al-Jahiz

The actual name of al-Jahiz was Abū ʿUthman ʿAmr ibn Bahr ibn Maḥbūb. His grandfather, Maḥbūb, was a protégé or mawali of ‘Amr ibn Qal‘ al-Kinānī, who was from Arab Banu Kinanah tribe.{{refn|group=n|The ancestor of ‘Amr ibn Qal‘ was Abū al-Qallamas;{{sfn|Mas’ūdī (al-)|1864|p=116}} the first of the Nasāh{{sfn|Bīrūnī (al-)|1878 |p=12, l.1}} of the Banū Kināna who were overseers of observance of the religious holy months, when warfare was forbidden. His genealogy has been reported as ‘Amr ibn Qal‘ al-Kinānī, then al-Fuqaymī, a.k.a. ‘Amr ibn Qal‘ al-Kinānī al-Fuqaymī in an akhbār cited by al-Anbārī. Kinānī and Fuqaymī refer to the tribes of Kināna{{sfn|Watt|1986|p=116}} and Fuqaym.{{sfn|Durayd (Ibn)|1854|p=150}} ‘Amr ibn Qal‘s ancestor was one of the Nasah (Nasa’ah).{{sfn|Nadīm (al-)|1970|p=398}}}} Not much is known about al-Jāḥiẓ's early life, but his family was very poor. Born in Basra early in 160/February 776, he asserted in a book he wrote that he was a member of the Banu Kinanah.Al-Jahiz messages, Alwarraq edition, page 188; Yāqūt, Irshād al-arīb ilá ma`rifat al-adīb, ed. Iḥsān `Abbās, 7 vols (Beirut: Dār al-Gharb al-Islāmī, 1993), 5:2102.{{cite book|last=Chuo Kikuu cha Dar es Salaam. Chuo cha Uchunguzi wa Lugha ya Kiswahili|title=Kiswahili|year=1974|publisher=East African Swahili Committee|page=16|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IgUqAQAAIAAJ}}; Yāqūt, Irshād al-arīb ilá ma`rifat al-adīb, ed. Iḥsān `Abbās, 7 vols (Beirut: Dār al-Gharb al-Islāmī, 1993), 5:2102. However, the grandfather of al-Jāḥiẓ was reportedly a Black jammāl (cameleer) {{snd}} or ḥammāl (porter); the manuscripts differ{{snd}}of ‘Amr ibn Qal‘ named Maḥbūb, nicknamed Fazārah, or Fazārah was his maternal grandfather, and Maḥbūb his paternal. The names may however have been confused. His nephew also reported that al-Jāḥiẓ's grandfather was a black cameleer.{{sfn|Haug|Judd|2023|p=226}}{{Cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=owqY-90imMIC&pg=PA152 |title = Islamic Thought: From Mohammed to September 11, 2001|isbn = 9781453595855|last1 = Al-Jubouri|first1 = I. M. N.|date = 12 October 2010| publisher=Xlibris Corporation }} In the early Islamic Arabia, the designation of Black ( Arabic: السودان "as-swadan") was used to describe people like Zuṭṭ and Zanj,{{sfn|Haug|Judd|2023|p=222–225}} and based on this, several scholars have stated that al-Jahiz descended from one of these black communities,{{sfn|Haug|Judd|2023|p=225–226}} with some even suggesting that he was possibly of African descent.{{sfn|Haug|Judd|2023|p=226}}

He sold fish along one of the canals in Basra to help his family. Financial difficulties, however, did not stop al-Jāḥiẓ from continuously seeking knowledge. He used to gather with a group of other youths at Basra's main mosque, where they would discuss different scientific subjects. During the cultural and intellectual revolution under the Abbasid Caliphate books became readily available, and learning accessible. Al-Jāḥiẓ studied philology, lexicography and poetry from among the most learned scholars at the School of Basra, where he attended the lectures of Abū Ubaydah, al-Aṣma’ī, Sa'īd ibn Aws al-Anṣārī and studied ilm an-naḥw ({{lang|ar|علم النحو}}, i.e., syntax) with Akhfash al-Awsaṭ (al-Akhfash Abī al-Ḥasan).{{sfn|Yāqūt|1907|p=56}}

Over a twenty-five-year span studying, al-Jāḥiẓ acquired a considerable knowledge of Arabic poetry, Arabic philology, pre-Islamic Arab history, the Qur'an and the Hadiths. He read translated books on Greek sciences and Hellenistic philosophy, especially that of the Greek philosopher Aristotle. Al-Jahiz was also critical of those who followed the Hadiths of Abu Hurayra, referring to his Hadithist opponents as al-nabita ("the contemptible").{{cite book |last=Zaman |first=Muhammad Qasim |date=1997 |title=Religion and Politics Under the Early 'Abbasids: The Emergence of the Proto-Sunni Elite |location=Leiden |publisher=E.J. Brill |page=55 |isbn=978-9-00410-678-9}}

