The Life Of Abū Zar？ Al-Harawī And His Scientific Personality

Abū Zar？ ‘Abd b. A？mad al-Harawī (d. 434/1043) is a multi-faceted, voluminous scholar who has written works in Qur？ānic sciences, fiqh and kalam, especially ？adīth. He was born in Harāt, one of the major cities of Khorasan, in 355 or 356 (966 or 967) as a descendant of Hazraj. He has an important place in ？a？ī？ al-Bukhārī's living up to today, which is a work that found fame in Islamic culture as the most reliable book after Qur？ān thanks to the authority of the author in his field and the method and thoroughness he followed. Abū Zar？ traveled the important science centers of his time, like Basrah, Baghdad, Damascus, Eygpt, Sarakhs, Balkh, Marw, Neyshabur, Mecca and took lessons from many teachers. As a matter of fact, he collected the names of the teachers he learned from them in a book and the number of teachers mentioned in this book exceeded 300. Abū Zar？ was a reliable, trustworthy and accurate scholar. His vast accumulation about the authenticity and narrators of hadith, and his meticulosity in hearing (semā‘), and the beauty of his method in many works, and also his being very sensitive about the preservation of books was pointed out. In addition it was stated that the work he had done on ？a？ī？s of al-Bukhārī' and Muslim, called ？a？ī？ayn, signified the strength of his memory. This work includes many hadiths which both of two author did not take into their collection despite the accordance of their conditions. Abū Zar？ accepted the Maliki denomination. Despite the fact that he had a clairvoyance in the Islamic jurisprudence and was considered a faqīh, refrained from giving a fatwa and directed people who asked him a fatwa to other faqihs. At the same time, some of his works mentioned in the sources are about f？qh, al-Manasik, al-Ribā etc. It was also attributed to him a commentary book (Tafsir) and a work on the virtues of surah. Abū Zar？ has also works related to aqaid. Likewise, he also pioneered the propagation of the views of Ash？arī theologian Abū Bakr al-Bāqillānī, one of his teachers whose denomination adopted by him. According to sources, he adopted al-Bāqillānī’s views when he saw the respect and compliment of his teacher al-Dāraqutnī to him. In this, the fact that his own thinking is in line with Bāqillānī’s views should be as effective as his devotion to his teacher, al-Dāraqutnī. In addition to his own works the books he narrated brought him an important position in the history of science. By transmitting them to next generation, he contributed two great history books of al-Bukhārī other than his ？a？ī？ and some important works of