Ibn Al-Nadim - Biography

Biography

Very little is actually known about his life. He was a bookseller, a calligrapher who copied manuscripts for sale, as his father, known as al-Warrāq (الورّاق), was before him. He lived in Baghdad and sometimes he mentions a sojourn in Mosul. In 988 AD, the year his book was compiled, he reports he was in Constantinople (Dar al-Rum). However, Carlo Alfonso Nallino believes this is a misunderstanding and Dar al-Rum does not mean Constantiople, rather al-Nadim meant that he met someone in a Christian neighborhood in Baghdad.

Of his teachers he mentions al-Sirafi (died 978-9), 'Ali b. Harun b. al-Munajjim (died 963) and the philosopher Abu Sulayman al-Mantiqi. He belonged to the circle of a son of 'Ali b. 'Isa the "Good Vizier" of the Banu al-Jarrah, whom he praises for his profound knowledge of the logic and the sciences of the Greeks, Persians and Indians. Ibn al-Nadim also met in his house the Christian philosopher Ibn al-Khammar. With these men, none of whom was an orthodox Sunni, he shared an admiration for philosophy and especially for Aristotle, and the Greek and Hindu sciences of antiquity (before Islam). He admired their breadth of outlook and their air of toleration.

It did not escape his biographers that he was a Shi'ite (Ibn Hajar, l.c.); he uses khassi instead of Shi'ite, 'ammi instead of Sunnite, al-hashwiyya for the Sunnis, Ahl al-Hadith ("People of the Hadith") instead of Ahl al-Sunna ("People of the Tradition"). He inserts the eulogy for prophets (consisting of the words alaihi al-salam, "peace be with him") after the names of the Shi'i Imams and the Ahl al-Bayt (the descendants of Muhammad). He calls the Ali ar-Rida mawlana. He asserts that al-Waqidi was a Shi'ite but concealed this fact by taqiyya. He claims most of the (orthodox) 'traditionists' for the Zaydiyya. He speaks of the Mu'tazila as Ahl al-'Adl ("People of the justice"), calls the Ash'arites al-mujbira. That he belonged to the Twelver Shi'a is shown by his distaste for the doctrines of the Sab'iyya and by his criticisms in dealing with their history. He remarks that a certain Shafi'i scholar was secretly a Twelver Shi'ite. He mentions Shi'is among his acquaintances, e.g., Ibn al-Mu'allim, the da'i Ibn Hamdan and the author Khushkunanadh. To the same circle belonged the Jacobite Yahya ibn 'Adi (d. 363/973) who instructed 'Isa b. 'Ali in philosophy and who was, like Ibn al-Nadim, a copyist and bookseller (p. t64, 8).