Ibn Muʿṭī al-Zawāwī - Encyclopaedia of Islam, THREE
[Article]
Bernards, Monique
Leiden
Brill
(953 words)
Zayn al-Dīn Abū l-Ḥusayn Yaḥyā b. ʿAbd al-Nūr Ibn Muʿṭī (alternatively Muʿṭin or ʿAbd al-Muʿṭī) al-Zawāwī (564-628/1168-1231) was a grammarian, philologist, and poet. He was born in the Maghrib, probably in Béjaïa (Fr. Bougie, Ar. Bijāya), in present-day Algeria, into the African Berber Zawāwa tribe, hence his nisba al-Zawāwī. Not much is known about his youth in the Maghrib, except that he started his education there with the grammarian Abū Mūsā l-Juzūlī (d. c.610/1213). At a young