Sa'id ibn Jubayr

Sa'id ibn Jubayr (Abu Muhammad al-Asadi al-Walibi) was an early Muslim scholar of the generation called the Tabi'un ("Successors") — those who knew the Companions of the Prophet but not the Prophet himself. He lived in Kufa, in southern Iraq, and was a mawla (a non-Arab client) attached to the Banu Asad tribe; several sources report that he or his forebears were of East African (Abyssinian) origin, though this is uncertain. He studied under the Companion Abd Allah ibn Abbas, the recognized authority on Qur'anic interpretation, and is also said to have transmitted from Abd Allah ibn Umar and others. He became celebrated as one of the foremost early exegetes (mufassirun) of the Qur'an; the later scholar Qatada is reported to have called him the most learned of the Successors in tafsir. Sunni hadith critics graded him thiqa ("trustworthy"), and his narrations appear in the canonical collections. Tradition holds he memorized the Qur'an and eagerly recorded what he heard from Ibn Abbas. He joined the revolt of Ibn al-Ash'ath against the powerful Umayyad governor al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf (around 701 CE). After the rising was crushed he went into hiding, taking refuge near Mecca. He was eventually arrested and brought before al-Hajjaj, who ordered his execution. Reports place his death in the month of Sha'ban, 95 AH (714 CE). Both Sunni and Shia tradition revere him; the dramatic accounts of his final confrontation with al-Hajjaj are a famous, much-embellished part of later pious literature and should be read as edifying narrative rather than verbatim record.