Sa'id al-Afghani was a professor of Arabic language and literature at the University of Damascus. He was regarded as one of the 20th century's leading scholars in both fields. [1]
Afghani was born in Damascus in 1911 to an Afghan father and a Syrian mother. [1] Having been born in an Arab country, Afghani spoke the language as his mother tongue and was eventually appointed to the position of professor of the Arabic language and later dean of the faculty of arts at the University of Damascus. He also taught at universities in Jordan, Libya and Saudi Arabia. [1] Afghani died on February 18, 1997, in Mecca, where he was buried.
Afghani's most well-known work is al-Mujaz, a book attempting to simplify Arabic grammar for those unfamiliar with the language. He was a strong supporter of reforming the way in which Arabic grammar was understood and taught, blaming traditionalists and their opposition to any reform for the failure of language education in Arab countries. In Afghani's view, opposition from traditionalists such as the Arab Academy of Damascus stifled efforts of reform-minded bodies such as the Academy of the Arabic Language in Cairo. [2] Afghani was instrumental in the founding of Al-Arabi, a magazine showcasing the arts and culture of the Arab World. [3]
Afghani also spent ten years composing a biography of Aisha, the Muslim prophet Muhammad's second or third wife; the book was noted for Afghani's views on women in Islam, which Moroccan feminist writer Fatema Mernissi described as representative of all the Muslim world's most conservative views. [4] Afghani was also learned in the field of Islamic studies, devoting much attention to the aspects of Muslim jurisprudence. On both language and religion, he wrote very little, seeing that books should only be written if there was a clear need for research on the given topic. [1] Being a follower of the Zahirite school of Islamic law, Afghani devoted much attention to preserving and commenting on the works of Ibn Hazm, one of the school's champions. Afghani's 1960 published edition of Ibn Hazm's Mulakhkhas, an important work of Zahirite legal theory, is considered a key moment in Arab intellectual history and the modernist revival of Ibn Hazm's legal method. [5] In Hadith studies, Afghani was a student of Habib Al-Rahman Al-Azmi.
Ibn ʿArabī, nicknamed al-Qushayrī and Sulṭān al-ʿĀrifīn, was an Arab Andalusian Muslim scholar, mystic, poet, and philosopher, extremely influential within Islamic thought. Out of the 850 works attributed to him, some 700 are authentic while over 400 are still extant. His cosmological teachings became the dominant worldview in many parts of the Muslim world.
Abū Muḥammad ʿAlī ibn Aḥmad ibn Saʿīd ibn Ḥazm was an Arab Andalusian Muslim polymath, historian, muhaddith, jurist, philosopher, and theologian, born in the Caliphate of Córdoba, present-day Spain. Described as one of the strictest hadith interpreters, Ibn Hazm was a leading proponent and codifier of the Zahiri school of Islamic thought and produced a reported 400 works, of which only 40 still survive. In all, his written works amounted to some 80 000 pages. Described as one of the fathers of comparative religion, the Encyclopaedia of Islam refers to him as having been one of the leading thinkers of the Muslim world.
Abū Muḥammad ʿAbd Allāh ibn Muslim ibn Qutayba al-Dīnawarī al-Marwazī better known simply as Ibn Qutaybah was an Islamic scholar of Persian descent. He served as a judge during the Abbasid Caliphate, but was best known for his contributions to Arabic literature. He was an Athari theologian and polymath who wrote on diverse subjects, such as Qur'anic exegesis, hadith, theology, philosophy, law and jurisprudence, grammar, philology, history, astronomy, agriculture and botany.
Mohammad Akram Nadwi is an Islamic scholar and the Dean of Cambridge Islamic College, principal of Al-Salam Institute, and an Honorary Visiting Fellow at the Markfield Institute of Higher Education. He is the author of the 43 volume biographical dictionary called Al-Wafa Bi Asma Al-Nisa, which chronicles the lives of 10,000 female hadith scholars and narrators.
Abū Bakr Muḥammad ibn aṭ-Ṭayyib al-Bāqillānī, often known as al-Bāqillānī for short, was a famous Sunni scholar who specialized in theology, jurisprudence, logic and hadith who spent much of his life defending and strengthening the Ash'ari school of theology within Islam. An accomplished rhetorical stylist and orator, al-Baqillani was held in high regard by his contemporaries for his expertise in debating theological and jurisprudential issues. Al-Dhahabi called him "The Learned Imam, Incomparable Master, Foremost of the Scholars, Author of many books, The Example of Articulateness and Intelligence."
ʿIyāḍ ibn Mūsā (1083–1149), born in Ceuta, then belonging to the Almoravid dynasty, was the scholar of Maliki fiqh and great imam of that city and, later, a qadi in the Emirate of Granada.
