Skip to content
Wellsprings
Al-Sharif al-Jurjani

Al-Sharif al-Jurjani

1340 CE–1413 CE · Astarabad

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.

See Al-Sharif al-Jurjani’s journey on the map →

Life journeyclick any stop, or use ←/→Trace on the map →

Stop 1 of 5

Astarabad

We know they were here, but the specifics of what they did at this stop aren’t recorded yet in our corpus.

About Astarabad

Astarabad is the older name of the city of Gorgan, southeast of the Caspian Sea in northern Iran (the name was officially changed to Gorgan in the 20th century). It was a medieval centre of learning; the philosopher-theologian al-Sharif al-Jurjani (d. 1413) took the nisba al-Astarabadi/al-Jurjani from this region. [NOTE: this node duplicates 'gorgan' — same coordinates 36.8456/54.4361.]

See other sages who lived in Astarabad→

In the same place & time

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

Across the traditions

The world in their lifetime

Thinkers, teachers, and rulers whose lives overlapped with Al-Sharif al-Jurjani’s — a glimpse of the wider world they lived in. Drawn purely from recorded birth and death years.

Islamic world

Works(6)