Ibn Qutaiba

Abū Muhammad ʿAbdallāh ibn Muslim ibn Qutaiba ad-Dīnawarī ( Arabic أبو محمد عبد الله بن مسلم بن قتيبة الدينوري; * around 828 in Kufa ; † 889 in Baghdad ) was an important Sunni scholar who was active under the Abbasids and from whom numerous works on various fields of knowledge have come down to us.

Little is known of his childhood and youth. He studied with numerous teachers, including a student of Ibn Hanbal . A vizier of the Abbasid caliph al-Mutawakkil , who had abolished the Mihna (Islamic Inquisition) and the supremacy of the rationalist Mutazilites from 846 onwards , became Ibn Qutaiba's patron and appointed him Qādī of Dinawar in 851 . Ibn Qutaiba remained in this office until around 870. From 871 he devoted himself to passing on his work and lived in a quarter of Baghdad, which he did not leave until his death in 889.

Works

Most of the works that are certain to be ascribed to him were published during the 20th century. This includes:

• Kitāb aš-šiʿr wa š-šuʿarāʾ - Medieval collection of pre-Islamic poetry.
• Kitāb Adab al-kātib , a philological handbook for use by secretaries, the introduction of which represents a political and cultural creed towards the ruling caliphate ,
• Kitāb al-Anwāʾ ("Weather Book "): a treatise on practical astronomy and meteorology ,
• Kitab al-Ashribah , Book of Drinks,
• Kitāb al-maisir wa-l-qidāh : legal treatises on alcoholic beverages and games of chance,
• Kitāb Ġarīb al-Qurʾān : philological commentary on the difficult passages of the Koran ,
• Kitāb Muškil al-Qurʾān : Treatise on the rhetoric and wonder of the Koran,
• Kitāb al-Maʿārif / Ibn Coteiba's Handbook of History. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 1850 digitized
• further poetic, theological and scientific treatises.

literature

• Gérard Lecomte: Ibn Qutayba (mort en 276/889); l'homme, son oeuvre, ses idées . Damas, Inst. Français de Damas , 1965.
• G. Lecomte: Art. Ibn Ḳutayba in The Encyclopaedia of Islam. New Edition . Vol. III, pp. 844b-847b.