He succeeded his father as the naqib (head of the Prophet’s descendants), and his collected poems (the Diwan) fill four volumes (1).
He also wrote a delightful work entitled Maʿani al-Qurʾan (The Meanings of the Qur’an), which bears witness to the breadth of his learning (2).
He died in Muharram—though some say in Safar—of the year 406 AH, at the age of forty-seven, and he was of Shiʿi persuasion.
175 – al-Jurjani, Muhammad ibn Ibrahim ibn Jaʿfar al-Yazdi *
The shaykh, the reliable scholar, and the leading transmitter of Isfahan, Abu ʿAbd Allah Muhammad ibn Ibrahim ibn Jaʿfar al-Yazdi (3), known as al-Jurjani, author of the work al-Amali al-Arbaʿin.
He was born in Jurjan in 319 AH, and grew up in Nishapur, where he heard hadith from Muhammad ibn al-Husayn al-Qattan, al-ʿAbbas ibn Muhammad ibn Quhyar, Hajib ibn Ahmad al-Tusi, and Muhammad ibn al-Hasan.
= No disparity separates us on the day of proud contest: we are both, forever, of pure stock in the highest ranks.
Except for the caliphate, which singles you out—for I am stripped of it while you are adorned with its collar.
(1) His Diwan has been printed several times: Beirut, in two parts, 1307 H/1889, revised and annotated by Shaykh Ahmad Abbas al-Azhari and Muhammad Afandi al-Lubabidi; Bombay, 1306 H/1888; and Beirut, Dar Sader, in two volumes.
(2) He also wrote “al-Mutashabih fi al-Quran,” “al-Majazat al-Nabawiyya” (Baghdad, 1328 H/1910), “Talkhis al-Bayan ‘an Majazat al-Quran,” “Akhbar Qudat Baghdad,” and other works. He is the compiler of the celebrated “Nahj al-Balagha,” in which he claimed to assemble the sayings of Imam Ali ibn Abi Talib; the author al-Dhahabi, however—as will be noted under the entry of his brother al-Murtada—denied that these sayings are authentically attributable to Ali. See Mizan al-I‘tidal 3/124. For manuscript copies of some of his writings and selections from his poetry, see Brockelmann, Geschichte 2/63–64.
(*) Al-‘Ibar 3/99; Shadharat al-Dhahab 3/187.
(3) On this attribution, see the biography numbered (186).