ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. ʿAlī b. Muḥammad Abu 'l-Faras̲h̲ b. al-Jawzī, often referred to as Ibn al-Jawzī (Arabic: ابن الجوزي, Ibn al-Jawzī; ca. 1116 – 16 June 1201) for short, or reverentially as Imam Ibn al-Jawzī by some Sunni Muslims, was a Muslim jurisconsult, preacher, orator, heresiographer, traditionist, historian, judge, hagiographer, and philologist who played an instrumental role in propagating the Hanbali school of orthodox Sunni jurisprudence in his native Baghdad during the twelfth-century. During "a life of great intellectual, religious and political activity," Ibn al-Jawzi came to be widely admired by his fellow Hanbalis for the tireless role he played in ensuring that that particular school – historically, the smallest of the four principal Sunni schools of law – enjoy the same level of "prestige" often bestowed by rulers on the Maliki, Shafi'i, and Hanafi rites.
Ibn al-Jawzi received a "very thorough education" during his adolescent years, and was fortunate to train under some of that era's most renowned Baghdadi scholars, including Ibn al-Zāg̲h̲ūnī (d. 1133), Abū Bakr al-Dīnawarī (d. 1137–8), Sayyid Razzāq Alī Jīlānī (d. 1208), and Abū Manṣūr al-Jawālīkī (d. 1144–5). Although Ibn al-Jawzi's scholarly career continued to blossom over the next few years, he became most famous during the reign of al-Mustadi (d. 1180), the thirty-third Abbasid caliph, whose support for Hanbalism allowed Ibn al-Jawzi to effectively become "one of the most influential persons" in Baghdad, due to the caliph's approval of Ibn al-Jawzi's public sermonizing to huge crowds in both pastoral and urban areas throughout Baghdad. In the vast majority of the public sermons delivered during al-Mustadi's reign, Ibn al-Jawzi often presented a stanch defense of the prophet Muhammad's example, and vigorously criticized all those whom he considered to be schismatics in the faith. At the same time, Ibn al-Jawzi's reputation as a scholar continued to grow due to the substantial role he played in managing many of the most important universities in the area, as well as on account of the sheer number of works he wrote during this period. As regards the latter point, it is important to note that part of Ibn al-Jawzi's legacy rests on his reputation for having been "one of the most prolific writers" of all time, with later scholars like Ibn Taymīyyah (d. 1328) studying over a thousand works written by Ibn al-Jawzi during their years of training. As scholars have noted, Ibn al-Jawzi's prodigious corpus, "varying in length" as it does, touches upon virtually "all the great disciplines" of classical Islamic study.
Life
Ibn al-Jawzi was born between 507 and 12 H./1113-19 CE to a "fairly wealthy family" in Baghdad, which "descended from Abu Bakr", His parents proceeded to give their son a "thorough education" in all the principal disciplines of the period, whence Ibn al-Jawzi had the good fortune of studying under such notable scholars of the time as Ibn al-Zāghūnī (d. 1133), Abū Bakr al-Dīnawarī (d. 1137–8), Shaiykh Saiyed Razzaq Ali Gilani (d. 1208), Abū Manṣūr al-Jawālīkī (d. 1144–5), Abu 'l-Faḍl b. al-Nāṣir (d. 1155), Abū Ḥakīm al-Nahrawānī (d. 1161) and Abū Yaʿlā the Younger (d. 1163). Additionally, Ibn al-Jawzi began to be heavily influenced by the works of other scholars he read but whom he had never met personally, such as Abu Nu`aym (d. 1038), a Shafi'i Ashari mystic, al-Khatib al-Baghdadi (d. 1071), a Hanbali who had changed to Shafi'ism, and the prominent Hanbali thinker Ibn `Aqīl (d. ca. 1120), whom Ibn al-Jawzi would both praise and criticize in his later writings. He was an adherent of the Ashari school of dialectical theology, an aspect of his thought that would later distinguish him from many of his fellow Hanbali thinkers, In his early works he criticized speculation in theology, in particular modernizing trends among the Sufis.