صفة الصفوة

Abu al-Faraj Abd al-Rahman ibn Ali ibn Muhammad ibn al-Jawzi was a Baghdadi Hanbali jurist, hadith scholar, historian, and preacher whose prolific output made him one of the most influential scholars of the late Abbasid era. Born in Baghdad in 510 AH / 1116 CE into a prosperous merchant family, he was orphaned young and raised by an aunt who placed him under the care of the Hanbali scholar Ibn Nasir, beginning a lifelong study of hadith, Qur'anic sciences, history, and homiletics.

Ibn al-Jawzi's literary production was enormous — biographers credit him with between three hundred and seven hundred works, of which a substantial number survive. His al-Muntazam fi Tarikh al-Muluk wa al-Umam is a major chronological history of the Muslim world; Sifat al-Safwa is a celebrated biographical work on early Muslim ascetics and Sufis abridging Abu Nu'aym's Hilyat al-Awliya; Talbis Iblis ('The Devil's Deception') is a sweeping critique of innovations and deviations across Muslim sects and Sufi groups; and Sayd al-Khatir is a much-loved collection of personal reflections and moral aphorisms. He also wrote extensively in tafsir (Zad al-Masir), hadith criticism (al-Mawdu'at), and Hanbali fiqh.

Ibn al-Jawzi was equally renowned as a public preacher, drawing crowds reported in the tens of thousands to his sessions in Baghdad. He served as professor at several Hanbali madrasas and exerted significant influence at the Abbasid court under successive caliphs. He died in Baghdad in 597 AH / 1201 CE. His writings remain widely read across the Sunni world, and his works on history, hadith, and spiritual cultivation continue to be staples of Islamic libraries.