Al-Jāḥiẓ died 250 [A.D. 869], during the caliphate of al-Mu‘tazz. Al-Nadīm reports that al-Jāḥiẓ said he was about the same age as Abū Nuwās{{refn|group=n|Abū Nuwās al-Ḥasan ibn Hāni’ (d. 810), licentious poet and court companion of Hārūn al-Rashīd.}} and older than al-Jammāz.{{refn|group=n|al-Jammāz Muḥammad ibn ‘Amr, Abū ‘Abd Allāh (d. 868/869) a satirist and storyteller at the court of al-Mutawakkil}}{{sfn|Nadīm (al-)|1970|p=398}}

While still in Basra, al-Jāḥiẓ wrote an article about the institution of the Caliphate. This is said to have been the beginning of his career as a writer, which would become his sole source of living. It is said that his mother once offered him a tray full of notebooks and told him he would earn his living from writing. He went on to write two hundred books in his lifetime on a variety of subjects, including on the Quran, Arabic grammar, zoology, poetry, lexicography, and rhetoric. Al-Jāḥiẓ was also one of the first Arabic writers to suggest a complete overhaul of the language's grammatical system, though this would not be undertaken until his fellow linguist Ibn Maḍāʾ took up the matter two hundred years later.Shawqi Daif, Introduction to Ibn Mada's Refutation of the Grammarians, pg. 48. Cairo, 1947.

Al-Nadīm cited this passage from a book of al-Jāḥiẓ:{{sfn|Nadīm (al-)|1970|p=401}}

When I was writing these two books, about the creation of the Qur’ān, which was the tenet given importance and honour by the Commander of the Faithful,{{refn|group=n|Probably the Caliph al-Ma’mūn, who made a special point of the doctrine of the creation of the Qur’ān.{{cite book|last=Hitti|author-link=Philip Khuri Hitti|first=Philip K|title=History of The Arabs|place=Hong Kong|publisher=MacMillan Education Ltd |year=1970|edition=10th|page=[https://archive.org/details/HistoryOfTheArabs-PhilipK.Hitti/page/n454 429] |isbn=0-333-09871-4|url=https://archive.org/details/HistoryOfTheArabs-PhilipK.Hitti}} Al-Jāḥiẓ wrote numerous books about the caliphs, and which two books he refers to is unknown.}} and another about superiority in connection with the Banū Hāshim, the ‘Abd Shams, and Makhzūm.{{refn|group=n|Dodge notes that al-Jāḥiẓ’s praise for the ‘Abbāsid lineage, and promotion of their ancestors, the Banū Hāshim, over the ‘Abd Shams, ancestors of the Umayyads, and the Banū Makhzūm, is evidentially political expedience.}} What was my due but to sit above the Simakān, Spica and Arcturus, or on top of the ‘Ayyūq,{{refn|group=n|The Simakān were two stars: al-Simāk al-A‘zal or Spica, and al-Simāk al-Rāmiḥ or Arcturus. The ‘Ayyūq was either Aldebaran in the constellation of Taurus, or else Capella.{{cite book|last= Richardson|author-link= John Richardson (orientalist)|first=John| title= A dictionary, Persian, Arabic, and English |place=London|publisher= W.H. Allen |year=1852|page=[https://archive.org/details/dictionarypersia00johnuoft/page/1040 1040]|url= https://archive.org/details/dictionarypersia00johnuoft }}{{cite book|last= Lane|author-link= Edward William Lane|first= E. W.|title=An Arabic English Lexicon Book-i, Part-v|place=London|publisher=Williams & Norgate|year=1874|page=[https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.76950/page/n444 2199]|url= https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.76950}}}} or to deal with red sulphur, or to conduct the ‘Anqā by her leading string to the Greatest King.{{refn|group=n|The ‘Anqā was a fabled bird, also called Simurgh, that reigned as queen on Mount Qāf. The Ṣūfīs sometimes used the bird as an allegorical symbol of divine truth, so that the “Greatest King” probably refers to God.}}{{sfn|Richardson|1852|p=1032}}{{cite book|last=Browne|author-link=Edward Granville Browne|first=Edward G.|title= Literary History of Persia|place= Cambridge|publisher=University Press|year=1964|volume=II|page=[https://archive.org/details/b31361560_0002/page/33 33] n. 3 |url= https://archive.org/details/b31361560_0002}}

