Died 1078
Linguist

Early Life. Little is known of the life of Abd al-Qahir al-Jurjani, who appears to have spent his entire life in his native city of Gurgan in Iran at the southeastern corner of the Caspian Sea. His only known teacher was Abu al- Husayn Muhammad ibn Hasan al-Farisi, whose uncle Abu 'Ali al-Farisi (900-987) was a well-known grammarian who was from Iran and lived in Baghdad.

Major Works. Al-Jurjani wrote a large number of scholarly works, including popular manuals and detailed commentaries on Arabic grammar, as well as monographs on etymology, prosody, and the inimitability of the Qur'an. He also compiled an anthology of poetry. His main works are Dala'il al-i'jaz (The Proofs of the Inimitability [of the Qur'an]) and Asrar al-balaghah (The Secrets of Eloquence), which earned him renown as one of the most important thinkers of the Muslim world. In these...