AUTHORITY, CONFLICT, AND THE TRANSMISSION OF DIVERSITY IN MEDIEVAL ISLAMIC LAW

STUDIESIN ISLAMIC LAW

AND SOCIETY

edited by

Ruud Peters and Bernard Weiss

volume 26

AUTHORITY, CONFLICT, AND THETRANSMISSION OF DIVERSITY

IN MEDIEVAL ISLAMIC LAW

BY

R. KEVIN JAQUES

BRILLLEIDEN BOSTON

2006

This book is printed on acid-free paper.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Jaques, R. Kevin.Authority, conflict, and the transmission of diversity in medieval Islamic law / by R.

Kevin Jaques.p. cm. (Studies in Islamic law and society, ISSN 1384-1130 ; v. 26)

Revision of the authors dissertation (doctorate) Emory University, 2001.Includes bibliographical references and index.ISBN 90-04-14745-4 (alk. paper)1. Ibn Qadi Shuhbah, Abu Bakr ibn Ahmad, 1377-1448. 2. Islamic

lawHistoriography. 3. Islamic EmpireHistory1258-1517. I. Title. II. Series.

KBP275.I38J33 2006340dc22

2005057249

ISSN 13841130ISBN 90 04 14745 4

Copyright 2006 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The NetherlandsKoninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill Academic Publishers,

Martinus Nijhoff Publishers and VSP.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored ina retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic,mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written

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printed in the netherlands

ForDonna,

Jordan, and Joshua

CONTENTS

Acknowledgements ...................................................................... xiList of Figures ............................................................................ xvList of Tables .............................................................................. xix

Introduction: Crisis, Legal Decline, and the abaqt Genre .... 1Historiography, eschatology, and the ideology of crisis ...... 4Biography and the discourse of legal and moral decline ...... 9An overview of the development of the abaqt genre ........ 10abaqt and the crisis of authority during the Mamlk period .................................................................................. 17abaqt al-fuqah" al-sh' yah and the crisesof the Circassian period ................................................ 22

Overview of the study ............................................................ 23

Chapter One. A Brief Biography of Ibn Q Shuhbah ...... 27Early life and family .............................................................. 27Education and life as a scholar ............................................ 28Professional career .................................................................. 35Crisis and the rst edition of the abaqt ............................ 38

Overview of the text .......................................................... 41Ibn Q Shuhbahs rise and fall and the nal

editions of his abaqt ........................................................ 48Final years .............................................................................. 51

Chapter Two. A Brief Discursus on the Diversity of Source Material and Authorial Choice ............................................ 55The Formation of biographical traditions ............................ 56Thematic variation: The example of Ab al-Qsim

al-Drak .............................................................................. 63Al-kims Trkh nsbr .................................................. 64Al-'Abbds Kitb abaqt al-fuqah" al-sh' yah ................ 66Ab Isq al-Shrzs abaqt al-fuqah" .......................... 68Al-Khab al-Baghdds Trkh baghdd ............................ 71

viii contents

Thematic variation and Ibn Q Shuhbahsbiography ........................................................................ 76

Terminological variation and authorial choice .................... 84

Chapter Three. Micro-Textual Rhetorical Strategies in Ibn Q Shuhbahs Text: Authority, Death, and the Origins of Ikhtilf in the Sh' Madhhab ............................ 89A socio-rhetorical analysis of abaqt .................................... 89

Micro-textual rhetorical strategies .................................... 91Allusion: kinyah, ta'r and ramz .................................... 93

Causation in legal abaqt .................................................. 102Legal abaqt as an expression of a jurisprudential

historiography .................................................................. 103The hypertextual nature of abaqt texts .......................... 106

Conclusion .............................................................................. 113

Chapter Four. Macro-Textual Rhetorical Strategies: Trends in Learning as Indicators of Intellectual Development ...... 115Ranking and classication ...................................................... 117Repetition ................................................................................ 120

Akhadha ................................................................................ 123Ishtaghala/Ashghala ................................................................ 125Qara"a .................................................................................. 128Takharraja ............................................................................ 131aala and baatha ............................................................ 134Darasa/Darrasa and Tafaqqaha ............................................ 135

Progression .............................................................................. 139