Al-Jāḥiẓ moved to Baghdad, then the capital of the Abbasid Caliphate, in 816 AD, because the caliphs encouraged scientists and scholars and had just founded the library of the Bayt al-Ḥikmah. But al-Nadim suspected al-Jāḥiẓ's claim that the caliph al-Ma’mūn had praised his books on the imamate and the caliphate, for his eloquent phraseology, and use of market-place speech, and that of the elite and of the kings,{{sfn|Nadīm (al-)|1970|loc=I, ch.5 §1|p=400}} was exaggerated self-glorification and doubted that al-Ma’mūn could have spoken these words.{{refn|group=n|Bayard Dodge in his editorial notes that he books about the caliphate undoubtedly tried to prove that it was the ‘Abbāsid caliphs who had the divine right to rule the Islamic theocracy and that al-Jāḥiẓ had put these words into the caliph’s mouth in an attempt to boast of his erudition and clarity of style.{{sfn|Nadīm (al-)|1970|p=400 n.108 }}}} Al-Jāḥiẓ was said to have admired the eloquent literary style of the director of the library, Sahl ibn Hārūn (d. 859/860) and quoted his works.{{sfn|Nadīm (al-)|1970|pp=262-3}} Because of the caliphs' patronage and his eagerness to establish himself and reach a wider audience, al-Jāḥiẓ stayed in Baghdad.

Al-Nadīm gives two versions{{refn|group=n|Compare “al-Fihrist” (ed. Dodge, 1970), Ch. III, §.2, near n. 12; Ch. V, §.1.}}{{sfn|Nadīm (al-)|1970|pp=255, 398}} of an anecdote which differ in their source: his first source is Abū Hiffān{{refn|group=n|Abū Hiffān 'Abd Allāh ibn Aḥmad ibn Ḥarb al-Mihzamī was a secretary and poet who died in Baghdād in 871. }} and his second is the grammarian al-Mubarrad,{{sfn|Nadīm (al-)|1970|p=398}}{{snd}} and retells the story of al-Jāḥiẓ's reputation for being one of the three great bibliophiles and scholars{{snd}}the two others being al-Fatḥ ibn Khāqān and judge Ismā’īl ibn Isḥāq{{refn|group=n|Ismā’īl ibn Isḥāq ibn Ismā’īl ibn Ḥammād, al-Qāḍī (d. 895/896) a jurist of Baṣrah who became a judge at Baghdād.}}{{snd}} such that “whenever a book came into the hand of al-Jāḥiẓ he read through it, wherever he happened to be. He even used to rent the shops of al-warrāqūn{{refn|group=n|A copiest of MSS, or stationer, or bookshop owner. Bookshops were often meeting places for scholarly debate.{{sfn|Nadīm (al-)|1970|p=929}} }} for study.”{{sfn|Nadīm (al-)|1970|p=255}}

Al-Jāḥiẓ replaced Ibrāhīm ibn al-‘Abbās al-Ṣūlī in the government secretariat of al-Ma’mūn but left after just three days.{{sfn|Yāqūt|1907|loc=VI (6)|p=58}}{{sfn|Nadīm (al-)|1970|p=399}} Later at Samarra he wrote a huge number of his books. The caliph al-Ma'mun wanted al-Jāḥiẓ to teach his children, but then changed his mind when his children were frightened by al-Jāḥiẓ's boggle-eyes ({{lang|ar|جاحظ العينين}}). This is said to be the origin of his nickname.{{sfn|Khallikān (Ibn)|1843b|loc=ii|p=405|ps=.}} He enjoyed the patronage of al-Fath ibn Khaqan, the bibliophile boon companion of Caliph al-Mutawakkil, but after his murder in December 861 he left Samarra for his native Basra, where he lived on his estate with his “concubine, her maid, a manservant, and a donkey.”{{sfn|Nadīm (al-)|1970|p=402}}{{sfn|Kennedy|2006|p=252}}

