Al-Zamakhshari


Abū al-Qāsim Maḥmūd ibn Umar al-Zamakhsharī, known as al-Zamakhsharī, or Jar Allāh , was a medieval Muslim scholar of Persian origin' He was a great Hanafite jurist, Mu'tazilite theologian and authority on Arabic language philology. Al-Zamakhshari's fame as a scholar rests upon his tafsir in his commentary on the Qur'an, Al-Kashshaaf. This seminal philosophical linguistic analysis of Qur'anic verse prompted controversy centred on its Muʿtazilite interpretation.

Life

Al-Zamakhsharī was born in, Khwarezmia, on 18 March 1075. He studied at Bukhara and Samarkand, before he travelled to Baghdad, He was a philologist of the Arabic language and opponent of the Shu'ubiyya movement. He wrote primarily in Arabic, occasionally in Persian, and based on glosses in MS of Muqaddimat al-adab, his great dictionary, it is speculated that he was a native speaker of the ancient Khwarezmian language.. Having lost a foot to frostbite, he carried a notarized declaration that the amputation was accidental, and not a legally prescribed criminal sanction.
Al-Zamakhsharī earned the laqab "Jar-Allāh" for the years he spent in Mecca before he finally returned to Khwarezm,. Al-Zamakhsharī died in the capital city Gurgānj on 12 July 1144 AD.

Selected Works

Among the more than fifty titles attributed to him are:
Al-Zamakhshari's Arabic-Persian dictionary, the Muqaddimat al-adab is the primary source for the study and preservation of this extinct Iranian Kwaresmian language, which survives primarily in interlinear glosses contained in a single manuscript. Other manuscripts of this work also contain glosses.