Abu Uthman Amr ibn Bahr al-Kinani al-Basri (Arabic: أبو عثمان عمرو بن بحر الكناني البصري, romanized: Abū ʿUthman ʿAmr ibn Baḥr al-Kinānī al-Baṣrī; c. 776–868/869), commonly known as al-Jahiz (Arabic: الجاحظ, romanized: al-Jāḥiẓ, lit.

'the bug eyed'), was an Arab polymath and author of works of literature (including theory and criticism), theology, zoology, philosophy, grammar, dialectics, rhetoric, philology, linguistics, and politico-religious polemics.

[2][3][4][5] His extensive zoological work has been credited with describing principles related to natural selection, ethology, and the functions of an ecosystem.

His grandfather, Maḥbūb, was a protégé or mawali of ‘Amr ibn Qal‘ al-Kinānī, who was from Arab Banu Kinanah tribe.

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 (علم النحو, i.e., syntax) with Akhfash al-Awsaṭ (al-Akhfash Abī al-Ḥasan).

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.

[n 5] What was my due but to sit above the Simakān, Spica and Arcturus, or on top of the ‘Ayyūq,[n 6] or to deal with red sulphur, or to conduct the ‘Anqā by her leading string to the Greatest King.

[n 8] 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.

He even used to rent the shops of al-warrāqūn[n 12] for study.”[34] Al-Jāḥiẓ replaced Ibrāhīm ibn al-‘Abbās al-Ṣūlī in the government secretariat of al-Ma’mūn but left after just three days.

[37] 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.” [38][39] Kitāb al-Ḥayawān is an extensive zoological encyclopedia in seven volumes[n 13] consisting of anecdotes, proverbs,and descriptions of over 350 animal species.

[43] 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.

If certain historians have claimed that Jahiz wrote about evolution a thousand years before Darwin and that he discovered natural selection, they have misunderstood.

... 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.

Paris, 1951)[48] 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.

[49] 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.

They are always cheerful, smiling, and devoid of malice, which is a sign of noble character.The Zanj say that God did not make them black to disfigure them; rather it is their environment that made them so.

[53]Al-Jāḥiẓ intervened in a theological dispute between two Mu’tazilītes, and defended Abū al-Hudhayl[n 14] against the criticism of Bishr ibn al-Mu‘tamir.

[55] 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.

[57] 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.