{{main|al-Jahiz bibliography}}

File:Syrischer_Maler_um_1335_001.jpg (Struthio camelus) in a nest with eggs. Basra.]]Kitāb al-Ḥayawān is an extensive zoological encyclopedia in seven volumes{{refn|group=n|Al-Fihrist gives a list of the first and last sentences of each section of the Kitāb al-Ḥayawān.}} consisting of anecdotes, proverbs, and descriptions of over 350 animal species. Including in-depth analyses of their ecosystems and behaviors.{{cite web|url=https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/belief/2009/feb/27/islam-religion-evolution-science|title=Islam's evolutionary legacy|website=TheGuardian.com|date=March 2009}} Composed in honour of Muḥammad ibn ‘Abd al-Mālik al-Zayyāt, who paid him five thousand gold coins.{{sfn|Nadīm (al-)|1970|pp=402-4}} The 11th-century scholar al-Khatib al-Baghdadi dismissed it as "little more than a plagiarism" of Aristotle's Kitāb al-Hayawān{{snd}}a charge of plagiarism was levelled against Aristotle himself with regard to a certain "Asclepiades of Pergamum".{{cite book|last=F. E.|first=Peters|title=Aristotle and the Arabs: The Aristotelian Tradition in Islam|year=1968|publisher=New York University Press|page=133}} Later scholars have noted that there was only a limited Aristotelian influence in al-Jāḥiẓ's work, and that al-Baghdadi may have been unacquainted with Aristotle's work.{{cite journal|last=Mattock|first=J. N.|title=Review: Aristotle and the Arabs: The Aristotelian Tradition in Islam by F. E. Peters|journal=Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London|year=1971|volume=34|issue=1|pages=147–148|jstor=614638|quote=...there is much more in al-Jāḥiẓ, enough to indicate that he used a version of Aristotle (or an epitome), but still not very much. If al-Baghdadi thought that the Kitab al-hayawan was a plagiarism of the Aristotelian work he was either a fool or unacquainted with Aristotle.|doi=10.1017/s0041977x00141722|s2cid=223939666 }}

Conway Zirkle, writing about the history of natural selection science in 1941, said that an excerpt from this work was the only relevant passage he had found from an Arabian scholar. He provided a quotation describing the struggle for existence, citing a Spanish translation of this work:

The rat goes out for its food, and is clever in getting it, for it eats all animals inferior to it in strength", and in turn, it "has to avoid snakes and birds and serpents of prey, who look for it in order to devour it" and are stronger than the rat. Mosquitos "know instinctively that blood is the thing which makes them live" and when they see an animal, "they know that the skin has been fashioned to serve them as food". In turn, flies hunt the mosquito "which is the food that they like best", and predators eat the flies. "All animals, in short, can not exist without food, neither can the hunting animal escape being hunted in his turn. Every weak animal devours those weaker than itself. Strong animals cannot escape being devoured by other animals stronger than they. And in this respect, men do not differ from animals, some with respect to others, although they do not arrive at the same extremes. In short, God has disposed some human beings as a cause of life for others, and likewise, he has disposed the latter as a cause of the death of the former."{{cite journal | last1 = Zirkle | first1 = Conway | name-list-style=vanc | year = 1941 | title = Natural Selection before the 'Origin of Species' | journal = Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society | volume = 84 | issue = 1| pages = 71–123 }}

According to Frank Edgerton (2002), the claim made by some authors that al-Jahiz was an early evolutionist is "unconvincing", but the narrower claim that Jahiz "recognized the effect of environmental factors on animal life" seems valid.{{cite journal |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/20168700 |journal=Bulletin of the Ecological Society of America |volume=83 |issue=2 |date=2002 |title=A History of the Ecological Sciences, Part 6: Arabic Language Science: Origins and Zoological Writings |last=Edgerton |first=Frank N. |pages=142–146|jstor=20168700 }} Rebecca Stott (2013) writes of al-Jahiz's work:

Jahiz was not concerned with argument or theorizing. He was concerned with witnessing; he promoted the pleasures and fascinations of close looking and told his readers that there was nothing more important than this. ... Here and there amid the close looking there are visions, glimpses of brilliant insight and perception about natural laws, but the overt purpose of Living beings was to persuade the reader to fulfil his moral obligation to God, an obligation enjoined by the Qu'ran: to look closely and search for understanding. ... If certain historians have claimed that Jahiz wrote about evolution a thousand years before Darwin and that he discovered natural selection, they have misunderstood. Jahiz was not trying to work out how the world began or how species had come to be. He believed that God had done the making and that he had done it brilliantly. He took divine creation and intelligent design for granted. … There was, for him, no other possible explanation. ... What is striking, however, about Jahiz’s portrait of nature in Living Beings is his vision of interconnectedness, his repeated images of nets and webs. He certainly saw ecosystems, as we would call them now, in the natural world. He also understood what we might call the survival of the fittest.{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WzY_kGjRCXkC |title=Darwin's Ghosts |date=2013 |publisher=Bloomsbury |isbn=9781408831014 |last=Stott |first=Rebecca |pages=50}}

Like Aristotle, al-Jahiz believed in spontaneous generation. He frequently used metaphors of webs and nets to express the interconnectedness of the natural world.