Chapter Five. The Development of Trends in the Transmission of 'Ilm .............................................................. 149Ibn Q Shuhbahs reconstruction of Islamic legal

history .................................................................................. 152Mujtahids .............................................................................. 164Fur' and ikhtilf .................................................................. 166The three abs ................................................................ 167Madhhab ................................................................................ 173 .................................................................................... 174arq .................................................................................... 176

A Model of Islamic Legal History ........................................ 176Conclusion .............................................................................. 182

contents ix

Chapter Six. The Development of Legal Methodologies and the Decline of Legal Thinking ...................................... 187The early development of legal method: al-Sh's

ul ...................................................................................... 189Ibn Q Shuhbahs depiction of ul al-qh ...................... 192

The rise of 'ulm al-'aql (the sciences of reason) .............. 195The development of sub-schools of legal method .......... 198

Specializations in the expedient sciences and the declineof legal thought .................................................................. 214

Chapter Seven. Curatives for the Decline of Law .................. 225Substantive rules and madhhab: Legal consensus and

limited Khilf ...................................................................... 229The transmission of ikhtilf .................................................... 233The origins of ikhtilf ............................................................ 234

The dierence between the authority to espousea divergent opinion and to debate divergentopinions .......................................................................... 235

The texts of ikhtilf ................................................................ 239The al-Muzan complex of ikhtilf texts .......................... 240The al-Ghazl complex of ikhtilf texts .......................... 243

Al-Malab f shar al-was ................................................ 245Al-Wajz ............................................................................ 246Al-'Azz shar al-wajz ...................................................... 247Al-Rawat al-libn .......................................................... 252

Conclusion .............................................................................. 252

Chapter Eight. Ibn Q Shuhbah, Crisis, and His Authority .................................................................................. 255Authority and the production of abaqt texts .................... 257

Lineage ................................................................................ 258Intellectual Pedigree ............................................................ 267

Bibliography ................................................................................ 281

Index ............................................................................................ 293

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This book originated as a doctoral dissertation from Emory UniversitysWest and South Asian Religions program, in the Graduate Division ofReligion (2001); although only three of the present eight chaptersare in any way based on that work. Like most rst books that resultfrom a dissertation, however, this text has beneted from the help,support, and feedback of numerous family, friends, and colleagues.I would like to thank David Vishano for his friendship and fel-lowship through our joint eorts at Emory. David is a careful readerand was a tremendous sounding-board for ideas. His insights intoul al-qh and al-Sh's al-Rislah have been extremely helpful inthe writing of this book. I would also like to thank Laurie Patton,Paul Courtright, Joyce Flueckiger, and Eric Reinders for challeng-ing me to think in new ways. I would especially like to thank VernonRobbins, whose Social Rhetorical Analysis project inspired much ofmy approach to abaqt texts. Vernon was always enthusiastic andencouraging in approaching texts in dierent ways.

This text would not have been possible without the kind supportand eorts of Drs. Gordon Newby, Richard Martin, and DevinStewart who guided the early stages of the project. Richard Martinhas been a friend and advisor for almost twenty years and his helpin exploring methods in the study of religion has been a constantsource of inspiration. He also introduced me to the work of FernandBraudel in the summer of 1993, which has had a profound impacton my understanding of history. Gordon Newby was always patientand was a true source of support throughout the rigors of graduateschool.

Anyone who reads this book will notice the inuence of GeorgeMakdisi on my understanding of the social institutions of medievalMuslim society. Although I never met Dr. Makdisi, Devin Stewarthis student and my teachertransmitted to me the core of Makdisiswork. Devin and I worked for many hours through numerous Arabictexts and our educational relationship developed into one that reectedmany of the styles of learning discussed in chapter four of the pre-sent work. My knowledge of Arabic is the result of Devins many

xii acknowledgements

hours of eort, and while all mistakes in the text are purely mine,what I get right is largely because of his hard work. Later stages ofthis book have beneted from the advice of Christopher Melchert,another of Makdisis students. Christopher read several drafts of eachchapter and his insights and advice were always helpful. Both Devinand Christopher are extremely exact readers and consistently pressedme to work through my source texts and to improve my under-standing of the material. While I did not always take their advice itwas much appreciated nevertheless.

