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20. IBN JARĪR AL-ȚABARĪ There are many great classical commentators of the Qur’ān which become the main sources of contemporary scholars in further understanding the meanings of the Qur’ān. One of them was Abū Ja‘far Muḥammad Ibn Jarīr al-Țabarī, the native of Tabaristan (224- 310/839-923). He is considered by Muslim scholars “the father of the science of tafsīr”. He was born in Amol, Tabaristan, modern Mazandaran, about 20 km south of the Caspian Sea in Iran. Although he was a Persian, all his works was written in Arabic. He wrote on many subjects, such as poetry, grammar, ethics, mathematics, medicine history in commentary of the Qur’ān. His best known works are Jāmi‘ al Bayān fī Tafsīr al-Qur’ān (The Comprehensive Exposition of the Interpretation of the Verses of the Qur’ān), also known as Tafsīfr al-Țabarī, and Tārīkh al-Rusul wa al-Mulūk (History of the Prophets and Kings), often referred to Tārīkh al-Ṭabarī. As he wrote extensively history which had not been written like it he was also called “the Father of History.” Al-Ṭabarī started learning at his early age. At seven he memorised the Qur’ān, at eight he started leading the prayer, at nine he started studying the Ḥadīth (Prophetic traditions), and at twelve he left home to pursue his study. At Rayy (Raghes) he stayed about five years where he studies the Hanafi school, the sīrah (biography of the Prophet) by Ibn Isḥāq, and pre-Islamic history. Then he travelled to Baghdad and studied under Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal for a short period as he died later, and he found out that he did not learn much from him as he considered him just a recorder of ḥadīth rather than a jurist (faqīh). Then he went to Basrah, Kufah, and Wasit, where he studied the various madhhabs (schools of jurisprudence): Mālikī, Shāfi‘ī, and Ẓāhirī under its founder Dāwūd al-Ẓāhirī. He followed the Shāfi‘ī school for some times, then she established his own school.