At a glance
- Roles
- Scholar · writer
- Counted among
- Sunni
- Era
- The Umayyad Period
- Region
- Levant & Iraq
- Identifiers
- Wikidata
- Review
- Draft Completeness 1/5 · Help complete it
Life in time
LinguisticsScripture and its sciences
Place in the story
- ScholarTradition
Roles are dated and sourced; the museum describes the act and attributes the judgement.
Overview
Abu al-Aswad al-Du'ali, Zalim ibn Amr ibn Sufyan, a philologist and transmitter from the Du'al of Bakr ibn Kinana. The encyclopaedia says that he died in 69 AH. 1
He is credited with the pointing of the Qur'an and with laying down grammar. Ibn al-Nadim says that most scholars claimed that grammar was taken from him, and that he took it from Ali ibn Abi Talib, and that from it came Abu al-Aswad's pointing for the vowels of fath, damm and kasr and the nasal. It is mentioned as the reason that he heard a reader make a mistake in a verse of the surah of al-Bara'a. 2
Connections
- Participated in
- Conquest of Surraq· Ibn ʿAbbās quits Basra for Mecca (40 AH)
People and things also explored
Abdullah ibn Abbas· Abd Allah ibn Amir· al-Ahnaf ibn Qays· Ali ibn Abi Talib· Haritha ibn Badr al-Ghudani· Basra· Mecca· Surraq
Sources
- Mawsu'at A'lam al-Ulama' wa-l-Adaba' al-Arab wa-l-Muslimin — Dar al-Jil / ALECSO
- al-Fihrist of Ibn al-Nadim , p.103-106
- Muhammad Qabbani, The Umayyad State from Birth to Fall (Damascus: Dar Wahy al-Qalam, 2006)
- Asma al-Matalib fi Sirat Ali ibn Abi Talib, vol. 1 — Ali Muhammad al-Sallabi
- al-Abshihi, al-Mustatraf fi kull fann mustazraf, vol. 1 (scan)
Cite this page
islam.museum contributors. “Abu al-Aswad al-Du'ali, Zalim ibn Amr”. islam.museum, https://islam.museum/en/person/abu-al-aswad-al-duali/. CC BY-SA 4.0. Last updated 2026-10-25.