Ibn Hazm

Abū Muḥammad ʿAlī ibn Aḥmad ibn Saʿīd ibn Ḥazm (Arabic: أبو محمد علي بن احمد بن سعيد بن حزم‎; also sometimes known as al-Andalusī aẓ-Ẓāhirī; November 7, 994 – August 15, 1064 (456 AH) was an Andalusian polymath born in Córdoba, present-day Spain. He was a leading proponent and codifier of the Zahiri school of Islamic thought, and produced a reported 400 works of which only 40 still survive, covering a range of topics such as Islamic jurisprudence, history, ethics, comparative religion, and theology, as well as The Ring of the Dove, on the art of love. The Encyclopaedia of Islam refers to him as having been one of the leading thinkers of the Muslim world, and he is widely acknowledged as the father of comparative religious studies.

Personal life

Lineage

Ibn Hazm was born into a notable family. His grandfather Sa'id who moved to Córdoba and his father Ahmad both held high advisory positions in the court of the Umayyad Caliph Hisham II. The family claimed to be of Persian descent, claiming descent from an Iranian companion of the prophet Muhammad.