lifetimes before it could be finished!’
He exclaimed, ‘To Allah we belong! Aspiration itself has died.’
So he reduced the work to roughly three thousand folios. Later, when he wished to dictate his Qur’an commentary, he said something similar to them, and then proceeded to dictate it at about the same length as the History.
Ahmad ibn Kamil al-Qadi said, ‘There were four men whose continued lives I longed for: Abu Ja‘far ibn Jarir, al-Barbari, Abu ‘Abd Allah ibn Abi Khaythama, and al-Ma‘mari. I have never seen anyone more perceptive or with a better memory than they.’
Al-Farghani related: Harun ibn ‘Abd al-‘Aziz told me that Abu Ja‘far al-Tabari said to him, ‘I openly adopted the Shafi‘i school and followed it in Baghdad for ten years; Ibn Bashshar al-Aḥwal—teacher of Ibn Surayj—learnt it from me.’
Harun continued, ‘When his knowledge broadened, his personal ijtihad and investigation led him to the independent positions that appear in his books.’
Al-Farghani also wrote to me from al-Maraghi: ‘When al-Khāqānī assumed the vizierate he sent Abu Ja‘far al-Tabari a large sum of money, but he refused to accept it. He then offered him the post of judge, and he refused; he offered him the office of the mazālim (court of grievances), and he declined. His companions reproached him, saying, “You would be rewarded for this, and you would revive a sunnah that has faded.”
Hoping he might accept the mazālim, they came to him early in the day so that he could ride out with them to take up the post. He rebuked them and said, “I had thought that if ever I desired such a thing you would have stopped me from it.”
He added, ‘So we withdrew, abashed.’
Abu’l-Fath ibn Abi’l-Fawaris reported: Muhammad ibn ‘Ali ibn Sahl ibn al-Imam—a companion of Muhammad ibn Jarir—told us, ‘I heard Muhammad ibn Jarir talking with Ibn Salih al-A‘lam. The name of ‘Ali—peace be upon him—was mentioned, whereupon Muhammad ibn Jarir said, “Whoever claims that Abu Bakr and ‘Umar are not Imams of guidance—what is he?”
Ibn Salih replied, “An innovator (mubtadi‘).”
Ibn Jarir protested, repeating, “An innovator, an innovator? Such a person deserves to be put to death.”’
Mukhlad al-Baqraḥi said, ‘Muhammad ibn Jarir then recited to us a poem of his own composition:’