Abu Bakr, Abd Al-Qahir ibn Abd Al-Rahman Al-Jurjani was born early in the fifth century of the Islamic calendar, (11th Gregorian century), in Jurjan, a town in today’s Iran. He belonged to an ordinary Persian family, but he distinguished himself in Arabic linguistics and his literary gifts. This is not surprising, because whoever wanted to be a scholar in the Muslim world at the time had to attain a high standard in Arabic. Arabic was not only the second language in all non-Arab parts of the Muslim world; it was the language of education. Muslims needed Arabic in order to learn the Qur’an and the Hadith.
Although Abd Al-Qahir Al-Jurjani lived at a time of military conflict and political turmoil, yet learning and scholarship maintained their flourish at the time. Trends of culture were converging from different parts of the world, with numerous schools in practically every field of scholarship. Abd Al-Qahir studied under a large number of scholars in his hometown. He studied Arabic linguistics under Abu Al-Husayn Muhammad ibn Hasan, a nephew of Abu Ali Al-Farisi, one of the major figures in Arabic scholarship. Abd Al-Qahir pursued his studies further, reading books by earlier major figures, such as Al-Jahiz, Sibaweih, Ibn Qutaybah, Abu Ali Al-Farisi, Al-Hamadhani, etc.
Although Abd Al-Qahir attained a high standard in the study of Fiqh and other disciplines of Islamic studies, he owes his great fame to his excellence in Arabic scholarship. His writings centered mainly on Arabic linguistics, style and literature. He became the scholar students traveled to meet and learn from. His circle was full of students from all over the Muslim world seeking to study the Qur’an, its style and literary merits. His writings were voluminous. He wrote an annotation of an earlier book Al-Idah, completing it in 30 volumes, then summarized it in three volumes. He also wrote a whole book explaining the Surah Al-Fatihah, which a Muslim reads at least 17 times in his daily prayers.
Abd Al-Qahir Al-Jurjani belonged to the Shafie school of Fiqh, and was known for being devout and God-fearing. Another characteristic of this great scholar was his contentedness. It is reported that one day he was in his night worship, or tahajjud, when a burglar broke into his home. He saw the burglar taking whatever he found worth taking, but he did not stop his prayer. He felt that the theft of his things was too trivial a matter to merit the interruption of his prayer.
Two of his books have been edited and published several times, bringing him to the forefront of scholars whose influence on Arabic studies remain considerable. One of these is Asrar Al-Balaghah in which he speaks about the secret of powerful writings, whether in prose or poetry. In this he achieves a standard that supersedes everything before him. He was able to do so because he based his investigation and research on two main branches of Arabic studies, namely, grammar and poetry. In this, he was greatly influenced by two major figures in our history: Sibaweih, the founder of Arabic linguistics, and Al-Jahiz who remains even today one of the best known literary figures.
His other book, Dala’il Al-I’jaz, which is devoted to a literary study of the Qur’anic style, showing its unrivaled power that astonished the Prophet’s contemporaries even though they were known for their superb literary sense. A contemporary authority in Arabic and Islamic studies, the late Sheikh Mahmood Muhammad Shakir, who edited the most recent edition of the book, writes that he felt that, in this book, Abd Al-Qahir was establishing a new discipline which no one had ever touched upon. Nevertheless, he did not go about his task in the normal way in such cases where the author would introduce his book by outlining his objective, then give an outline of his task, before tackling each point in its relevant chapter under a clear heading. He seems to be in a rush, eager to complete the task in hand.
Another point to which Sheikh Shakir draws our attention is that Al-Jurjani was eager to refute certain statements concerning the essence of powerful expression and its relation to the words used and how they are given in their particular contexts. From what he mentions, it is clear that he means the Mu’tazilah, a school of theology which flourished between the second and fifth centuries of the Islamic calendar. However, he does not mention any names. He only refutes the argument making clear that it is advanced by scholarly figures of wide repute. Sheikh Shakir establishes that the scholar in question was Justice Abd Al-Jabbar ibn Ahmad Al-Hamadhani, (d. 415 H) who was the top Mu’tazilah figure in the second half of the fourth century and the early part of the fifth century of the Islamic calendar. The Mu’tazilah school relied heavily on a rationalist approach and had certain ideas which its scholars held with determination to impose on all people. They benefited from political support in a certain period, mounting a campaign of intellectual oppression. Although this dwindled in the fourth century, yet Justice Abd Al-Jabbar was able to keep their line of thinking flourishing for a while longer. In his book, Abd Al-Qahir shows that although Justice Abd Al-Jabbar may be a major figure in Fiqh and theology, his knowledge of literary merit is highly questionable. Yet Abd Al-Qahir was too religious and God-fearing to mention his adversary by name. He did not wish to undermine his reputation; he only wanted to show that he had the wrong ideas, and that he was not competent in an area which he, nevertheless, approached with little knowledge.
Today, Abd Al-Qahir’s two books are studied in Departments of Arabic Literature in many universities in the Arab world. He certainly had a great contribution to make in this discipline to Arabic studies generally, and to literary style in particular. Abd Al-Qahir died in 471, or in 474 H, corresponding to 1089 and 1092 CE respectively. May God shower His mercy on him.
