Ibn Zanjalah
- Died
- 403 AH
- Born in
- -
Abu Zur'ah Ibn Zanjalah (d. c. 403 AH / 1012 CE) was a scholar of Quranic readings (qira'at) and a Maliki judge, best known for his treatise Hujjat al-Qira'at (The Argumentation of the Quranic Readings) .
Life and Education
Abu Zur'ah Abd al-Rahman ibn Muhammad ibn Zanjalah lived during the fourth century AH, coinciding with prominent grammarians and philologists such as Abu Ali al-Farisi, al-Sirafi, and Ibn Jinni . He studied philology under Ahmad ibn Faris, reading his book al-Sahibi with him at al-Muhammadiyyah in Rayy in the year 382 AH . In legal practice, he served as a judge adhering to the Maliki school of law .
Scholarly Contribution
Ibn Zanjalah contributed significantly to the genre of ihtijaj, the linguistic and grammatical justification of the canonical Quranic readings . In Hujjat al-Qira'at, completed before 403 AH, he arranged variant readings among the Seven readers according to standard surah order, deriving arguments from the Quran, Hadith, Arabic poetry, prose, and grammatical analysis, marked by conciseness and clarity . He also composed a treatise on pausing and resuming titled Sharaf al-Qurra' fi al-Waqf wa-al-Ibtida', as well as a work of Quranic commentary to which he made reference in his writings on readings .
Death
Ibn Zanjalah died around 403 AH (ca. 1012 CE) .
Answer updated
List of Works
Hujjat al-Qiraat (The Argumentation of the Quranic Readings) is a fourth-century AH treatise on the linguistic and textual justification of the seven canonical Quranic readings. Arranged according to the standard order of Quranic surahs, the work examines passages featuring variant readings among the Seven readers, providing the grammatical, dialectal, and textual proofs for each variant.