He wrote, moreover, on theology, geography, natural history, and philology; but his most celebrated work is his 'Book of Animals,' in which he displayed all his knowledge of the Arabic tongue. He was frightfully ugly, and obtained the surname of Jahiz on account of his protuberant eyes. He himself informs us that the Khalif Mutwakkil intended to appoint him as tutor to his sons, but was deterred by his ugliness, and dismissed him with a present of ten thousand dirhems. Al-Jahiz died A.D. 869, over ninety years of age.
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Arabic Lefends Khalef-al-Ahmer
Khalef-al-Ahmer (whom Suyuti declared to be a great forger, because he
pretended that some poems written by himself had been composed by
ancient Arab poets) wrote the first book on Arab mountains, and about
the poems recited concerning them. Ahmed bin-ud Dinveri wrote, in
addition to several grammatical and mathematical works, a book on
plants, and after him the grammarian Al-Jahiz wrote the first treatise
on animals, but more from a philological point of view than from that
of natural history.
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