Abu Zayd al-Qurashi
- Died
- 170 AH
- Born in
- -
Abu Zayd al-Qurashi (d. c. 170 AH / 786 CE, though later dates are also argued) was an early Arab literary anthologist best known for compiling the poetic anthology Jamharat Ash'ar al-Arab (The Gathering of Arab Poetry).
Identity and chronology
His full name is given as Abu Zayd Muhammad ibn Abi al-Khattab al-Qurashi. His biography remains shrouded in obscurity, as he is unmentioned in classical biographical and genealogical dictionaries (tabaqat and rijal), appearing neither among hadith transmitters, grammarians, lexicographers, nor poets.
Scholars disagree significantly over the period in which he lived:
- Modern historians such as Butrus al-Bustani and Sulayman al-Bustani placed his death around 170 AH / 786 CE, situating him in the second century of the Hijra.
- Other literary historians, including Jurji Zaydan and Mustafa al-Shak'a, argued that he lived in the mid-third century AH (c. 250 AH), noting that the introduction of his anthology cites reports transmitted from al-Asma'i (d. 216 AH) through two generational intermediaries: al-Muqanna' from his father.
- Modern bibliographer Fuat Sezgin and other researchers suggested that the compilation took its final form in the first half of the fourth century AH.
Attribution and scholarly reception
The earliest known scholar to cite Abu Zayd al-Qurashi and attribute Jamharat Ash'ar al-Arab to him was Ibn Rashiq (d. 456 or 463 AH) in al-Umda, followed by later authorities such as al-Suyuti in al-Muzhir and Abd al-Qadir al-Baghdadi in Khizanat al-Adab.
Because of the compiler's obscurity, conflicting attributions exist in classical reports and manuscripts; the collection has alternately been ascribed to Abu Abd Allah al-Mufaddal ibn Abd Allah ibn Muhammad ibn al-Mujabbar or to Muhammad ibn Ayyub al-Azizi al-Umari. Nevertheless, attribution to Abu Zayd al-Qurashi is supported by the opening attribution on manuscripts and the recurring phrase "Muhammad said" introducing reports in the work's opening section.
The anthology consists of forty-nine pre-Islamic and early Islamic odes arranged into seven thematic groups of seven poems each—the Mu'allaqat, Mujamharat, Muntaqayat, Mudhahhabat, Marathi, Mashubat, and Mulhamat—preceded by a prose introduction that borrows directly from Majaz al-Qur'an by Abu Ubayda.
Answer updated
List of Works
Jamharat Ash'ar al-Arab (The Gathering of Arab Poetry) is an early anthology of Arabic poetry containing forty-nine celebrated pre-Islamic and early Islamic odes arranged into seven thematic categories.