al-Tabari returns to Baghdad and settles there

عودة الطبري إلى بغداد واستقراره بها

c. 870 CE · 256 AH

Baghdad

Al-Tabari returned from Egypt to Baghdad about 256/870, bringing his student Wanderjahre to an end; he settled there for the remaining fifty years of his life, devoting himself to teaching and authorship, and left only twice, for journeys to his native Tabaristan 1.

Depth

At a glance

Era
Abbasid Fragmentation
Region
Levant & Iraq

In time

860870880 c.
The Early Abbasid Caliphate · Abbasid Fragmentation

In space

Baghdad

Map: Natural Earth, public domain · places and route from the graph

Travel

Overview

Al-Tabari returned from Egypt to Baghdad about 256/870, ending his student Wanderjahre; he settled there for the remaining fifty years of his life, devoting himself to teaching and authorship 1.

Fifty years of writing

Ibn al-Jawzi reports that al-Tabari spent forty years writing forty folios a day, and that when he presented his commentary at thirty thousand folios they judged it longer than a lifetime could finish, so he cut it to about three thousand — and did the same for the History 2.

Connections

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Had participant
al-Tabari
Occurred at
Baghdad

People and things also explored

al-Tabari summoned to the vizier's house to face the Hanbalis· al-Tabari's History reaches the year 302 in dictation· Ibn Abi Dawud al-Sijistani· Ahmad ibn Yusuf al-Taghlibi· al-Tabari· Baghdad· al-Tabari enters Egypt and studies with its scholars· al-Tabari studies in Baghdad and southern Iraq

Sources

  1. Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd edition (Leiden: Brill, 1954–2008), 13 volumes , vol. 10 p. 21
  2. al-Muntazam fi Tarikh al-Muluk wa'l-Umam — Ibn al-Jawzi , p. 171-172
Cite this page

islam.museum contributors. “al-Tabari returns to Baghdad and settles there”. islam.museum, https://islam.museum/en/event/tabari-return-baghdad-256/. CC BY-SA 4.0. Last updated 2026-11-01.

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Related

al-Tabari summoned to the vizier's house to face the Hanbalis

In Dhu al-Qa'da 309/April-May 922 al-Tabari was brought to the house of the vizier Ali ibn Isa for a disputation with the Hanbalis; he attended but they did not appear, so he returned home. They had taken offence at several things, above all his book on the disagreements of the jurists, which did not list Ahmad ibn Hanbal — asked why, he answered that Ibn Hanbal had been a muhaddith, not a faqih, whereupon some Hanbalis turned against him and harassed him.