The name Tabari (Persian: طبري) or al-Tabari (Arabic الطبري) means simply "from Tabaristan", a region in north of Persia. Thus more than one scholar is known by this designation:

• Abu Jafar Muhammad ibn Jarir ibn Yazid ibn Kathir al-Tabari (838-923), was the Sunni historian and theologian (the most famous and widely-influential person called al-Tabari).
• Abu Jafar Muhammad ibn Jarir ibn Rustom al-Tabari, was a Shia thinker who is commonly confused with the first one.
• Ali ibn Sahl Rabban al-Tabari, "Ali the scholar from Tabiristan" (838-870 A.D.) was the writer of a medical encyclopedia and the teacher of the scholar physician Zakariya al-Razi.
• Abul Hasan al-Tabari, a 10th century Persian physician.