I would also like to thank a long list of professors and friends whoconvinced me to keep going over the years. Space, however, doesnot permit an inclusive list, but I would like to take this opportu-nity to mention a few who were especially encouraging and inspi-rational: Neil Merrell, Kurt Wenner, Dave Damrel, and especiallyRichard Wentz who was my rst and most important guide in thestudy of religion. Furthermore, I would like to express my appreci-ation to my colleagues in the Department of Religious Studies atIndiana University, especially Steve Weitzman, Robert Campany,and Jerome Copulski who read several chapters and oered impor-tant comments.

I was able to complete this book due to the generous intellectualand nancial support of the Department of Religious Studies andthe RUGS program at Indiana University, which allowed me to takeresearch leave in 200405 to complete the nal draft. I would alsolike to thank my colleagues at the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studiesat Oxford University who awarded me the al-Mutawa VisitingResearch Fellowship in 200405. Ruba Kana"an, S. Hassan Abedin,and Muhammad Talib were extremely supportive during the periodof my tenure there. I would also like to thank Farhan Nizami, thedirector of the centre, for his generous support.

I would like to close by thanking my parents Jimmie and MarjorieJaques for their support over the years. My children Jordan andJoshua, to whom this book is dedicated, have been a great sourceof love and support. They can now stop asking why I am obsessedwith Ibn Q Shuhbah. Finally, to my wife Donna, who read thenal draft of the text and to whom this book is also dedicated, youhave been with me for twenty-one years and without you none ofthis would have been possible. Like al-Muzan, you are a pearl diver

acknowledgements xiii

into the sea of knowledge. Your insights into ritual, history, andsocial structures have always challenged me to wade into deeperwaters.

It goes without saying that all of the errors and mistakes that fol-low are mine alone.

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1.1. Total number of abaqt texts produced by century .............................................................. 18

Figure 1.2. The production of legal abaqt compared to other genres of knowledge .................................... 20

Figure 1.3. The production of abaqt texts for the anaf and Sh' schools of law ........................ 21

Figure 2.1. The diversity of sources in the abaqt by generation ................................................................ 60

Figure 2.2. Types of sources (by percentage) for entries in the last three generations .................................. 62

Figure 2.3. Selected textual sources for al-Drak .................. 63

Figure 2.4. Narrative elements in the al-Drakbiographical tradition ............................................ 77

Figure 2.5. Modes of learning in the al-Drakbiographical tradition ............................................ 86

Figure 4.1. Comparison of tafaqqaha and akhadha .................... 144

Figure 4.2. Comparison of tafaqqaha and darasa ...................... 145

Figure 4.3. Comparison of darasa, takharraja, and qara"a, ishtaghala ...................................................... 146

Figure 4.4. Comparison of darasa and akhadha ........................ 147

Figure 5.1. Categories of 'ilm and their practitioners ............ 159

Figure 5.2. Ranks of authority in the discovery and transmission of 'ilm ................................................ 160

Figure 5.3 Sources or bodies of authoritative knowledge in the formation of substantive rules .................... 160

Figure 5.4. Mujtahids and the production of fur' .................... 165

xvi list of figures

Figure 5.5. Trends in the production and transmission of fur' and ikhtilf ................................................ 166

Figure 5.6. Comparison between the number of ab al-wujh to the production of ikhtilf ........ 173

Figure 5.7. The development of the madhhab in comparison to fur' and ikhtilf .......................... 175

Figure 5.8. in comparison with madhhab and ikhtilf .................................................................... 175

Figure 5.9. Graphic and chronological depiction of the periods of legal development .............................. 181

Figure 5.10. Comparison between tafaqqaha and fur' ............ 184

Figure 5.11. Comparison between fur' production and akhadha and darasa/darrasa .................................... 185

Figure 6.1. The average age of death (in years) for scholars listed in the text and percentage of scholars who engage in ul al-qh ................ 188

Figure 6.2. The growth of ul related genres ...................... 216

Figure 6.3. The growth of expedient sciences ...................... 219

Figure 6.4. Growth of expedient sciences compared to trends in akhadha and darasa ................................ 220

Figure 6.5. Expedient sciences and ul compared to fur' production .................................................... 220

Figure 6.6. Average age of mortality as compared with trends in expedient sciences and ul genres .... 221

Figure 6.7. Average of mortality as compared to tafaqqaha, darasa, and akhadha educational relationships .......................................................... 222

Figure 7.1. Fiqh texts representing the madhhab .................... 231

Figure 7.2. The hierarchy of practicing jurists according to Ibn Q Shuhbah .......................................... 238

