Abu Jaʿfar an-Nahhas

Abu Jaʿfar An-Nahhas (أبو جعفر النحاس; died 949 AD / AH 338) was an Egyptian Muslim scholar of grammar and Qur'anic exegete during the 10th-century Abbasid period. His full name was Abū Jaʿfar Ahmad Ibn Muhammad Ibn Ismail Ibn Yūnus al-Murādi, surnamed an-Nahhās "copper-worker" (a term for artisans who make brass vessels).

Life

Abu Jaʿfar An-Nahhas—whose full name was Abū Jaʿfar Ahmad Ibn Muhammad Ibn Ismail Ibn Yūnus al-Murādi, surnamed an-Nahhās "copper-worker" (a term for artisans who make brass vessels)—was born in Fustat, he studied in Baghdad under the foremost grammarians of the period like al-Zajjāj who familiarised him with the Kitāb by the famed grammarian Sībawayh (d. c.180/796). He also studied philology with ʿAlī b. Sulaymān al-Akhfash al-Aṣghar (d. 315/927) and Nifṭawayh (d. 323/935). He is the author of an influential work on abrogation, Al-Nasīkh wal-Mansūkh. He wrote a treatise on the grammatical analysis of the Qur'an and a grammatical primer known as "The Apple" (التفاحة at-Tuffāha), besides works on poetry, including a commentary on the Mu'allaqat.

Death

He was killed as he was reciting poetry sitting on the banks of the Nile in Cairo, as a passing peasant thought he was uttering a charm to prevent the rise of the Nile, "so as to raise the price of provisions" and threw him into the river causing him to drown.

References

• Mac Guckin de Slane, (trans.), Ibn Khallikan's Biographical Dictionary, vol. 1, Paris, 1843, p. 81.
• Louis Moréri, Le grand dictionnaire historique (1759), Abou-Giafar al Nahas