Abdul Aziz al-Harbi

Abdul Aziz bin Ali al-Harbi is a Saudi Arabian Islamic scholar and professor at Umm al-Qura University in Mecca.^[1] He is one of the founders and the current president of the Arabic Language Academy at Mecca.^[2]

Career

A native of Mecca, Harbi was a diligent student. He memorized the entirety of the Qur'an, the Muslim holy book, at the age of eleven.^[3]

Harbi earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Exegesis of the Qur'an, known to Muslims as Tafsir, from Islamic University of Madinah in 1989. Nine years later, he completed a Master of Arts degree in the Muslim prophetic tradition, known as the Sunnah, at Umm al-Qura University, where he would eventually complete his Doctorate of Philosophy in Qur'anic exegesis in 2001.^[3] He was promoted to the rank of associate professor at Umm al-Qura in 2006, and currently teaches exegesis. He is also a member of the university's academic board.^[4]

Harbi also has an Ijazah authorization in all ten Qira'at, or variant methods of reciting the Qur'an, with a complete chain of narration going back to the original reciters of the Qur'an.^[3][4] The majority of his published works, however, have been within the field of the Arabic language, especially in regard to Arabic rhetoric.

Views

Harbi is notable for holding the view that Harut and Marut, who tempted the people of Babylon, were human beings rather than angels.^[1] While this is not the majority view, it was also held by `Abd Allah ibn `Abbas, Abu al-Aswad al-Du'ali, Hasan of Basra, Muhammad ibn Jarir al-Tabari, Al-Zamakhshari and Al-Baghawi.^[5] Harbi is a prominent proponent of the Zahirite school of law within Sunni Islam, viewing it as the school of the first generation of Muslims.^[6]

Citations