Depth
At a glance
- Era
- The Rashidun Caliphate · The Umayyad Period
- Region
- Levant & Iraq
- Identifiers
- Wikidata
- Review
- Draft Completeness 1/5 · Help complete it
Overview
Abu Amr ibn al-Ala' was a philologist, and in the Fihrist's index he is the first of the seven readers. Ahmad ibn Zayd al-Halwani, Isma ibn Abi Isma and al-Yazidi transmitted his reading from him. 1
Al-Mas'udi says that he died in 154 AH in the days of al-Mansur. 2
Al-Baladhuri quotes from him a reason for naming the land "al-Sawad": when the Arabs saw the abundance of villages, palms and trees, they said "we have not seen a greater sawad", and "al-sawad" means the mass of a person. 3
Sources
- al-Fihrist of Ibn al-Nadim , p. 71-72
- Muruj al-Dhahab — al-Masʼudi , p. 293
- Futuh al-Buldan — al-Baladhuri (Mu'assasat al-Ma'arif edition)
Cite this page
islam.museum contributors. “Abu Amr ibn al-Ala'”. islam.museum, https://islam.museum/en/person/abu-amr-ibn-al-ala/. CC BY-SA 4.0. Last updated 2026-10-19.