Ibn al Jawzi

Genealogy

His full name and nasab was Abd al-Rahman ibn Ali ibn Muhammad (Arabic: عبد الرحمن بن علي بن محمد‎‎) ibn 'Ubayd-Allah ibn 'Abd-Allah ibn Hammadi ibn Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn Ja'far ibn 'Abd-Allah ibn al-Qasim ibn al-Nadr ibn al-Qasim ibn Muhammad ibn 'Abd-Allah ibn al-Faqih 'Abd al-Rahman ibn al-Faqih al-Qasim ibn Muhammad ibn Abi Bakr.

Biography

He was known for his works in exegesis of the Qur'an as well as his numerous hadith writings. One of the more famous of the latter is his "Tahqiq", a compendium of both the hadith evidences used by the Hanbali school of jurisprudential thought and a work of comparative law (Arabic: فقه Fiqh). He is said to have been a precocious child who allegedly made his first speech at the age of ten (attended by a crowd of 50,000), and authored his first book at the age of thirteen.

Theology

Ibn al-Jawzi is famous for the theological stance that he took against other Hanbalites of the time, in particular Ibn al-Zaghuni and al-Qadi Abu Ya'la. He believed that these and other Hanbalites had gone to extremes in affirming God's Attributes, so much so that he accused them of tarnishing the reputation of Hanbalites and making it synonymous with extreme anthropomorphism. Ibn al-Jawzi stated that, "They believed that He has a form and a face in addition to His Self. They believed that He has two eyes, a mouth, a uvula and molars, a face which is light and splendor, two hands, including the palms of hands, fingers including the little fingers and the thumbs, a back, and two legs divided into thighs and shanks."

And he continued his attack on Abu Ya'la by stating that, "Whoever confirms that God has molars as a divine attribute, has absolutely no knowledge of Islam."

Ibn al-Jawzi's most famous work in this regard is his Bāz al‐ašhab al‐munqadd 'alà muhālifī al‐madhab (The Gray Falcon Which Attacks the Offenders of the [Hanbalī] School).

God is neither inside nor outside of the Universe

Ibn Jawzi states, in As-Sifat, that God neither exists inside the world nor outside of it. To him, "being inside or outside are concomitant of things located in space" i.e. what is outside or inside must be in a place, and, according to him, this is not applicable to God. He writes:

Both [being in a place and outside a place] along with movement, rest, and other accidents are constitutive of bodies ... The divine essence does not admit of any created entity [e.g. place] within it or inhering in it.

Works

Ibn al-Jawzi is perhaps the most prolific author in Islamic history. Al-Dhahabi states: “I have not known anyone amongst the ‘ulama to have written as much as he (Ibn al-Jawzi) did. Recently, Professor Abdul Hameed al-Aloojee, an Iraqi scholar conducted research on the extent of ibn al Jawzi's works and wrote a reference work in which he listed Ibn al Jawzees's works alphabetically, identifying the publishers and libraries where his unpublished manuscripts could be found. Some have suggested that he is the author of more than 700 works.

In addition to the topic of religion, Ibn al-Jawzi wrote about medicine as well. Like the medicinal works of Al-Suyuti, Ibn al-Jawzi's book was almost exclusively based on Prophetic medicine rather than a synthesis of both Islamic and Greek medicine like the works of Al-Dhahabi. Ibn al-Jawzi's work focused primarily on diet and natural remedies for both serious ailments such as rabies and smallpox and simple conditions such as headaches and nosebleeds.