A collection of stories about the greedy. Humorous and satirical, it is the best example of al-Jāḥiẓ' prose style. Al-Jāḥiẓ ridicules schoolmasters, beggars, singers and scribes for their greedy behavior. Many of the stories continue to be reprinted in magazines throughout the Arabic-speaking world. The book is considered one of the best works of al-Jāḥiẓ.{{citation needed|date=July 2013}} The book has two English translations: One by Robert Bertram Serjeant titled The Book of Misers, and another by Jim Colville titled Avarice and the Avaricious. Editions: Arabic (al-Ḥājirī, Cairo, 1958);{{cite book|last= Jāḥiẓ (al-)|first=Abū ‘Uthman ‘Amr ibn Bahr| title= Kitāb al-Bukhalā'|editor-last=al-Ḥājirī|editor-first= Ṭāhā|place= Cairo|publisher= Dār al-Ma‘ārif|year=1958|language=ar |url= https://archive.org/details/elhilalymohamad_gmail_20170413_0418/page/n509}} Arabic text, French preface. Le Livre des avares. (Pellat. Paris, 1951){{cite book|last= Jāḥiẓ (al-)|first=Abū ‘Uthman ‘Amr ibn Bahr| title=Kitāb al-Bukhalā' (Tr. Le Livre des avares)|editor-last=Pellat|editor-first=C.|place= Paris |publisher= Maisoneuve|year=1951|language=ar, fr|url= https://archive.org/details/lelivredesavares00jahiuoft/page/n6}}

al-Bayan wa al-Tabyin was one of al-Jāḥiẓ's later works, in which he wrote on epiphanies, rhetorical speeches, sectarian leaders, and princes. The book is considered to have started Arabic literary theory in a formal, systemic fashion.G. J. H. Van Gelder, Beyond the Line: Classical Arabic Literary Critics on the Coherence and Unity of the Poem, pg. 2. Volume 8 of Studies in Arabic literature: Supplements to the Journal of Arabic Literature. Leiden: Brill Publishers, 1982. {{ISBN|9789004068544}} Al-Jāḥiẓ's defining of eloquence as the ability of the speaker to deliver an effective message while maintaining it as brief or elaborate at will was widely accepted by later Arabic literary critics.G.J. van Gelder, "Brevity in Classical Arabic Literary Theory." Taken from Proceedings of the Ninth Congress of the Union Européenne Des Arabisants et Islamisants: Amsterdam, 1 to 7 September 1978, pg. 81. Ed. Rudolph Peters. Volume 4 of Publications of the Netherlands Institute of Archaeology and Arabic Studies in Cairo. Leiden: Brill Archive, 1981. {{ISBN|9789004063808}}

This book is composed as a debate between black people and white people as to which group is superior.Sharawi, Helmi, 'The African in Arab culture: Dynamics of Inclusion and Exclusion', in Imagining the Arab Other, How Arabs and Non-Arabs View Each Other, ed. by Tahar Labib (New York: I. B. Tauris, 2008), pp. 92-156 (p. 99); {{ISBN|9781845113841}}. Al-Jāḥiẓ mentions that Blacks have an oratory and eloquence of their own culture and language.{{sfn|Nadīm (al-)|1970|p=35}}

• al-Jahiz, Fakhr El Soudan Ala Al Bidhan (Beirut: Dar al-Guiel, 1991).
• al-Jāḥiẓ, “The Boasts of the Blacks Over the Whites,” trans. Tarif Khalidi, Islamic Quarterly, 25, no. 1 (1981): 3–51.

Concerning the Zanj, he wrote:

{{blockquote|Everybody agrees that there is no people on earth in whom generosity is as universally well developed as the Zanj. These people have a natural talent for dancing to the rhythm of the tambourine, without needing to learn it. There are no better singers anywhere in the world, no people more polished and eloquent, and no people less given to insulting language. No other nation can surpass them in bodily strength and physical toughness. One of them will lift huge blocks and carry heavy loads that would be beyond the strength of most Bedouins or members of other races. They are courageous, energetic, and generous, which are the virtues of nobility, and also good-tempered and with little propensity to evil. They are always cheerful, smiling, and devoid of malice, which is a sign of noble character.}}

