Abu 'Amr ibn al-'Ala' (684–771)
Born 684 CE, died 771 CE.
Abu ʻAmr bin al-ʻAlāʼ al-Basri (Arabic: أبو عمرو بن العلاء; (689/90-770/71; c.70-154 AH) was the Qur'an reciter of Basra, Iraq and an Arab linguist. He was born in Mecca. Descended from a branch of the Banu Tamim, Ibn al-ʻAlāʼ is one of the seven primary transmitters of the chain of narration for the Qur'an. He founded the Basran philology school of Arabic grammar. He was as well known as a grammarian as he was a reader, though his reading style was influenced by those of Nafi‘ al-Madani and Ibn Kathir al-Makki. In between his study of Qur'an reading in his hometown of Mecca and in Basra, he also travelled to learn more about the practice in the Kufan school and in Medina. Ibn al-ʻAlāʼ studied under Ibn Abi Ishaq and among his own pupils were Al-Khalil ibn Ahmad al-Farahidi, Yunus ibn Habib, Al-Asma'i and Harun ibn Musa. Al-Asma'i related that Ibn al-ʻAlāʼ was asked a thousand grammatical questions, and answered each with an example. Another student of his was Abu ʿUbaidah, who called Ibn al-ʻAlāʼ the most learned of all men in philology, grammar, Arabic poetry and the Qur'an.
Text from the Wikipedia article Abu_Amr_al-Basri, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.