Muhammad ibn Ahmad ibn Abī Bakr ibn Farh, Abū ‘AbdAllāh al-Ansārī al-Khazrajī al-Andalusī al-Qurtubī al-Mālikī (d. 671) the erudite wise Imām who “probed the meanings of hadīth deeply” (Ibn ‘Imād) and great commentator of the Qur’ān. He lived and died in Minyat or Munyat Banī Khusayb in Egypt, “one of the righteous, knowing, scrupulously God-wary, ascetic servants of Allāh busy with the concerns of his hereafter through meditation, worship, and authorship” (‘Abd al- Karīm ibn Khaldūn). He “disdained airs, and used to walk about in a simple thawb with a plain cap (tāqiyya) on his head” (Ibn Farhūn). Al-Dhahabī, Ibn Farhūn, Ibn ‘Imād, al-Maqarrī, al-Adnahwī, and Makhlūf give his obitus as 671 while Hajjī Khalīfa cites 668. Whoever cited 656 apparently confused him with his teacher the muhaddith and author of the commentary on Sahīh Muslim titled al-Mufhim fī Sharh Mukhtasar Muslim attributed to “al-Qurtubī” and printed under that name although it is by Imām Abū al-‘Abbās Ahmad ibn ‘Umar ibn Ibrāhīm al-Ansārī al-Qurtubī al-Mālikī al-Iskandarī (d. 656) (ad-Dahabi).

Also among his teachers were Abū al-Hasan ‘Alī ibn Muhammad ibn ‘Alī al-Yahsubī, the hadīth Master Abū ‘Alī al-Hasan ibn Muhammad ibn Muhammad al-Bakrī, Rashīd al-Dīn Abū Muhammad ‘Abd al-Wahhāb ibn Rawwāj al-Azdī al-Mālikī, the Imām of Egypt Bahā’ al-Dīn Abū al-Hasan ‘Alī ibn Hibat Allāh ibn Salāma al-Lakhmī al-Misrī al-Shāfi‘ī known as Ibn al-Jummayzī, Abū al-‘Abbās ibn al-Muzayyin, and others. From him narrated his son Shihāb al-Dīn Abū al-‘Abbās and Abū ‘Abd Allāh al-Wālī.

Abū ‘Abdullah Muhammad ibn Ahmad ibn Abūbakr al-Ansārī al-Khazrajī al-Qurtubī, also known as “the Shaykh of the Qur’anic commentators,” was a prolific scholar born and raised in Andalus whose learning and expertise extended to a broad varietyof subjects, including not only the Islamic sciences but the social and cultural issues of his era. He was a beneficiary of the rich and vibrant intellectual heritage of Cordoba, where he had access to some of the world’s most renowned scholars, numerous schools and the biggest public libraries in the world. He also lived during a period of constant conflict with the neighboring Christian kingdoms. In 627H his own father was killed defending their farm from invading Crusader armies, and al-Qurubīwas forced to carry his body home and provide him a proper burial. At the age of 25, he was compelled to leave the region altogether with the fall of Cordoba in633H/1236CE.

He moved to Egypt where he traveled widely, continuing his tradition of learning and teaching. He was a contemporary and friend of the famous Mālikī jurist Shihāb al-Dīn al-Qarāfī [died 684H/1285CE]. His focus was more on writing than teaching, and it is debated whether he had any students at all. Imām al-Dhahabī described him as an ocean of knowledge who wrote many beneficial works which exhibited his broad knowledge and great wisdom. He eventually settled in southern Egypt and died on the 9th of Shawwāl 671H in the city of al-Minyā. In 1971 a shrine was built over his grave.

