al-Zamakhshari

Abu al-Qasim Mahmud ibn Umar al-Zamakhshari (born 467 AH/1075 CE; died 538 AH/1144 CE) was one of the great Arabic philologists and Qur'an commentators of the medieval east, named for the town of Zamakhshar in Khwarazm, a region straddling today's Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. In law he followed the Hanafi school; in theology he belonged to the Mu'tazila, a rationalist movement that stressed God's absolute unity and justice and famously held that the Qur'an was created rather than eternal. These were positions held by his school, debated for centuries against Ash'ari and Hanbali rivals; the site presents them as his commitments, not as settled truths.

His most influential work is al-Kashshaf, a verse-by-verse commentary that interprets the Qur'an's wording with extraordinary grammatical and rhetorical precision. Sources report he composed it during a long stay in Mecca, a residence that earned him the epithet "Jar Allah" ("Neighbor of God"). Because of its linguistic mastery, al-Kashshaf was studied and cited across the Sunni world even by scholars who rejected its Mu'tazili readings and wrote glosses to neutralize them.

Biographers also record that he lost a foot, though they give at least five conflicting explanations (frostbite, a fall, a sting, a curse), so no single account is reliable. He wrote on grammar (al-Mufassal), lexicography (Asas al-Balagha), and other fields. He died at Jurjaniyya (Gurganj), the Khwarazmian capital.