Mubarrad, Muḥammad ibn Yazīd, -898

Al-Mubarrad (المبرد) (al-Mobarrad), or Abū al-‘Abbās Muḥammad ibn Yazīd (c. 826 – c. 898), was a native of Baṣrah. He was a philologist, biographer and a leading grammarian of the School of Basra, a rival to the School of Kufa. In 860 he was called to the court of the Abbasid caliph al-Mutawakkil at Samarra. When the caliph was killed the following year, he went to Baghdād, and taught there until his death. A prolific writer, perhaps the greatest of his school, his best known work is Al-Kāmil ("The Perfect One" or "The Complete"). A leading scholar of Sībawayh's seminal treatise on grammar, "al-Kitab" ("The Book"), he lectured on philology and wrote critical treatises on linguistics and Quranic exegesis (tafsir). He is said to be the source of the story of Shahrbanu or Shahr Banu –eldest daughter of Yazdegerd III– as the wife Husayn ibn Ali and mother of Ali al-Sajjad. His quote to would-be students was: Have you ridden through grammar, appreciating its vastness and meeting with the difficulties of its contents?