Ibn al-Jawzi

Abd al-Rahman ibn Ali ibn al-Jawzi, a historian and preacher, author of a history of the Abbasid caliphs that runs down to the days of al-Nasir. Shadharat al-Dhahab says that he was born in 510 AH or earlier, and that he was attributed to a quarter of Basra called the quarter of al-Jawz. ¹

His aunt brought him to the mosque of Abu al-Fadl ibn Nasir, who was his maternal uncle. The uncle cared for him, had him hear hadith, and he memorised the Qur'an and heard from about eighty-seven people. ¹

He preached from a young age. He related more than once that the size of his gathering was estimated at a hundred thousand, and the caliph al-Mustadi' attended his sessions several times from behind a curtain. He wrote on exegesis, hadith, jurisprudence, asceticism, preaching, reports, history and medicine. He died in 597 AH. ¹

Tareq al-Suwaidan presents Ibn al-Jawzi — distinguished from Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya — as the model preacher-creator: orphaned of his father young, raised by his mother, and taken by his aunt who noticed his talents to the mosque of Abu al-Fadl ibn Nasir, who undertook his care ^{2 3 4}. Of his early devotion: he memorised the Qur'an young under the masters of the readings, left home only for Friday prayer, never played with the boys, and in Sayd al-Khatir describes studying by the river while the boys went down to the Tigris ^{5 6 7}. He quotes Sayd al-Khatir on himself: 'I am a man to whom learning was made lovable since childhood, and not one art but all its arts; nor does my ambition in an art stop at part of it — I seek its utmost' — with his complaint that life is too narrow for his longing ^{8 9 10}. He studied under eighty-six shaykhs of whom he says 'I took each one's knowledge entire'; began writing hadith at eleven; and began preaching and teaching at Baghdad's great mosque before twenty ^{11 12 13}. He offers a critical reading (the speaker's view): Ibn al-Jawzi's great distinction was preaching, not precision in scholarship — one who takes every art masters none — so he finds in him errors in creed, hadith and fiqh, while no preacher of his power has passed over the ummah since the Companions ^{14 15 16}. Of his fame: he relays an estimate of a hundred thousand at his sitting (allowing exaggeration, he says); the caliph himself attended; Ibn Jubayr describes his session in 580 AH — 'they fell upon him like moths upon a lamp' — and Ibn Rajab 'when he preached, hearts were seized and souls, not pockets, were rent' ^{17 16 18 19}. His address to the caliph: 'O commander of the faithful, if I speak to you I fear you, and if I keep silent I fear for you — and I put my fear for you before my fear of you'; and the slander of enviers that he stirred people against the caliph, for which he was confined in a house at Wasit five years until his son Yusuf obtained intercession through the caliph's mother ^{20 21 22}. Of his works: Zad al-Masir fi Ilm al-Tafsir, twenty-seven works on the Qur'an and its sciences, Talbis Iblis — setting out how Satan enters the human soul and beguiles it even through learning — and biographies of the Companions and jurists; Ibn Taymiyya, he says, saw over nine hundred of his works while some historians put them near a thousand ^{23 24 25 26}. A Hanbali yet not a partisan, he departed from the school on some questions and some of Ahmad's followers resented him for it; and he built five madrasas in Baghdad, the first in Darb Dinar, teaching fourteen lessons there on opening day ^{27 28 29}. His second critique: on examination he found in him a degree of self-admiration, for he speaks often of himself — distinguishing this from arrogance, which despises others (the speaker's view) ^{30 31}. He died on Friday night, the twelfth of Ramadan 597 AH, after five days' illness; the markets closed for his funeral and many never reached his grave for the crowd; he was buried near Imam Ahmad's grave ^{32 33 34}. And he reckons that dividing his writings by his days gives him about forty pages composed every day of his life ³⁵.