He authored the following works:

• Al-Asnā fī SharhAsmā’ Allāh al-Husnā (“The Most Decorous Commentary on the Beautiful Names of Allāh”) in two volumes.
• Al-I‘lām bimā fī Dīn al-Nasārā wa-Izhār Mahāsin Dīn al-Islām.
• Al-Intihāz fī Qurrā’ Ahl al-Kūfa wal-Basra wal-Shām wa-Ahl al-Hijāz.
• Al-Jāmi‘ li-Ahkām al-Qur’ān wal-Mubīn limā Tadammanahu min al-Sunnati wa-Āy al-Furqān. (“The Collection of the Rulings of the Qur’ān and the Exposition of the Sunna and Verses It Contains”), a monumental commentary on the Qur’ān “in the fullest sense of that term,” “filled with every kind of unique benefit” (al-Dhahabī) in twenty volumes “from which he omitted the stories and histories customary in other commentaries, and recorded instead the legal rulings and how the Scholars have inferred them, together with the canonical readings(q irā’āt), Arabic grammar, which verses abrogate others and which are abrogated (al-nāsikh wal-mansūkh)” (Ibn Farh.ūn), “all the legal Schools of theSalaf” (Ibn ‘Imād), many of the wisdoms of “the Ulema of the Sufis” (the term reoccurs about two dozen times), and the Ash‘arī tenets of faith (‘aqīda). Al-Qurt.ubī cites his countryman Ibn ‘Abd al-Barr about five hundred times in this work. Ibn al-Mulaqqin abridged it.
• Poem on the Names of the Prophet
• Qam‘ al-Hars bil-Zuhd wal-Qanā‘a wa-Radd Dhull al-Su’āl bil-Kaffi wal-Shafā‘a(“The Subduing of Worldly Appetite Through Simple Living and Contentment with Little and the Repelling of the Humiliation of Begging with the Hand or Through Intermediaries”). Ibn Farhūn said, “I never saw a better book in its genre.” It was published at Dār al-Sahābati lil- Turāth.
• Sharh-al-Taqassī, a long commentary on Ibn ‘Abd al-Barr’s book al-Taqassī limā fīl-Muwatta’ min Hadīthi Rasūlillāh
• Al-Tadhkira bi-Ah.wāl al-Mawt wal-Ākhira (“The Memorial of the States of Death and the Hereafter”) in three volumes meticulously published by Yūsuf ‘Alī Badyawī at Dār Ibn Kathīr
• Al-Taqrīb li-Kitāb al-Tamhīd on Ibn ‘Abd al-Barr’s masterpiece of comparative Fiqh in two large manuscript tomes.
• Al-Tidhkār fī Afd. al al-Adhkār (“The Reminder Concerning the Best Remembrance”), in print, similar to al-Nawawī’sTibyā n

Al-Jāmi‘ Li Ahkām al-Qur’ān [commonly known as Tafsīr al-Qurtubī]: Undoubtedly the most famous of Imām Al-Qurtubī’s works, this is an exhaustive, encyclopedic commentary of the Qur’ān, of about twenty volumes, that has continued to enjoy wide support and acknowledgment among Muslims since its publication.

Its title, which translates as “The Compendium of Legal Rulings of the Qur’an,” reveals its basic aim as a work—to deduce the practical, legal implications of the verses. And yet, while this work was intended to be a practical guide for the lives of its readers, it becomes much more than that due to the brilliant mind of the author, his broad knowledge, extensive travels, rich life experience and penetrating insight into the affairs that affect individuals and societies.

What makes this work unique include the extensive correlations with authoritative Prophetic traditions (the work includes more than 6500 hadith of the Prophet, which is about the size of Saheeh al-Bukhārī); discussions of finer aspects of Arabic grammar, linguistics and classical poetry; exploring the additional implications of the various modes of Qur’ānic reading (qirā’āt); weighing various opinions and possibilities in light of the evidences and choosing the strongest view, in the spirit of a true faqīh (jurist); considering the statements of the Companions, early Muslims and previous commentators; and finally, providing critical comments on the social issues and deviant trends in Islamic thought, in the spirit of a theologian.

In sum, this is an evidence-based encyclopedia of the Qur’ān coming from the brilliant mind of one who is at once a muhaddith, grammarian, jurist, reciter, historian, theologian and social commentator. To quote the historian-scholar al-Dhahabī, “Imām Al-Qurtubī has authored a Qur’ānic commentary in which he brings everything amazing.”