Abu Muhammad Ali ibn Ahmad ibn Sa’id ibn Hazm ibn Ghalib ibn Salih ibn Khalaf ibn Ma’dan ibn Sufyan ibn Yazid al-Andalusi al-Qurtubi (30 Ramadan 384 AH / November 7, 994 AD, Cordoba – 28 Sha’ban 456 AH / August 15, 1064 AD, Huelva) is considered one of the greatest scholars of Andalusia and the most prolific Islamic scholar after al-Tabari. He was an imam, hafiz, jurist, and Zahiri scholar, and a renovator of the Zahiri school of thought, even reviving it after its decline in the East. A speaker, a man of letters, a poet, a genealogist, a scholar of Hadith, a critic and analyst. Some even described him as a philosopher. He was considered one of the first to say that the Earth was spherical. He was also a political minister for the Umayyads. He chose the path of rejecting tradition and liberating followers. A group of Malikis rose up against him and he was expelled from his homeland. He later died in his home on his parents’ land, Mont Leshem, currently known as Montéjar, a farm near Huelva. His grandfather Yazid was originally Persian. He converted to Islam and was the first of them to enter the Maghreb. Their country was Cordoba, and Ibn Hazm was born there at the end of Ramadan in the year 384 AH.
In all, his written works amounted to some 80,000 pages.[8] Also described as one of the fathers of comparative religion, the Encyclopaedia of Islam refers to him as having been one of the leading thinkers of the Muslim world.