EBN AL-JEʿĀBĪ, ABŪ BAKR MOḤAMMAD

 

EBN AL-JEʿĀBĪ, ABŪ BAKR MOḤAMMAD b. ʿOmar Tamīmī Ḥāfeẓ, traditionist with Shiʿite leanings (b. Baghdad 23 or 24 Ṣafar 284/1 or 2 April 897, d. Baghdad 15 Rajab 355/7 July 966). A student of Ebn ʿOqda (d. 332/943; q.v.), the foremost Kufan traditionist of his time, he transmitted from a large number of other traditionists and traveled to Egypt, Syria, and Persia to study and teach. For some time he was associated with the Buyid vizier Ebn al-ʿAmīd. Ebn al-Jeʿābī had a prodigious memory, even by the standards of traditionists (Tanūḵī, IV, p. 255), and was also an expert on the defects (ʿelal) of Hadith and on their transmitters. Among those who heard traditions from him were the most famous Sunni traditionists of the following generation, including ʿAlī Dāraqoṭnī, Ḥākem Naysābūrī, and Abū Noʿaym Eṣfahānī. Among the Imamis, the Shaikh Mofīd transmitted from him. His pro-Shiʿite attitude was well-known, but most likely he represented, like his teacher Ebn ʿOqda, a general pro-ʿAlid tendency, closer to the Zaydī than the Imami tradition, without any specific sectarian affiliation. The poet Ebn Sokkara derided him in a poem for his hypocrisy, charging that he supported the rights of ʿAlī in the presence of Imamis and the authority of the Companions in the presence of Sunnis. Before his death he either personally burned all his books or ordered their burning in his will, and in fact none are extant, though some are occasionally quoted in Taʾrīḵ Baḡdād. Among the titles mentioned are Ketāb aḵbār Baḡdād, Ketāb ṭabaqāt aṣḥāb al-ḥadīṯ, Ketāb al-mawālī, a large Ketāb al-Šīʿa men aṣḥāb al-ḥadīṯ wa ṭabaqātehem, Ketāb aḵbār Āl Abī Ṭāleb, and Ketāb al-mosnad.

Bibliography:

Abū Ḥayyān Tawḥīdī, al-Baṣāʾer wa’l-ḏaḵāʾer, ed. E. Kaylānī, Damascus, 1964, I, p. 315.

Abū Noʿaym Eṣfahānī, Ḏekr aḵbār Eṣbahān, ed. S. Dedering, Leiden, 1931-34, II, p. 287.

Abū ʿAbd-Allāh Moḥammad Ḏahabī, Taḏkerat al-ḥoffāẓ, Hyderabad, 5 vols., 1332-3/1914-15, III, pp. 130-33.

Idem, Mīzān al-eʿtedāl fī naqd al-rejāl, ed. ʿA. Bejāwī, Cairo, 1382/1963, III, pp. 670 f.

Ebn Ḥajar ʿAsqalānī, Lesān al-mīzān, Hyderabad, 1329-31/1911-13, IV, p. 132.

Ebn al-Jawzī, Montaẓam VI, p. 273; VII, pp. 36-38.

Ebn al-Nadīm, ed. Tajaddod, p. 247.

Ebn Šahrāšūb, Maʿālem al-ʿolamāʾ, ed. ʿA. Eqbāl Āštīānī, Tehran, 1353/1934, pp. 75, 95.

Aḥmad b. ʿAlī Najāšī, Rejāl, Tehran, n.d., p. 308.

A. Pākatčī, “Ebn-e Jeʿābī” in DMBE III, pp. 238-40.

Ṣalāḥ-al-Dīn Ḵalīl Ṣafadī, al-Wāfī be’l-wafayāt, ed. S. Dedering, Wiesbaden, 1959, IV, pp. 240 f.

Samʿānī, ed. Yamānī, III, pp. 285-87.

Abū ʿAlī Moḥassen Tanūḵī, Ketāb nešwār al-moḥāżara wa aḵbār al-moḏākara, ed. ʿA. Šālejī, Beirut, 1971-73.

Taʾrīḵ Baḡdād III, pp. 26-31.

Abū Jaʿfar Moḥammad b. Ḥasan Ṭūsī, Fehrest kotob al-Šīʿa, ed. A. Sprenger, Calcutta, 1853-55, pp. 239, 309 f.

(Wilferd Madelung)

Originally Published: December 15, 1997

Last Updated: December 6, 2011

This article is available in print.
Vol. VIII, Fasc. 1, pp. 30-31

Cite this entry:

Wilferd Madelung, “EBN AL-JEʿĀBĪ, ABŪ BAKR MOḤAMMAD,” Encyclopaedia Iranica, VIII/1, pp. 30-31, available online at http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/ebn-al-jeabi (accessed on 30 December 2012).