Figure 7.3. The texts of divergent opinion ............................ 240

list of figures xvii

Figure 7.4. The genealogy of divergent opinion qh texts .... 248

Figure 8.1. Ibn Q Shuhbahs lineage according to his familys nasab .................................................... 261

Foldout between pages 268 and 269:

Figure 8.2. Complete intellectual genealogy for Ibn QShuhbah according to his text

Figure 8.3. Ibn Q Shuhbahs complete qh genealogy

Foldout between pages 276 and 277:

Figure 8.4. Ibn Q Shuhbahs complete genealogy for ul al-qh and expedient sciences

Figure 8.5. Ibn Q Shuhbahs genealogy according to akhadha and tafaqqaha relationships

LIST OF TABLES

Table 4.1. The Frequency of reference to modes of learning in Ibn Q Shuhbahs abaqt .......... 123

Table 4.2. Akhadha as the mode of learning ........................ 124

Table 4.3. Ishtaghala and ashghala as modes of learning ...... 126

Table 4.4. Qara"a as a mode of learning .............................. 128

Table 4.5. Takharraja as a mode of learning ........................ 132

Table 4.6. aala as a mode of learning ............................ 134

Table 4.7. Darasa and darrasa as modes of learning ............ 135

Table 4.8a. Progressive development of terms for learning in Ibn Q Shuhbahs text ................ 140

Table 4.8b. Progressive development of terms for learning in Ibn Q Shuhbahs text ................ 141

Table 4.9. Repetition of terms for study in the rst two generations of Ibn Q Shuhbahs text ........................................................................ 143

Table 5.1. The progressive development of categories of law .................................................................... 163

Table 6.1. A chronological table of ul related genres ...... 215

Table 6.2a. Chronological development of the expedient sciences .................................................................. 216

Table 6.2b. Chronological development of the expedient sciences .................................................................. 217

Table 8.1. Tribal blocks in Ibn Q Shuhbahs abaqt .... 264

1 Amad b. 'Al al-Maqrz, Kitb al-sulk li-ma'rifat duwal al-mulk, ed. Sa'd 'Abdal-Fatt 'shr, 4 vols. (Cairo: Maba'at dr al-kutub, 1972).

2 Ab al-Masin Ibn Taghr Bird, al-Nujm al-hirah f mulk mir wa "l-qhi-rah, ed. William Popper, 7 vols. (Berkeley: University Press, 19091912).

3 Ibn ajar al-'Asqaln, Inb" al-ghumr bi abn" al-'umr, ed. Sayyid 'Abd al-WahhbBukhr, 9 vols. (Hyderabad: D"irat al-ma'rif al-'uthmnyah, 1975).

4 William Popper, Egypt and Syria under the Circassian Sultans: 13821468 A.D.Systematic Notes to Ibn Taghr Birds Chronicles of Egypt (Berkeley: University of CaliforniaPress, 1955), 8.

5 There have been a number of studies that have examined the role of juristsas authoritative interpreters. See for instance, Bernard Weiss, The Spirit of IslamicLaw (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1998); also see Wael Hallaq, A History ofIslamic Legal Theories (Cambridge: University Press, 1997) and his Authority, Continuity,and Change in Islamic Law (Cambridge: University Press, 2001). For an excellent

INTRODUCTION: CRISIS, LEGAL DECLINE, AND THE ABAQT GENRE

A sense of crisis pervades Mamlk period historiography. Wars,plagues, famines, political and religious corruption are all dominantthemes. Although all of these phenomena were known before theMamlk period, what was dierent was the perception that they nowoccurred in combination and with devastating aect on Muslim soci-ety. These crises led to a pervasive sense that the past was betterthan the present and that all things contemporary paled in com-parison with the glories of the earlier history of Islam. This is par-ticularly apparent in histories written during the Circassian Mamlkperiod (13821517). In works such as the Kitb al-sulk li ma'rifatduwal al-mulk by Amad b. 'Al al-Maqrz (d. 845/1441),1 al-Nujmal-hirah f mulk mir wa "l-qhirah by Ab al-Masin Ibn TaghrBird (d. 874/1470),2 and the Inb" al-ghumr bi abn" al-'umr by Ibnajar al-'Asqaln (852/1449)3 there is, as William Popper says, apessimistic criticism of the present and [a] regret for the good olddays.4

