At a glance
- Era
- The Early Abbasid Caliphate
- Region
- Persia & Central Asia
In time
In space
Map: Natural Earth, public domain · places and route from the graph
Overview
Al-Tabari left his father's house at Amul in search of knowledge aged twelve, about 236/850, and settled at Rayy, the metropolis of northern Persia, where he studied for some five years; his most important teacher there was Abd Allah ibn Humayd al-Razi, through whom he received Ibn Ishaq's Maghazi material transmitted by Salama ibn al-Fadl 1.
An early start
Al-Tabari says of himself that he had memorised the Qur'an aged seven, led the prayer aged eight and studied hadith aged nine; his father, a moderately prosperous landowner, sent him his allowance with the annual pilgrimage caravan from Khurasan 1.
Connections
People and things also explored
al-Tabari enters Egypt and studies with its scholars· al-Tabari studies in Baghdad and southern Iraq· al-Tabari returns to Baghdad and settles there· al-Tabari's second journey home to Tabaristan· Fritware (stonepaste)· the great ʿAjam earthquake — Iraq to beyond Rayy· Battle of Ray (1059)· Conquest of Rayy (22 AH)
Sources
- Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd edition (Leiden: Brill, 1954–2008), 13 volumes , vol. 10 p. 21
Cite this page
islam.museum contributors. “al-Tabari leaves Amul for Rayy in search of knowledge”. islam.museum, https://islam.museum/en/event/tabari-leaves-amul-rayy-236/. CC BY-SA 4.0. Last updated 2026-11-01.
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