ṬABARĪ, AL- (AH 224/5–310; 839–923 CE), fully Abū Jaʿfar Muḥammad ibn Jarīr al-Ṭabarī, was an Islamic religious scholar and historian. Born in Āmul in Ṭabaristān, northern Persia, just south of the Caspian Sea, al-Ṭabarī reports that by the age of seven he had learned the Qurʾān by heart, by the age of eight had qualified as a prayer leader (imām), and by the age of nine was studying traditions from Muḥammad. At the age of twelve he set off on the proverbial Muslim quest for knowledge, first by attending school in Rayy (in what is now Tehran) and then, in 855, setting off for Baghdad, likely in hopes of studying with the famous traditionist Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal, who, however, died in that same year just before al-Ṭabarī's...