Al-Jahiz

Abu Uthman Amr ibn Bahr al-Kinani al-Basri (Arabic: أبو عثمان عمرو بن بحر الكناني البصري, romanized: Abū ʿUthman ʿAmr ibn Baḥr al-Kinānī al-Baṣrī; c. 776–868/869), commonly known as al-Jahiz (Arabic: الجاحظ, romanized: al-Jāḥiẓ, lit. 'the bug eyed', [al.dʒaː.ħɪðˤ]), was an Arab polymath and author of works of literature (including theory and criticism), theology, zoology, philosophy, grammar, dialectics, rhetoric, philology, linguistics, and politico-religious polemics. His extensive zoological work has been credited with describing principles related to natural selection, ethology, and the functions of an ecosystem.

Ibn al-Nadim lists nearly 140 titles attributed to al-Jahiz, of which 75 are extant. The best known are Kitāb al-Ḥayawān (The Book of Animals), a seven-part compendium on an array of subjects with animals as their point of departure; Kitāb al-Bayān wa-l-tabyīn (The Book of Eloquence and Exposition), a wide-ranging work on human communication; and Kitāb al-Bukhalāʾ (The Book of Misers), a collection of anecdotes on stinginess. Tradition claims that he was smothered to death when a vast amount of books fell over him.

The actual name of al-Jahiz was Abū ʿUthman ʿAmr ibn Bahr ibn Maḥbūb. His grandfather, Maḥbūb, was a protégé or mawali of ‘Amr ibn Qal‘ al-Kinānī, who was from Arab Banu Kinanah tribe. Not much is known about al-Jāḥiẓ's early life, but his family was very poor. Born in Basra early in 160/February 776, he asserted in a book he wrote that he was a member of the Banu Kinanah. However, the grandfather of al-Jāḥiẓ was reportedly a Black jammāl (cameleer)  – or ḥammāl (porter); the manuscripts differ – of ‘Amr ibn Qal‘ named Maḥbūb, nicknamed Fazārah, or Fazārah was his maternal grandfather, and Maḥbūb his paternal. The names may however have been confused. His nephew also reported that al-Jāḥiẓ's grandfather was a black cameleer. In the early Islamic Arabia, the designation of Black ( Arabic: السودان "as-swadan") was used to describe people like Zuṭṭ and Zanj, and based on this, several scholars have stated that al-Jahiz descended from one of these black communities, with some even suggesting that he was possibly of African descent.

He sold fish along one of the canals in Basra to help his family. Financial difficulties, however, did not stop al-Jāḥiẓ from continuously seeking knowledge. He used to gather with a group of other youths at Basra's main mosque, where they would discuss different scientific subjects. During the cultural and intellectual revolution under the Abbasid Caliphate books became readily available, and learning accessible. Al-Jāḥiẓ studied philology, lexicography and poetry from among the most learned scholars at the School of Basra, where he attended the lectures of Abū Ubaydah, al-Aṣma’ī, Sa'īd ibn Aws al-Anṣārī and studied ilm an-naḥw (علم النحو, i.e., syntax) with Akhfash al-Awsaṭ (al-Akhfash Abī al-Ḥasan). Over a twenty-five-year span studying, al-Jāḥiẓ acquired a considerable knowledge of Arabic poetry, Arabic philology, pre-Islamic Arab history, the Qur'an and the Hadiths. He read translated books on Greek sciences and Hellenistic philosophy, especially that of the Greek philosopher Aristotle. Al-Jahiz was also critical of those who followed the Hadiths of Abu Hurayra, referring to his Hadithist opponents as al-nabita ("the contemptible").

Al-Jāḥiẓ died 250 [A.D. 869], during the caliphate of al-Mu‘tazz. Al-Nadīm reports that al-Jāḥiẓ said he was about the same age as Abū Nuwās and older than al-Jammāz.

While still in Basra, al-Jāḥiẓ wrote an article about the institution of the Caliphate. This is said to have been the beginning of his career as a writer, which would become his sole source of living. It is said that his mother once offered him a tray full of notebooks and told him he would earn his living from writing. He went on to write two hundred books in his lifetime on a variety of subjects, including on the Quran, Arabic grammar, zoology, poetry, lexicography, and rhetoric. Al-Jāḥiẓ was also one of the first Arabic writers to suggest a complete overhaul of the language's grammatical system, though this would not be undertaken until his fellow linguist Ibn Maḍāʾ took up the matter two hundred years later.

Al-Nadīm cited this passage from a book of al-Jāḥiẓ:

When I was writing these two books, about the creation of the Qur’ān, which was the tenet given importance and honour by the Commander of the Faithful, and another about superiority in connection with the Banū Hāshim, the ‘Abd Shams, and Makhzūm. What was my due but to sit above the Simakān, Spica and Arcturus, or on top of the ‘Ayyūq, or to deal with red sulphur, or to conduct the ‘Anqā by her leading string to the Greatest King.