of prejudice against Arabs; rather, Gibb holds that this was as a result of his status as a Kharijite, a Medieval sect of Muslims different from both Sunnis and Shi'as. Hugh Chisholm disagrees, holding that Abu Ubaida was neither a Kharijite nor a racist but simply a supporter of Shu'ubiyya and opposed the idea that Arabs were inherently superior to other races. In Chisolm's description, he delighted in showing that words, fables, customs, etc., which the Arabs believed to be peculiarly their own, were derived from the Persians. In these matters he was the great rival of al-Asma’i. Abu Ubaida's views differed sharply in regard to Arabic and the Qur'an; he denied that the Qur'an contained any non-Arabic vocabulary, a position to which later commentators such as Al-Suyuti were opposed. Regardless of any controversy, Abu Ubaida's influence is well known. Almost half of all information about Arabia before Islam reported by later authors was by way of Abu Ubaida, and he wrote the earliest extant Tafsir or commentary on the Qur'an, which was the basis for explaining any verses in the prophetic biography written by Ibn Hisham. Citations 728 births 825 deaths Poets from the Abbasid Caliphate 8th-century philologists Medieval grammarians of Arabic People from Basra 8th-century Arabic poets