Abu al-Abbas Ahmad bin Abd al-Rahman bin Muhammad bin Sa'id bin Harith bin Asim al-Lakhmi al-Qurtubi, better known as Ibn Maḍāʾ was an Arab Muslim polymath from Córdoba in Islamic Spain. Ibn Mada was notable for having challenged the traditional formation of Arabic grammar and of the common understanding of linguistic governance among Arab grammarians, performing an overhaul first suggested by Al-Jahiz 200 years prior. He is considered the first linguist in history to address the subject of dependency in the grammatical sense in which it is understood today, and was instrumental during the Almohad reforms as chief judge of the Almohad Caliphate.
The canon of work by Ibn Hazm, prolific and important Andalusian jurist, belletrist, and heresiographer is extensive. He was said to have written over 400 books.
Abu al-Walid al-Baji was a famous Maliki scholar and poet from Beja, Al-Andalus.
Yūsuf ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Barr, Abū ʿUmar al-Namarī al-Andalusī al-Qurṭubī al-Mālikī, commonly known as Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr was an eleventh-century Arab Maliki scholar and Athari theologian who served as the Qadi of Lisbon. He died in December 2, 1071 (aged 93).
Muhammad bin Umar bin Abd al-Rahman bin Abd Allah al-Aqil, better known as Abu Abd al-Rahman Ibn Aqil al-Zahiri, is a Saudi Arabian polymath. He has, at various times, been referred to as a theologian, jurist, historian, ethnographer, geographer, poet, critic and author. As a member of Saudi Arabia's "Golden Generation," he knew of life both during the poverty of the pre-oil boom era and the prosperity of the 1950s onward.
Abu Abd Allah Muhammad ibn Abi Nasr Futuh ibn Abd Allah ibn Futuh ibn Humayd ibn Yasil, most commonly known as al-Humaydi Al-saboni, was an Andalusian scholar of history and Islamic studies of Arab origin.
Abu Muhammad Abd Allah bin Muhammad bin Qasim bin Hilal bin Yazid bin 'Imran al-'Absi al-Qaysi was an early Muslim jurist and theologian.
Ihsan Abbas was a Palestinian professor at the American University of Beirut, and was considered a premier figure of Arabic and Islamic studies in the East and West during the 20th century. The "author of over one hundred books", during his career, Abbas was renowned as one of the foremost scholars of Arabic language and literature and was a respected literary critic. Upon his death, Abbas was eulogized by University College London historian Lawrence Conrad as a custodian of Arabic heritage and culture, and a figure whose scholarship had dominated the Middle East's intellectual and cultural life for decades.
Muhammad bin Ahmad bin Abdullah bin Muhammad bin Yahya bin Muhammad bin Muhammad bin Sayyid al-Nas al-Ya'mari, better known as Abu Bakr Ibn Sayyid al-Nās, was a Medieval Muslim theologian. He was the grandfather of Fatḥ al-Din Ibn Sayyid al-Nās, though he died before ever meeting his grandson.
Abū Naṣr Tāj al-Dīn ʻAbd al-Wahhāb ibn ʿAlī ibn ʻAbd al-Kāfī al-Subkī, or Tāj al-Dīn al-Subkī or simply Ibn al-Subki (1327-1370) was a leading Islamic scholar, a faqīh, a muḥaddith and a historian from the celebrated al-Subkī family of Shāfiʿī ʿulamā, during the Mamluk era.
Mohamed Habib Marzouki is a Tunisian academic, philosopher and translator. Along with intellectual work, he involved in politics for a short time following the Jasmine revolution. Resigning only a year later, he declared his intention to step out of political work for good and count on writing to incite social change.
The Ẓāhirīmadhhab or al-Ẓāhirīyyah is a Sunnī school of Islamic jurisprudence founded by Dāwūd al-Ẓāhirī in the 9th century CE. It is characterized by strict adherence to literalism and reliance on the outward (ẓāhir) meaning of expressions in the Quran and ḥadīth literature; the consensus (ijmāʿ) of the first generation of Muhammad's closest companions (ṣaḥāba), for sources of Islamic law (sharīʿa); and rejection of analogical deduction (qiyās) although Iman Zahiri sometimes accepted Qiyas al Jely and usually not accept societal custom or knowledge (urf), used by other schools of Islamic jurisprudence. The school has also accepted Religious inference as valid.
Issam Abdel-Masih Mahfouz was a Lebanese playwright, poet, journalist, author, translator, and critic. His literary works include dozens of books on politics, culture, and theater, as well as “dialogues” - imagined exchanges with historical figures. During his lifetime he was also well known as a Professor of Dramatic Arts at the Lebanese University and for his writing in the Lebanese newspaper al-Nahār, particularly its culture section.
Abū Bakr al-Zubaydī, also known as Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan ibn ‘Abd Allāh ibn Madḥīj al-Faqīh and Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan al-Zubaydī al-Ishbīlī, held the title Akhbār al-fuquhā and wrote books on topics including philology, biography, history, philosophy, law, lexicology, and hadith.