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al-Qurtubi

al-Qurtubi

?–1273 CE · Cordoba

Abu Abd Allah Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Ansari al-Qurtubi was a Maliki scholar (a follower of one of Sunni Islam's four legal schools) born in Cordoba, then a major center of learning in Muslim Spain (al-Andalus). His exact birth year is not securely recorded; modern scholars place it sometime in the decades before 1200, and a date of c. 1214 (610-611 AH) is often repeated but not firmly established. He is best known as a mufassir, a commentator on the Qur'an.

After Cordoba fell to the Christian armies of Ferdinand III in 1236, al-Qurtubi left al-Andalus for Egypt, as did many Andalusi scholars of his generation. Sources report that he studied and worked in Alexandria and Cairo before settling in the Upper Egyptian town of Munyat Bani Khasib (also called Munya Abi al-Khusayb, near modern Minya), where he spent his later years and where he is reported to have died on 9 Shawwal 671 AH (29 April 1273).

His major work, al-Jami' li-Ahkam al-Qur'an ("The Compendium of the Qur'an's Legal Rulings"), is an encyclopedic commentary. Despite its title's stress on ahkam (legal rulings), it ranges widely over grammar, the occasions of revelation, variant readings, and theology, and it remains one of the most cited tafsirs in the Sunni tradition. In creed he is generally described as Ash'ari; in law he was Maliki but at times preferred the rulings of other schools.

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Stop 1 of 31236Born / Studied

CordobaקורדובהAl-Andalus, Spain

What they did here

Born in Cordoba in al-Andalus, then a leading center of Maliki learning. His exact birth year is not securely recorded; estimates circulate (ranging from the late 12th century to c. 610-611 AH / c. 1214) but none is firmly established. He received his early education in the city before its fall.

About Cordoba

Córdoba, on the Guadalquivir in Andalusia, southern Spain, came under Roman rule in the 3rd century BCE and, as Colonia Patricia, became capital of the province of Baetica; Seneca was a native. Taken by Muslim forces in 711 or 712, it became the seat of the Umayyad emirate founded by Abd al-Rahman I in 756 and of the caliphate proclaimed in 929, which ended in 1031. Its Great Mosque was begun in the 780s. The city was the birthplace of the Islamic scholars Ibn Hazm, Ibn Rushd (Averroes), later its chief judge, and the Quran commentator al-Qurtubi, and of the Jewish philosopher Maimonides (usually dated 1138). Ferdinand III of Castile captured Córdoba in 1236, and the mosque became a cathedral.

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In the same place & time

Sages whose lives overlapped with al-Qurtubi’s in the same cities, drawn from their recorded journeys.

Across the traditions

The world in their lifetime

Thinkers and teachers of other traditions whose lives overlapped with al-Qurtubi’s — a glimpse of the wider world they lived in. Drawn purely from recorded birth and death years.

Works(5)