Muḥammad Abd al-Wahabb b. Rawwaj (b. 554 AH). He also got in contact with the shuyūkh attached to the schools of Abū Bakr al-Ṭurṭushi (from Tortosa in al-Andalus), Ibn Awf and the ḥafīẓ al-Salafī. Al-Ṭurṭushi, who wrote core works, some of which have been published such as his political treatise Siraj al-Mālīk and al-Hawadith wa al-Bida', was one of the topmost Mālikī fuqahā in his age, an acting-alim and scrupulous zāhid of marked humility and contentment with little.
Al-Qurṭubī finally put roots in the city of Upper Egypt, north of Asyūṭ and east of the Nile, then called Munyah Bani Khasib [present-day al-Munya], where he died in the night of Monday 9 Shawwāl 671 AH, the equivalent of 29 April 1273 CE, and where he is buried. May Allāh have mercy on him.
His Zuhd (asceticism)
Al-Qurṭubī, a devout worshipper, was extremely scrupulous in matters of the dīn. All his biographers concur with al-Dāwūdī's summarisation of his character, after mentioning that the travellingʿulamā moved around with his tafsīr within their reach:
"He was one of the righteous slaves of Allāh, knowledgeable savants, and practitioners of zuhd in this World, engrossed by the matters of the Afterlife, his time enlivened by effort, ‘ibādah and writing [...]. He discarded affection and walked in a single garment, a white cotton skullcap on his head."
The zuhd of Al-Qurṭubī did not consist in self-deprivation of good things, but in not making pursuit of nice provisions and pleasures a goal of his life, his ultimate focus in the Hereafter impeding the sovereignty of this world over his existential domain. In his tafsīr, he attacked the distorted understanding of zuhd held by some Muslims, and asserted the beautification of oneself by wearing nice clothes in no way negated the practice of zuhd. Indeed, in Nafḥ al-ṭīb, the Andalusian al-Maqqarī from exile in Syria stressed that the Andalusians, of all nations, were concerned with the cleanliness of their clothing, so much so that one of them may be without food daily and retreat at night fasting and with an empty stomach, but he would not fail nonetheless to buy soap to wash his dress and make it look sparkling clean when moving around outdoors. As Ayyūb al-Sakhtiyani stated, zuhd in which Allāh has decreed to be ḥalāl is but the third, last and lowliest form of zuhd.
His Aqīdah
As it is amply demonstrated by his tafsīr, al-Qurṭubī, echoing in that the majority of theʿulamā of
al-Andalus, subscribed to the Sunni Ash'arite creed, which he defended
from the attacks of the Mu'tazilah, given the popularity of the
Mu'tazilite creed among numerous Andalusian scholars.
His Intellectual Legacy, Students and Works
A vertasile, alert and sagacious ʿāllāmah and reliable ḥafīẓ who had plunged himself into the sea of knowledge, as reflected in his books envincing abundant reading, deep understanding and erudition, his imamate and his far-reaching merit, was how al-Dhababī described him, though his terse acknowledgment of his virtue and acheivements does not render full justice to him. A knowledgeable imām who delved into the meanings of aḥadīth, wrote elegantly and had the gift of correct transmission, was Ibn al-Imād's description of him.
Al-Qurṭubī had many students, though sadly many are covered in obscurity. He gave an ijāzah to his own son Shihab al-Dīn Abū al-Abbas Aḥmad. He may be Ibn Farḥ al-Ishbilī, due to the undermentioned, having grown up in that city since the age of eight after the fall of Qurṭuba. Ibn Farḥ fell captive to the Christians besieging Sevilla, and was later rescued from their hands by Allāh. He was thus empowered to relocate to Egypt where he studied with the prominent shuyūkh of the age, before he took up residence in Damascus, studying in the Umayyad Mosque within and excelling in ḥadīth. The shaykhdom of ḥadīth studies at Dar al-Ḥadīth al-Nuriyyah was offered to him, but he declined the post. He passed away on 9 Jumādā al-Ạkhirah, 699 AH.
The works he authored attest to the breadth of his learning, the names of some of which are:
- His noble tafsīr, one of the greatest, most comprehensive, renowned, consulted, valued and valuable ever, al-Jami li-Akham al-Qurʾān wa mubayyin li ma taddamanahu min al-Sunnah wa ayi al-Furqān, more simply known as the Tafsīr of al-Qurṭubī, published in countless editions. A treasure trove not just for the interpretation of verses of legal judgements, for which it is justly celebrated, but for all aspects of Qurʾānic knowledge and sciences. Probably commenced in al-Andalus, albeit not in Qurṭuba, it was completed during his stay in Upper Egypt.
- An encyclopaedic compendium on the otherwordly states of barzakh and the Hereafter, presently the most known work in the field, whether classical or modern, loved and respected by all, al-Tadhkirah fi ahwal al-Mawta wa umuri al-Ạkhirah, likewise published in many glossy and annotated editions.
- Al-I'lam bi ma fi din al-nasara min al-mafasidi wa al-awham, wa izharu mahasini din al-Islām, a precious book, published in Arabic, where he refutes the delusions and exposes the corruption of the Christian religion, and underpins by comparison the merits of Islam.
- Al-Asna fi sharhi asma Allāh al-husna, one of the finest classical works on the divine names.
- Al-Taqrib li kitab al-tamhid, also referred to by most of his biographers as Sharh al-taqassi, a gloss on Ibn Abd al-Barr's famous commentary of al-Muttawa endeavouring to ease the comprehension thereof. It is in two huge volumes, in manuscript form, in the library of Qarawiyyin Mosque in Fez.
- Qam al-Hirsi bi al-Zuhdi wa al-Qana'ah, a celebrated work expounding on the aspects of zuhd. The third part (The Secrets of Asceticism) has been translated into English, from which much of this biography is extracted from.