The perception of wide ranging historical, religious, political, andcultural catastrophes led to a crisis of intellectual leadership becauseMamlk society, as a religious cultural system, was founded on theassumption that scholars of divine law ( fuqah" sing. faqh) had theability to interpret sacred texts and thus guide people to live accord-ing to Gods plan.5 Islamic legal theory suggests that Muslims are a

2 introduction

special category of people because they submit to the will of God.Submission requires people to do what God says; to obey the rulesof the shar'ah. According to medieval Muslim legal theory, however,the shar'ah is not an explicit code of legal norms, but exists only inthe mind of God. God indicates what the rules are through the textsof revelation (the Qur"an and the sunnah-the acts and statements ofthe Prophet Muammad which were thought to have been trans-mitted by pious individuals over the centuries and were later col-lected in written form in texts known as adith, sing. adth). Thefuqah" claimed for themselves the exclusive right and ability to inter-pret the texts of revelation so that Muslims, common people andrulers alike, might know what God wants them to do in all walksof life.6

As the authoritative interpreters of revelation, the fuqah" became,by virtue of their expertise, guides for the community.7 They werejudges, governmental advisors, administrators, and popular leaders.8

When the crises of the 13th, 14th, and 15th centuries began to over-whelm the crumbling 'Abbsid state and the later Mamlk Sulnate,blame was focused on the failure of the jurists to guide the com-munity out of the problems that had overwhelmed it. Popular dis-satisfaction with the ability of the jurists to guide the Muslim communitywas expressed, for example, in Ibn Taghr Birds condemnation ofthe corruption of the jurists during one of several failed attempts atjudicial reform in the early 9th/15th century9 and in the publicdenunciation of Jaml al-Dn al-Suy (d. 909/1505) when he declaredhimself a mujtahid (authoritative interpreter of the texts of revelation)in the late Circassian period.10

medieval discussion of the role of the fuqah" in Muslim society see Muy al-Dnb. Yay al-Nawaw, al-Majm' al-mudhahhab f shar al-muhadhdhab (Beirut: Dr al-kutub al-'ilmyah, 1996), vol. 1, 6775 and Tj al-Dn 'Abd al-Wahhb b. 'Al al-Subk, Mu' d al-ni'am wa mubd al-niqam (Cairo: Maktabat al-khanj, 1993).

6 Al-Nawaw, al-Majm', vol. 1, 13110.7 Ira Lapidus, State and Religion in Islamic Societies, Past and Present, no. 5

(May 1996): 1112.8 For an excellent description of the kinds of positions jurists held in Damascus

see Shams al-Dn Ibn ln, Qut dimashq al-thaghir al-bassm f dhikr man wulliyaqa" al-shm, ed. al al-Dn al-Munajjid (Cairo: Mab't al-majma' al-'ilm al-'arab, 1956). Also see Popper, Egypt and Syria under the Circassian Sultans and BernadetteMartel-Thoumian, Les Civils et lAdministration dans ltat militaire mamlk (IX/XV Sicle)(Damascus: Institut Franais de Damas, 1991).

9 Ibn Taghr Bird, al-Nujm, vol. 6, 357.10 Jaml al-Dn al-Suy, Kitb al-radd 'al man akhlad il al-ar wa jahil ann al-

introduction 3

The crisis of leadership was also felt by the jurists themselves. AsWael Hallaq has demonstrated, the initial discussion of the so-calledclosing of the gate of ijtihd (a metaphor for the end of indepen-dent legal reasoning) came about because jurists representing theestablished schools of Islamic law wanted to prevent new schoolsfrom arising. Legal theorists argued that the ability to develop newmethods of textual interpretation came to an end after the deathsof the four eponymous founders of the anaf, Sh', Mlik, andanbal schools. This theory, however, did not mean that the abil-ity of jurists to discover new rules in the texts of revelation cameto a complete halt. To the contrary, Hallaq argues that jurists con-tinued for centuries to employ various forms of independent legaldiscovery.11

