Al-Jahiz

Who is Al-Jahiz?

Abu Uthman Amr ibn Bahr al-Jahiz was born in Basra, in what is now Iraq, and became one of the most prolific and influential prose writers of the classical Arabic tradition. Of partial East African descent and raised in modest circumstances, he was largely self-taught, spending long hours in the book markets of Basra absorbing grammar, poetry, theology, and the natural sciences. He later moved to Baghdad, where he associated with the intellectual circles of the Abbasid caliphal court. A leading figure of the Mu'tazila theological school, he applied rational argument to questions of religion, politics, and society, but he is best remembered for his wit, curiosity, and encyclopedic range as an essayist. His major surviving works include Kitab al-Hayawan (The Book of Animals), a sprawling compendium of zoology, anecdote, and philosophy, and Kitab al-Bukhala (The Book of Misers), a satirical study of human greed. Popular tradition holds that he died in Basra in old age when a collapsing pile of his own books fell on him, a story often repeated though not verified with certainty.

Sources: Al-Jahiz, Kitab al-Hayawan (Book of Animals) · Al-Jahiz, Kitab al-Bukhala (Book of Misers) · Encyclopaedia Britannica, "al-Jahiz"