Ibn al-Sari al-Zajjaj


Abū Isḥāq Ibrāhīm ibn Muḥammad ibn al-Sarī al-Zajjāj was a grammarian of Basrah, a scholar of philology and theology and a favourite at the Abbāsid court. He died in 922 at Baghdād, the capital city in his time.

Life

Abū Isḥāq Ibrāhīm ibn Muḥammad al-Sarī al-Zajjāj had been a glass-grinder – al-Zajjāj means ‘the glassman’ - before abandoning this trade to study philology under the two leading grammarians, al-Mubarrad of the Baṣran school and Tha'lab of the Kufan school. As top student and class representative he advised al-Mubarrad. He studied “Al-Kitāb” of Sībawayh with the Baṣrah grammarian Abū Fahd.
Al-Zajjāj entered the Abbāsid court, first as tutor to al-Qāsim ibn ‘Ubayd Allāh, son of the vizier ‘Ubayd Allāh ibn Sulaymān ibn Wahb’s and later, as tutor to the sons of the caliph al-Mu‘taḍid.
On his succession to the vizierate, Caliph al-Mu’taḍid ordered vizier al-Qāsim to commission an exposition of the Compendium of Speech by Maḥbarah al-Nadīm. Both Tha’lab and Al-Mubarrad declined the project for lack of knowledge and old age respectively. Al-Mubarrad proposed his friend and relative novice al-Zajjāj, who was commissioned to work on just two sections as a trial of his abilities. In doing his research he consulted books on language by Tha‘lab, al-Sukkarī, et al. He was assisted by al-Tirmidhī the Younger, as his amanuensis. The bound two-section commentary greatly impressed Caliph al-Mu’taḍid and al-Zajjāj was given the work to complete the commentary for the payment of three hundred gold dīnār. The finished manuscript was kept in al-Mu’taḍid's royal library, and the issuing of any copies to other libraries was prohibited.
Winning the caliph's favour, he received a royal pension of three hundred gold dīnār from three official roles as court companion, jurist and scholar.
Among al-Zajjāj's pupils were the grammarian Abū Alī al-Fārisī and Abū ‘l-Qāsim Abd ar-Raḥmān, author of the Jumal fi ‘n-Nawhi, Ibn al-Sarrāj and ‘Alī al-Marāghī the rival of Abu al-‘Abbās Tha’lab.
Al-Zajjāj had a dispute with al-Khayyāṭ, a grammarian-theologian of Samarqand, whom he met in Baghdād.
Al-Zajjāj died at Baghdād on 13 October 922 - other sources give 924 and 928 , aged over eighty.

Selected Works

Abū Alī al-Fārisī wrote a treatise in refutation of al-Zajjāj, titled Kitāb al-masā’il al-maslahat yurwiha ‘an az-Zajjāj wa-tu’raf bi-al-Aghfāl ; the Aghfāl, in which he refutes al-Zajjāj in his book Maāni.