In the Mamlk period the discourse over the decline of legal exper-tise shifted as crises in close succession began to grip the MiddleEast. The Mongol invasion and destruction of the last vestiges ofthe 'Abbsid Empire in 1258 was interpreted as a direct challengeto the leadership of the 'ulam" (community of religious authorities).Critics such as Ibn Taymyah (d. 728/1328) began to argue that theabilities of jurists to guide the community had declined and that theywere no longer suited to be the interpreters of revelation that theyonce claimed to be. It was their failure to provide the guidance nec-essary for the community to prosper that had brought about theinvasion and destruction of Muslim lands by non-believers.12

Ibn Taymyah called for a return to a basic form of piety and alegal method stripped of outside inuences. Most importantly, hecalled for a return to ijtihd founded on a new infusion of basic legaland methodological education. Jurists, once re-educated in the fun-damental elements of law would then lead a religious reconstructionof Muslim society, divesting it of the foreign corruptions that hadcaused it to fall prey to outside invasion and domination.13

ijtihd f kull 'ar far, ed. Khall al-Mays (Beirut: Dr al-kutub al-'ilmyah, 1983),1116, 97116.

11 Hallaq, Authority, Continuity, and Change, 166235.12 Ibn Taymyah, Majm'at al-ras"il wa "l-mas"il (Cairo: Lajnat al-turth al-'arab,

1976) vol. 1, 2570.13 Ibn Taymyah, al-Siysah al-shar' yah (Beirut: Dr al-kutub al-'arabyah, 1966),

914; Ma'rij al-wul il anna ul al-dn wa fur' 'uh qad bayyanah al-rasl (Cairo:Quayy Muibb al-Dn al-Khab, 1968), 1320; and Majm'at al-ras"il wa "l-mas"il,vol. 1, 149181.

4 introduction

Historiography, eschatology, and the ideology of crisis

Although he was, in his time, marginal to the mainstream of medievalMuslim thinking, some of Ibn Taymyahs ideas did nd championsin the orthodox schools of legal and theological thought, perhapsmost importantly with the historians Shams al-Dn Muammad b.Amad al-Dhahab (d. 748/1348) and Ism'l Ibn Kathr (d. 774/1373).14 Al-Dhahabs Trkh al-islm15 and its abridgements al-'Ibar fakhbr al-bashar mimman 'abar and Kitb tadhkirat al-u,16 and IbnKathrs al-Bidyah wa "l-nihyah17 became the main sources forCircassian period historians and served as the foundations for manyabridgements and addendums.18

Al-Dhahab was a staunch defender of Ibn Taymyah and hisideas. He argued that jurists had allowed Islamic society to fall intocrisis because they were too xated on arguing about speculativelegal method (ul al-qh) to give adequate attention to the problemsof the community (ummah). The juridical xation on ul al-qh resulted,according to al-Dhahab, in a spiritual disease that weakened theummah.19 According to the historian and Sh' scholar Taq al-Dnal-Subk (d. 749/1349), al-Dhahabs bias against the jurists, espe-cially Sh's, and his predilection for the ideas of Ibn Taymyah,contaminated his historical analyses and limited the usefulness of hiswork.20 Later scholars writing during the Circassian Mamlk perioddisagreed, arguing that al-Dhahab was the greatest historian of theage.21

14 Khn, vol. 3, 85.15 Shams al-Dn Muammad b. Amad b. 'Uthmn al-Dhahab, Trkh al-islm

wa wafayt al-mashhr wa "l-a'lm, ed. 'Umar 'Abd al-Salm Tadmur, 58 vols. (Beirut:Dr al-kutub al-'arab, 1999).

16 Kitb tadhkirat al-u, 2 vols. (n.p.: Dr al-kr al-'arab, n.d.).17 Ism'l Ibn Kathr, al-Bidyah wa "l-nihyah, ed. 'Al Muammad Mu'awwa

et al., 14 vols. (Beirut: Dr al-kutub al-'ilmyah, 1994).18 Carl Brockelmann, Geschichte der Arabischen Litteratur, G II, 46, 49, 56; S II,

4547, 4849.19 See al-Sakhw, al-I'lan bi "l-tawbkh li-man dhammah al-trkh (Damascus: n.p.,

1930), 42 as quoted by Franz Rosenthal, The History of Muslim Historiography (Leiden:E. J. Brill, 1968), 377. Also see Shams al-Dn Muammad b. Amad al-Dhahab,Bayn zaghal al-'ilm wa "l-alab, ed. Muammad Zhid al-Kawthar (Damascus: al-Quds, 1929), 2021. For his defense of Ibn Taymyah see pp. 3234.

