Encyclopedia of Islam

Further reading: Michael Cooperson, Classical Ara-

bic Biography: The Heirs of the Prophets in the Age of 

al-Mamun (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 

2000); Nimrod Hurvitz, The Formation of Hanbalism: 

Piety into Power (London: Routledge Curzon, 2002).

Ibn Hazm, Ali ibn Ahmad ibn Said

 

(994–

1064)  leading Andalusian religious scholar and poet

Ibn Hazm was born in Cordoba, the capital of 

a

ndalUsia

. He lived in a politically turbulent 

time when the U

mayyad

  c

aliphate

 was collaps-

ing. Little is known of his family’s background 

except that they may have been Iberian Chris-

tians who converted to Islam. His father served 

the Umayyad court, and he himself relied on 

their patronage. Ibn Hazm spent his youth in the 

harem

, where he gained intimate knowledge of life 

among the Andalusian elite and the roles 

Women

played in society. He received formal 

edUcation

in Arabic language arts, religious sciences, 

phi

-

losophy

, and history. His gifts placed him in the 

circle of the best intellects of his time. He had a 

critical temperament and was a nonconformist in 

many respects. For example, instead of following 

the  m

aliki

  l

egal

  s

chool

, the prevailing one in 

Andalusia, Ibn Hazm was the leading advocate 

of the Zahiri Legal School, which upheld literal 

interpretation of the q

Uran

 and 

hadith

 and 

opposed subjective opinion. He was imprisoned 

more than once for the political intrigues in which 

he became implicated. A prolific writer, his biog-

raphers credit him with some 400 books on many 

different topics. Only a few dozen of these have 

survived. He spent his last years in exile from his 

beloved Cordoba.

One of Ibn Hazm’s most famous books was 

Kitab al-fisal fi al-milal wa’l-ahwa wa’l-nihal (The 

book of distinguishing between religions, heresies, 

and sects), a comparative look at religions and 

philosophical schools from the point of view of a 

believing Muslim intellectual. It provided a ratio-

nal defense of key tenets of Islamic belief against 

the truth claims of the Muslim philosophers, 

challenged Jewish legal doctrines, and refuted 

Christian teachings about the authenticity of the 

Gospels and the divinity of J

esUs

. It also levied