Chronique

Muhammad ibn Jarir al-Tabari (839–923) was born in Amol in Tabaristan, near the Caspian Sea, and travelled for years in search of knowledge before settling in Baghdad, where he taught and wrote until his death. He was so productive that later writers said he wrote forty pages a day for forty years.

His History of the Prophets and Kings is the most important early Arabic history, recording reports with their chains of transmitters so that readers could judge them, and his commentary on the Quran became a standard work. Later historians, among them Ibn Khaldun, built on his work.