Ibrahim ibn Umar al-Biqa'i

Ibrahim ibn Umar al-Biqaʻi was a fifteenth century Quran exegete.

Biography

Al-Biqa'i was born in 809/1406 in the Biqa' region, now in Lebanon, in a small village. In 821/1418, a family dispute led to the murder of his father and two uncles, and he himself was wounded. His mother fled with her children to Damascus,. There, he pursued his studies under the city's scholars. He later moved to Jerusalem to study mathematics alongside traditional Islamic sciences. In 834/1431, he relocated to Cairo and became a student of the renowned scholar Ibn Hajar. He eventually participated in two naval campaigns alongside the Sultan of Cairo, gaining a reputation as a rare warrior-scholar. Al-Biqa'i secured a position as a Qur'an teacher in one of Cairo's mosques, where he began writing his Qur'an commentary. However, his career suffered when he became involved in a controversy over the poet Ibn al-Farid, tarnishing his reputation and forcing him to move back to Damascus. There, his criticism of al-Ghazali further damaged his standing. He died in 885/1480, largely isolated.

Works

Al-Biqa'i's notable work is his Qur'an commentary, Nazm al-Durar fi Tanasub al-Ayat wa-al-Suwar, which stands out in the tradition of medieval Qur'anic exegesis for two reasons. Firstly, it emphasizes the use of rhetoric and logical coherence as primary tools for interpreting the Qur'an. Secondly, it draws extensively on the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament as sources to elucidate certain Qur'anic verses.

Sources

• Saleh, W. (2008a). In Defense of the Bible: A Critical Edition and an Introduction to al-Biqāʿī's Bible Treatise. Islamic History and Civilization. Brill. ISBN 978-90-474-3378-1.