al-Juba'i

Al-Juba'i, the Sunni imam Abu Muhammad 'Abdallah ibn Abi'l-Hasan al-Juba'i the Hanbali; from a village called al-Jubba near Busra in the Tripoli district, whose people were Christians — his father among their scholars. Taken captive as a child and brought into Islam, he memorised the Qur'an in the Hanbalis' circle at the Damascus mosque, and men suggested to Shaykh Zayn al-Din Ibn Naja that he be bought and freed; so he was purchased and manumitted. ²

He travelled to Hamadan and stayed with the hafiz Abu'l-'Ala, teaching Qur'an for pay, then reached Baghdad in 540, heard its hadith and accompanied Shaykh 'Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani, inclined to asceticism; when he wrote that he longed to withdraw from people, 'Abd al-Qadir answered: "Do not withdraw until you have mastered fiqh and sat with the shaykhs — the owner of a zawiya should be like a candle by whose light others see." His standing grew so great at Baghdad and Isfahan that market-goers stood when he passed; he died at Isfahan on 3 Jumada al-Akhira 605. ²