Ibn Abd al-Barr

Abu Umar Yusuf ibn Abdullah ibn Muhammad ibn Abd al-Barr al-Namari al-Qurtubi, usually called Ibn Abd al-Barr, was one of the foremost hadith scholars (a muhaddith, a specialist in the reported sayings and doings of the Prophet Muhammad) of eleventh-century al-Andalus, Islamic Spain. Born in Cordoba in 368 AH / 978 CE, he studied there until the civil wars (the fitna) that broke up the Cordoban caliphate forced him to leave his native city.

He worked in jurisprudence (fiqh) in the Maliki tradition, the school of law that prevailed in al-Andalus; sources report he first inclined to the more literalist Zahiri approach before settling on Maliki law. He served as a judge (qadi) in the west of the peninsula, traditionally said to be at Lisbon and Santarem under the Aftasid ruler al-Muzaffar ibn al-Aftas of Badajoz, and spent his later years in the east, in and around Valencia, Denia and Xativa, where he died in 463 AH / 1071 CE.

He is best remembered for two works: al-Isti'ab fi ma'rifat al-ashab, an encyclopedic dictionary of the Companions of the Prophet, and al-Tamhid, an extensive commentary on the Muwatta of Malik ibn Anas. He also wrote al-Istidhkar and Jami Bayan al-Ilm, a celebrated essay on the value and ethics of learning. His theological leanings are read differently by later schools, who claim or contest him in their own terms.