The death of Imam al-Tabari

The imam of the exegetes and historians, Muhammad ibn Jarir al-Tabari — author of "Jamiʿ al-Bayan" in tafsir and "Tarikh al-Rusul wa'l-Muluk" — died in Baghdad. Of him it was said: if a man travelled to China to obtain his tafsir, it would not be too much.

al-Tabari was born at Amul in Tabaristan in 224 AH, memorized the Qur'an at seven, and travelled in pursuit of knowledge from Rayy to Baghdad, Basra, Kufa, Syria and Egypt, until there gathered for him of the sciences what had gathered for no one of his age — and he would write forty pages a day.

He wrote "Jamiʿ al-Bayan ʿan Taʾwil Ay al-Qur'an," which became the mother of the tafsirs by transmission and the mainstay of those after him, and "Tarikh al-Rusul wa'l-Muluk," which became the most reliable reference for the history of early Islam. He also wrote "Tahdhib al-Athar" and had an independent juristic school that faded after him.

He lived unmarried, devoted to knowledge and writing, for about eighty years, and was offered the judgeship and the court of grievances but refused. He died in Baghdad in Shawwal 310 AH and was buried in his house at Rahbat Yaʿqub, and the people thronged to his funeral for days, praying at his grave.