Ibn al-Jazari


Abu al-Khayr Shams al-Din Muhammad ibn Muhammad ibn Muhammad ibn Ali ibn Yusuf al-Jazari was a distinguished and prolific scholar in the field of the qira'at of the Qur'an, whom al-Suyuti regarded as the "ultimate authority on these matters". His works on tajwid and qira'at are considered classics. The nisba, Jazari, denotes an origin from Jazirat ibn 'Umar.

Biography

Al-Jazari was born in Damascus on Friday 26 November 1350, at a time where his parents were long past the age of having children, yet his father, had not given up all hope of having a child even after 40 years of marriage. It is said that Al-Jazari was born after his father's prayers for a son during the Hajj.
He completed the memorization of the Qur'an at the age of 13 and learned the art of Qur'anic recitation at an early age. In Damascus, al-Jazari founded and headed Dar al-Qur'an, a school that specialized in Qur'anic sciences. He travelled to Mecca, Medina, Cairo and Alexandria where he took knowledge from its scholars and in 774 AH, he was authorized by his teacher Ibn Kathir to issue verdicts in Islamic law. He served as a qadi of Damascus in 793 AH and later in Shiraz where he died.
He wrote two large poems about Qira'at and tajwid. One was Durrat Al-Maa'nia , in the readings of three major reciters, added to the seven in the Shatibiyyah, making it ten. The other is Tayyibat An-Nashr, which is 1014 lines on the ten major reciters in great detail, of which he also wrote a commentary.
Al-Jazri died at the age of 79 on Friday 2 December 1429 in Shiraz, Iran.

Selected Works

Al-Jazari compiled more than 90 works on qira'at, ḥadīth, ta’rīkh and other disciplines. These include: