Abu Ja'far Muhammad ibn Jarir al-Tabari al-Amuli was born in Amul in 224 AH and died in Baghdad in 310 AH 1 2. Ibn al-Nadim counts him as versatile in the sciences of the Qur'an, grammar, poetry, language and jurisprudence 1. He took hadith from shaykhs including Abu Kurayb and Hannad ibn al-Sari, took the jurisprudence of al-Shafi'i from al-Rabi' ibn Sulayman in Egypt, and that of Malik from Yunus ibn Abd al-A'la 1. The Encyclopaedia of Islam says that he returned from Egypt to Baghdad around 256 AH (870 CE) and settled there to teach and write for the rest of his life 3. Among his books are the "History", which he dictated up to 302 AH, the "Commentary", "al-Qira'at", "Tahdhib al-Athar" and "Ikhtilaf al-Fuqaha'" 1.
Ibn al-Athir says that he was buried at night in his house, and that some Hanbalis were partisan against him because of his book on the disagreements of the jurists, in which he did not mention Ahmad ibn Hanbal and said that he was a hadith scholar and not a jurist 2. He relays the words of Ibn Khuzayma on reading his commentary: "I know of no one on the face of the earth more learned than Abu Ja'far" 2. The Encyclopaedia of Islam describes him as best known as the foremost universal historian and Qur'an commentator of the first three or four centuries of Islam 3. It says that his History and his Commentary keep the greatest body of quotations from lost sources 4.
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