- Ibn al-Jawāliqī — Mawhūb ibn Ahmad ibn Muhammad
The erudite, eminent imam, lexicographer and grammarian: Abū Manṣūr Mawhūb ibn Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn al-Khaḍir ibn al-Ḥasan ibn al-Jawāliqī, personal imam to the caliph al-Muqtafī.
Birth: 466 AH.
He studied under Abū ’l-Qāsim ibn al-Busrī, Abū Ṭāhir ibn Abī ’l-Ṣaqr, the naqīb Ṭirād ibn Muḥammad al-Zaynabī, and several others.
He pursued his own quest for knowledge for a time and copied many manuscripts.
Those who narrated from him include his daughter Khadījah, al-Samʿānī, Ibn al-Jawzī, al-Tāj al-Kindī, Yūsuf ibn Kāmil, and others.
Al-Samʿānī said: “He was an authority in grammar and philology, one of Baghdad’s outstanding figures. He read adab (literary studies) with Abū Zakariyyā al-Tibrīzī, kept close to him, and excelled. He is trustworthy, devout, and richly endowed with virtue.”
(*) Al-Ansab 3/337; Nuzhat al-alba, pp. 396-398; Al-Muntazam 10/118; Muʿjam al-udabaʾ 19/205-207; Al-Lubab 1/301; Al-Kamil 11/106-107; Inbaʾ al-ruwat 3/335-337; Wafayat al-aʿyan 5/342-344; Al-Mukhtasar 3/17; Tadhkirat al-huffaz 4/1286; Al-ʿIbar 4/110; Talkhis Ibn Maktum, pp. 257-259; Al-Mustafad min Dhayl Tarikh Baghdad, pp. 236-237; Tatimmat al-mukhtasar 2/72; Mirat al-jinan 3/271-273; Al-Bidaya wa-l-nihaya 12/220; Dhayl Tabaqat al-Hanabila 1/204-207; Tabaqat Ibn Qadi Shuhba, fol. 260; Al-Nujum al-zahara 5/277; Bughyat al-wuʿat 2/308; Kashf al-zunun, pp. 48, 741, 1577, 1586, 1739; Shadharat al-dhahab 4/127; Hadiyyat al-ʿarifin 2/483; Brockelmann, Geschichte 5/163-164; Muʿjam al-matbuʿat, p. 719. On al-Jawaliqi, see also Ahmad Shakir’s introduction to Al-muʿarrab.
Al-Samʿani notes that the nisba “al-Jawaliqi” goes back to al-jawaliq, the plural of jawlaq (a coarse saddle-bag); one of the forefathers of the bearer presumably made or sold such bags. Ibn Khallikan remarks that this nisba is irregular, for one ought to derive an affiliation from the singular, not the plural, except in a few accepted anomalies such as ansari, derived from al-ansar.