{{blockquote|The Zanj say that God did not make them black to disfigure them; rather it is their environment that made them so. The best evidence of this is that there are black tribes among the Arabs, such as the Banu Sulaim bin Mansur, and that all the peoples settled in the Harra, besides the Banu Sulaim are black. These tribes take slaves from among the Ashban to mind their flocks and for irrigation work, manual labor, and domestic service, and their wives from among the Byzantines; and yet it takes less than three generations for the Harra to give them all the complexion of the Banu Sulaim. This Harra is such that the gazelles, ostriches, insects, wolves, foxes, sheep, asses, horses and birds that live there are all black. White and black are the results of environment, the natural properties of water and soil, distance from the sun, and intensity of heat. There is no question of metamorphosis, or of punishment, disfigurement or favor meted out by Allah. Besides, the land of the Banu Sulaim has much in common with the land of the Turks, where the camels, beasts of burden, and everything belonging to these people is similar in appearance: everything of theirs has a Turkish look.{{cite web|url=http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/860jahiz.asp|title=Medieval Sourcebook: Abû Ûthmân al-Jâhith: From The Essays, c. 860 CE|access-date=2 October 2014}}}}

Al-Jāḥiẓ intervened in a theological dispute between two Mu’tazilītes, and defended Abū al-Hudhayl al-'Allaf against the criticism of Bishr ibn al-Mu‘tamir.{{sfn|Nadīm (al-)|1970|pp=390-1}} Another Mu‘tazilite theologian, Ja‘far ibn Mubashshir,{{refn|group=n|Ja‘far ibn Mubashshir al-Thaqafī, Abū Muḥammad, (d. 848/49) a Mu‘tazilah of Baghdād. }} wrote a “refutation of al-Jāḥiẓ”.{{sfn|Nadīm (al-)|1970|p=397}}

According to the Encyclopædia Britannica, he was "part of the rationalist Mu’tazilite school of theology supported by the caliph al-Maʾmūn and his successor. When Muʿtazilism was abandoned by the caliph al-Mutawakkil, al-Jāḥiẓ remained in favour by writing essays such as Manāqib at-turk (Eng. trans., “Exploits of the Turks”).{{cite web |url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/al-Jahiz/ |title=al-Jahiz {{!}} biography - Muslim theologian and scholar {{!}} Britannica.com |website=www.britannica.com |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150906005052/http://www.britannica.com/biography/al-Jahiz |archive-date=2015-09-06}}.

Al-Jāḥiẓ returned to Basra with hemiplegia after spending more than fifty years in Baghdad. He died in Basra in the Arabic month of Muharram in AH 255/December 868 – January 869 AD.{{cite book|last=al-Ṣūlī|first=Muḥammad ibn Yaḥyá|title=Kniga listov|year=1998|publisher=T͡Sentr "Peterburgskoe vostokovedenie"|location=Sankt-Peterburg|page=392}} His exact cause of death is not clear, but a popular assumption is that al-Jāḥiẓ died in his private library after one of many large piles of books fell on him, killing him instantly.{{cite book |last=Pellat |first=C. |chapter=al-Jahiz |editor1-last= Ashtiany |editor1-first= Julia |editor2-last=Johnstone |editor2-first=T.M. |editor3-last=Latham |editor3-first=J.D. |editor4-last=Serjeat |editor4-first=R.B. |editor5-last=Rex Smith |editor5-first=G. |title= Abbasid Belles Lettres

|date=1990 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |location=Cambridge, UK |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4sFzGGqA6uoC&q=%22smothered%20to%20death%22&pg=PA81 |access-date=14 October 2023 |quote= A late tradition claims that Jahiz...was smothered to death under an avalanche of books. |page=81|isbn=9780521240161 }}

