Abu’l-Qāsim Ismāʿīl ibn ʿAbbād ibn al-ʿAbbās (Persian:ابوالقاسم اسماعیل بن عباد بن عباس; born 938 - died 30 March 995), better known asṢāḥib ibn ʿAbbād (صاحب بن عباد), also known asal-Ṣāḥib (الصاحب), was aPersian scholar and statesman, who served as thegrand vizier of theBuyid rulers ofRay from 976 to 995.[1][2]
A native of the suburbs ofIsfahan, he was greatly interested inArab culture, and wrote on dogmatic theology, history, grammar, lexicography, scholarly criticism and wrote poetry andbelles-lettres.[3]
Sahib was born on 14 September 938 in Talaqancha, a village roughly 20 miles south of the major Buyid city ofIsfahan. His father was Abu'l-Hasan Abbad ibn Abbas (d. 946), a renowned and well-educated administrator, who composed works on theMu'tazili doctrine. Sahib spent his childhood at Talakan, a town inDaylam nearQazvin.[4] He later settled in Isfahan, and served for some time as an official of theBuyid ruler ofJibal,Rukn al-Dawla (r. 935–976). After the death of his father, Sahib became the pupil of the scholar and philosopher,Ibn 'al-Amid, who had recently replaced Sahib's deceased father as thevizier of Rukn al-Dawla.[5]
The story is told that to keep company with his collection of 117,000 books while travelling, Sahib had them "borne by a caravan of four hundred camels trained to walk in alphabetical order".[6] His large section on theology (kalam) was burned by the staunch SunniMahmud of Ghazni who opposed the Mu'tazili.[7]
^Cook, Michael (2001).Commanding Right and Forbidding Wrong in Islamic Thought. Cambridge University Press. p. 201.ISBN9781139431606.
^Donzel, E. J. van (1 January 1994).Islamic Desk Reference. BRILL. p. 142.ISBN978-90-04-09738-4.Ibn Abbad*, Abu l-Qasim* (al-Sahib): vizier and man of letters of the Buyid period; 938995. Of Persian origin, he was an arabophile and wrote on dogmatic theology, history, grammar, lexicography, literary criticism and composed poetry and belles-lettres.
^Burke, Edmund (2009). "Islam at the Center: Technological Complexes and the Roots of Modernity".Journal of World History.20 (2): 181.JSTOR40542756.
^Ashtiany, Julia; Johnstone, T. M.; Latham, J. D.; Serjeant, R. B. (30 March 1990).Abbasid Belles Lettres. Cambridge University Press. p. 97.ISBN978-1-316-02526-0. Retrieved22 February 2025.
