Al-Sharif al-Jurjani

Al-Sharif al-Jurjani (ʿAlī ibn Muḥammad al-Ḥusaynī al-Jurjānī, 740–816 AH / 1340–1413 CE), known as al-Sayyid al-Sharif (an honorific reflecting his claimed sayyid descent from ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib), was a Persian theologian, logician, philosopher, and lexicographer active in the early Timurid period. A follower of the Ḥanafī school in law and of Ashʿarī theology, he is best known for two works that became staples of the madrasa curriculum: the Kitāb al-Taʿrīfāt, a concise dictionary of technical terms drawn from theology, philosophy, law, and grammar, and his Sharḥ al-Mawāqif, an influential commentary on al-Ījī's compendium of Ashʿarī kalam. Born in a village near Astarabad, he was educated first in Herat and then in Egypt; he spent the height of his career teaching in Shiraz, relocated to Samarqand after Timur's sack of the city in 1387, and returned to Shiraz around 1405, where he died.