Ibn Juzayy’s biography, fact, career, awards, net worth and life story

Muhammad ibn Ahmad ibn Juzayy al-Kalbi al-Gharnati (in Arabic, محمد ابن احمد ابن جزي الكلبي الغرناطي) was an Arab scholar, writer of poetry, history, and law from Al-Andalus. He is mainly known as the writer to whom Ibn Battuta dictated an account of his travels. Ibn Juzayy was the son of Abú-l-Qásim Muhammad Ibn Juzayy (the panegyrist of Yusuf I of Granada) who died in the Battle of Rio Salado in 1340.

Ibn Juzayy wrote “The Travels of Ibn Battuta” (Riḥlat Ibn Baṭūṭah) in 1352-55. It is clear that he copied passages from previous works such as the description of Medina from the Rihla of Ibn Jubayr and the description of Palestine by Mohammed al-Abdari al-Hihi.

Abú-l-Qásim Muhammad Ibn Juzayy

His father, Imām Abū al-Qāsim Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad ibn Juzayy al-Kalbī al-Gharnāṭī al-Mālikī (693/1294 – 741/1340), wrote many religious works such as his al-Qawanin al-Fiqhiyyah or “The Laws of Jurisprudence” a comparative manual of the jurisprudence of the four Sunni madhhabs (Maliki, Hanafi, Shafi`i, Hanbali) with emphasis on the Maliki school and notices of the views of the Ẓāhirī school and others. His father is also noted for his tafsir of the Qur’an al-Tashil li Ulum al-Tanzil, his book on legal theory Taqrīb al-Wuṣūl ‘ilā ‘Ilm al-Uṣūl or The Nearest of Paths to the Knowledge of the Fundamentals of Islamic Jurisprudence, which he wrote for his son, as well as his treatise on Sufism based on the Qur’an, The Refinement of the Hearts. It is a mistake to say that one of Abū al-Qāsim ibn Juzayy’s teachers was Ibn Rushd al-Ḥafīd (the grandson) Averroes (1126 – 1198), the author of Bidāyat al-Mujtahid and grandson of Abu Al-Walid Muhammad bin Rushd al-Jadd (the grandfather) (d. 1126), the noted Maliki Qadi.

He died in Fez in 1357 two years after the completion of “The Travels”.