Abbasid

“The Quran was revealed in Three Places”: A Critical Analysis of a Hadith about the Holy Land

In his al-ʾItqān fī ʿUlūm al-Qurʾân, the famous Egyptian Sunnī Hadith scholar al-Suyūṭī (d. 911/1505) mentioned the following hadith: Al-Ṭabarānī cited [a hadith] in [his al-Muʿjam] al-Kabīr, from the transmission-path of al-Walīd b. Muslim, from ʿUfayr b. Maʿdān, from Ibn ʿĀmir, from ʾAbū ʾUmāmah, who said: “The Messenger of God said: “The Quran was revealed … [Read more…]

The First Caliph Who Translated Foreign Knowledge: Analysing an Early Arabic Tradition

There is a classic debate in some modern scholarship on the history of early Arabic scholarship and learning: when did Arabic scientific writing commence? More specifically, the debate is about which caliph oversaw the first translation of ‘foreign’ scientific, philosophical, and related works into Arabic (i.e., the famous Arabic translation movement): was it an Umayyad … [Read more…]