[2] Abū Zakarīyah ibn Ziyād al-Farrā’ was born in al-Kūfah into a family of Iranian Daylamī origin.
[2] [4] The main details of his life come from Tha‘lab (ابوالعباس ثعلب) who quotes Aḥmad ibn Yaḥyā saying: “If the expression spoils the meaning it is not the words of the Bedouin Arabs, or ‘pure’.
Umar approached him for exegetic advice on teaching Qur'ānic studies to the vizier, and so al-Farrā' dictated the book Ma‘ānī aI-Qur’ān for his students to copy out.
[8] At the request of the caliph al-Ma'mun he dictated his Kitāb al-Ḥudūd (كتاب الحدود), 'Classifications' (in poetry and grammar), as a project to instruct the students of al-Kisā’ī.
Over the sixteen year period it took to complete, a muezzin reader read while al-Farrā’ explained the entire Qur’ān.
He spent forty days annually at al-Kūfah, his native town, and distributed most of his considerable earnings from teaching among his people.