About Imam al-Jurjani :

 

He is Abu Bakr, Abd al-Qahir ibn Abd al-Rahman al-Jurjani, rahimahullah. He was born early in the fifth century of the Islamic calendar, (11th Gregorian century), in Jurjan, a town in today’s Iran. He belonged to an ordinary Persian family, but he distinguished himself in Arabic linguistics because whoever wanted to be a scholar in the Muslim world at the time had to attain a high standard in Arabic. Muslims needed Arabic in order to learn the Qur’an and the Hadith.


Abd 'ul-Qahir studied under a large number of scholars in his hometown. He studied Arabic linguistics under Imam Abu al-Husayn Muhammad ibn Hasan, a nephew of Abu Ali Al-Farisi, one of the major figures in Arabic scholarship. Abd al-Qahir pursued his studies further, reading books by earlier major figures, such as al-Jahiz, Sibaweih, Ibn Qutaybah, Abu Ali al-Farisi, al-Hamadhani, etc.


Although Abd al-Qahir attained a high standard in the study of Fiqh and other disciplines of Islamic studies, he owes his great fame to his excellence in Arabic scholarship. His writings centered mainly on Arabic linguistics, style and literature. He became the scholar students traveled to meet and learn from. His circle was full of students from all over the Muslim world seeking to study the Qur’an, its style and literary merits. His writings were voluminous. He wrote an annotation of an earlier book Al-Idah, completing it in 30 volumes, then summarised it in three volumes. He also wrote a whole book (commentary) explaining the Surah al-Fatihah.


Imam 'Abd al-Qahir al-Jurjani belonged to the Shafi'i school of Fiqh, and was an Ash'ari in creed. He was known for being devout and God-fearing.

 

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