• Shu'ubiyya
• Ajam
• Al-Jāhiz (crater)
• List of Arab scientists and scholars

{{Reflist|group=n}}

{{Reflist}}

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• {{Cite book|editor-first1= Robert |editor-last1=Haug|editor-first2=Steven |editor-last2=Judd|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JQqtEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA225 |title=Islam on the Margins: Studies in Memory of Michael Bonner |date=2023 |publisher=BRILL |isbn=978-90-04-52783-6 |pages= |language=en}}
• {{cite book|last=Baghdādī (al-) Khaṭīb|author-link=al-Khatib al-Baghdadi|first=Abū Bakr Aḥmad ibn ‘Alī|title= Tārīkh Baghdād aw madīnat al-salām |place=Beirut|publisher=Dār al-Gharb al-Islāmi|year=2001|language=ar |volume=14|pages=124–132|section=§6622)|url= https://archive.org/stream/WAQtaba/taba14#page/n124/mode/2up }}
• {{cite book|last=Bīrūnī (al-)|author-link=al-Biruni|first= Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad| title=Chronologie orientalischer Völker von Albērūnī|editor-last=Sachau|editor-first= Eduard |place= Leipzig|publisher=Brockhaus|year=1878|page=[https://archive.org/details/bub_gb__tYOAAAAQAAJ/page/n398 12], l.1|language=ar |url= https://archive.org/details/bub_gb__tYOAAAAQAAJ}}
• {{cite book|last=Durayd (Ibn)|author-link=Ibn Duraid|first=Abū Bakr Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan| title=Kitāb al-Ishtiqāq (Ibn Doreid's genealogisch-etymologisches Handbuch) |editor-last=Wüstenfeld|editor-first= F.|place=Göttingen|publisher=Dieterich |year=1854|page=150|language=ar|url= https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_6wfgAAAAMAAJ/page/n173}}
• {{cite book|last= Khallikān (Ibn)|author-link= Ibn Khallikan|first=Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad|title= Ibn Khallikan's Biographical Dictionary (tr. Wafayāt al-A'yān wa-al-Anbā Abnā' al-Zamān)|translator-last=McGuckin de Slane|translator-first= William |place=London |publisher= W.H.Allen|year=1843b|volume=ii|pages=405–410|language= en|url= https://archive.org/stream/WafayatAl-ayantheObituariesOfEminentMenByIbnKhallikan/Vol2Of4WafayatAl-ayantheObituariesOfEminentMenByIbnKhallikan#page/n421/mode/2up }}
• {{cite book|last= Mas’ūdī (al-)|author-link= al-Masudi|first=Abū al-Ḥasan ‘Alī ibn al-Ḥusayn|title=Kitāb al-Murūj al-Dhahab wa-Ma'ādin al-Jawhar (tr. Les Prairies d'or)|editor1-last=Meynard (de)|editor1-first=C. Barbier|editor2-last=Courteille (de)|editor2-first=A. Pavet|place= Paris|publisher= Imprimerie impériale|year=1864|volume=iii|page=[https://archive.org/details/lesprairiesdor03masuuoft/page/116 116]|language= ar, fr |url=https://archive.org/details/lesprairiesdor03masuuoft}}
• Montgomery, James (2013). Al-Jāḥiẓ: In Praise of Books. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. {{ISBN|978-0748683321}}.
• {{cite book|last= Nadīm (al-)|author-link= Ibn al-Nadim|first= Abū al-Faraj Muḥammad ibn Isḥāq Abū Ya’qūb al-Warrāq| title=The Fihrist of al-Nadim; a tenth-century survey of Muslim culture|editor-last=Dodge |editor-first=Bayard |place=New York & London |publisher=Columbia University Press|year=1970|volume=ii|pages=397–409}}
• {{citation|last=Pellat|author-link=Charles Pellat|first=Charles|title=Le milieu baṣrien et la formation de Ğāḥiẓ (Doctoral dissertation, Université de Paris; Librairie d'Amérique et d'Orient)|place= Paris|publisher=Adrien-Maisonneuve |year=1953|language=fr |oclc=7049520}}
• {{citation|last=Watt|first=W. Montgomery|title= Kināna|encyclopedia= Encyclopedia of Islam|editor1-last=Bosworth|editor1-first=CE|editor2-last=Donzel|editor2-first=E van|editor3-last=Lewis|editor3-first=B| editor4-last=Pellat|editor4-first=C|edition=New|place=Leiden|publisher=Brill|year=1986|volume=5|page=116|url= https://referenceworks.brillonline.com/search?s.f.s2_parent=s.f.book.encyclopaedia-of-islam-2&search-go=&s.q=Kinana&s.rows=20}}
• {{cite book | last = Kennedy | first = Hugh | author-link = Hugh N. Kennedy | title = When Baghdad Ruled the Muslim World: The Rise and Fall of Islam's Greatest Dynasty | location = Cambridge, MA | publisher = Da Capo Press | year = 2006 | isbn = 978-0-306814808 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=67fZB5YGkOQC }}
• {{citation|last=Yāqūt|author-link=Yaqut al-Hamawi|first=Shīhab al-Dīn ibn ‘Abd Allāh al-Ḥamawī |title= Irshād al-Arīb alā Ma'rifat al-Adīb (Yāqūt's Dictionary of Learned Men)|editor-last=Margoliouth |editor-first= D. S.|place=Leiden |publisher=Brill |year=1907|volume=VI|pages=56–80|language=ar|url= https://archive.org/details/kitbirshadalarib06yqtiuoft/page/476}}