20 Rosenthal, History of Muslim Historiography, 37175.21 Ibid., 37578.

introduction 5

Ibn Kathr, like al-Dhahab, was very close to Ibn Taymyah andwas even buried in a grave next to his.22 Ibn Kathr, however, under-stood the decline of the period in apocalyptic terms and his treat-ment of the causes of the Mongol invasion and the destruction ofthe 'Abbsid Caliphate is an important window on to how medievalhistorians conceptualized the idea of social, political, and religiouscrisis.23 He writes that the Muslim world had fallen into decline foralmost a century before the Mongol assault. Political inghting andcompetition for power led political and religious leaders to neglectthe community. For instance, in 589/1193 conditions were so abhor-rent that when famine struck in 'Irq people resorted to cannibal-ism; the corpses of children were even consumed by the starving.24

As these calamities persisted, Muslim leaders failed to nd solutionsto the problems but instead vied with each other for power.25 Eventhe jurists in Baghdd and Damascus were more concerned withtheir internal struggles for power than they were for the plight ofthe Muslim community.26 This situation persisted until 656/1258when the Mongols attacked Baghdd.

Ibn Kathr writes that the ocials around the 'Abbsid CaliphMusta'im Billh ed the city or collaborated with the advancingenemy. These included court ocials, but also judges, jurists, fs,members of the noble houses (a'yn), as well as common people. Tensof thousands were murdered, legal colleges were destroyed, theirfunds conscated by the invaders, and books of learning were burned.While this was going on the Caliph, oblivious to the destruction of the city and the assault on his palace, occupied himself withconcubines.27

In the end, Ibn Kathr claims that over 80,000 people were killedin Baghdd alone, although he quotes unnamed informants that placethe number at over a million. He clearly does not give credence tothis fantastic gure but quotes it rhetorically to demonstrate just howhorrible the event was.28 For Ibn Kathr, however, the importance

22 Khn, vol. 3, 86.23 See his al-Nihyah f al-tan wa "l-malim, 2 vols., Muammad Amad 'Abd

al-'Azz (Beirut: Dr al-kutub al-'ilmyah, 1988) for an extended look at his viewson eschatology.

24 Ibn Kathr, al-Bidyah, vol. 13, 56.25 Ibid., 1213.26 Ibid., 2528; 3335.27 Ibid., 23542.28 Ibid., 238.

6 introduction

of the event is not the death toll, or even the destruction of the'Abbsid Caliphate, but what it symbolizes with respect to the declineof moral conditions and the failure of the scholars to act as guidesfor the community. He says that [God] caused to befall on thepeople of Baghdd that which happened to the children of Israel inJerusalem.29 He then quotes the Qur"an, Srah 17:45, stating:

And we decreed for the children of Israel in the book, Verily, youwill work corruption in the earth twice, and you will become greattyrants. So when the time for the rst of the two came, we broughtagainst you our slaves of great power who ravaged the country. Apromise was fullled.

He then says,

Among the children of Israel a multitude were killed. The sons of theprophets were captured from among the people who prayed. Jerusalemwas ruined [by] what [had happened to it] and it was inhabited bythe slaves. The ascetics, scholars, and the prophets no longer occupiedits thrones.30

Ibn Kathr uses the Qur"anic passage as a commentary on the eventssurrounding the Mongol invasion and the end of the Caliphate. He,in eect, argues that the causes of the rst destruction of Jerusalemas depicted in the Qur"an are the same as those that led to thedestruction of Baghdd; both events he interprets as a manifestationof Gods divine justice. In his analysis of Srah 17, Ibn Kathr statesthat Israel had been destroyed the rst time because the Israeliteshad rebelled and killed many of the prophets and scholars ('ulam").31

In other words, they had cut themselves o from those capable ofinterpreting revelation. The second destruction of Israel (which heattributes to the coming of Islam) occurred because the Israelitesfailed to learn the lessons of the rst event, prompting God to sendanother army to punish them for their inequities.32 The seconddestruction was followed by a period during which God providedfor even more guidance through the prophetic oce of Muammad.Ibn Kathr indicates that this nal dispensation of revelation was

29 Ibid.30 Ibid.31 Ibn Kathr, Tafsr al-qur"n al-'am, ed. