in full Abū Jaʽfar Muḥammad ibn Jarīr al-Ṭabarī
born с 839, Āmol, Iran
died 923, Baghdad, Iraq
Muslim scholar, Qurʾānic commentator, and historian.
After studying in Islamic centres of learning in Iraq, Syria, and Egypt, he wrote the compendious Commentary on the Qurʾān (see tafsīr ), in which he annotated Islam's holy book with all of the juridical, lexicographical, and historical explanations transmitted in the History of Prophets and Kings , which charted the history of human civilization from creation to the fall of the {{link=Umayyad dynasty">Umayyad dynasty .