{{refend}}

• {{cite book|last1=Jāḥiẓ|last2=Pellat|first2=C.|last3= Hawke |first3= D. M.|title= The life and works of Jahiz : Transl. of selected texts|place= Berkeley and Los Angeles|publisher=Univ. of California Press|year=1969|language=en|oclc=488398998|author2-link=Charles Pellat}}
• {{cite book|last= Khallikān (Ibn)|author-link= Ibn Khallikan|first=Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad|title= Ibn Khallikan's Biographical Dictionary (tr. Wafayāt al-A'yān wa-al-Anbā Abnā' al-Zamān)|translator-last=McGuckin de Slane|translator-first= William |place=London |publisher= W.H. Allen|year=1843|volume=i|pages=[https://archive.org/details/WafayatAl-ayantheObituariesOfEminentMenByIbnKhallikan/page/n102 61]–74|language= en|url= https://archive.org/details/WafayatAl-ayantheObituariesOfEminentMenByIbnKhallikan}}
• {{cite book|last=Khallikān (Ibn)|author-link=Ibn Khallikan|first=Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad |title=Wafayāt al-A'yān wa-Anbā' Abnā' al-Zamān|place=Beirut|publisher= Dār Ṣādar|year=1972|pages=470–475 (§506 )|volume=III|language=ar|url=https://archive.org/stream/WAQ17074/03_17077#page/n470/mode/2up}}
• {{cite book|last1=Pellat|first1=Charles|last2= Kīlānī|first2=Ibrāhīm|title= al-Ǧāḥiẓ fī al-Baṣrah wa Baḡdād wa Sāmirāʻ|place=Damas|publisher= Dar El-Yakaza|year=1961|language=ar |url= https://archive.org/details/jahiz/page/n1 }}
• {{Cite book |title=Medieval Sexuality: A Casebook |last=Kennedy |first=Hugh N. |publisher=Routledge |year=2010 |isbn=978-1-135-86634-1 |edition=Second |location=London [u.a.] |pages=175–188 |language=en |editor-last=Harper |editor-first=April |chapter=Al-Jahiz and the Construction of Homosexuality at the Abbasid Court |doi=10.4324/9780203935026 |orig-date=2007 |editor-last2=Proctor |editor-first2=Caroline}}
• al-Quda, Al-Qadi. A Treasury of Virtues: Sayings, Sermons, and Teachings of Ali, with the One Hundred Proverbs, attributed to al-Jahiz. Vol. 26. NYU Press, 2013.
• {{cite book|last=Yāqūt|author-link=Yaqut al-Hamawi|first=Shihāb al-Dīn ibn ‘Abd al-Ḥamawī |title=Irshād al-Arīb alā Ma'rifat al-Adīb|editor-last=Margoliouth|editor-first=D. S.|place=Leiden|publisher=Brill|year=c. 1229|publication-date=1913|volume=VI (7)| language= ar|url= https://archive.org/details/kitbirshadalarib06yqtiuoft/}}
• {{cite book|last=Yāqūt|author-link=Yaqut al-Hamawi|first=Shihāb al-Dīn ibn ‘Abd al-Ḥamawī |title=Irshād al-Arīb alā Ma'rifat al-Adīb|editor-last=Abbās|editor-first=Ihsan|place=Beirut|publisher= Dār Gharib al-Islām i|date=c. 1229|publication-date=1993|pages=[https://archive.org/details/waq45344/page/n2100 2101]-2122 (§872)|language= ar|url= https://archive.org/details/waq45344}}

{{commons category}}

• {{cite encyclopedia | last = Plessner | first = M. | title=Al-Jāḥith, Abū 'Uthmān 'Amr Ibn Baḥr | url=http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G2-2830902162.html | encyclopedia = Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography | publisher = Encyclopedia.com | orig-year=1970–80 | year = 2008 }}
• [https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0B--52bZPXB75ZDA0MTQyZDctOTUxOC00MzUxLTkyNGUtY2E4ZmQzYTM1NzM4&sort=name&layout=list&num=50 Kitāb al-Hayawān (Book of Animals), by al-Jāḥiẓ (Full Arabic text)]
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20060504001850/http://www.library.cornell.edu/colldev/mideast/islamlit.htm Arabic literature]

{{Arabic literature}}

{{Islamic theology}}

{{Islamic philosophy}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Jahiz}}

Category:Darwinism

Category:776 births

Category:860s deaths

Category:8th-century Arab people

Category:9th-century Arab people

Category:Mu'tazilites

Category:Quranist Muslims

Category:9th-century Muslim scholars of Islam

Category:Arab writers

Category:Medieval Arabic literature

Category:9th-century Arabic-language writers

Category:Writers from Basra

Category:Zoologists of the medieval Islamic world

Category:9th-century people from the Abbasid Caliphate

Category:Scholars from the Abbasid Caliphate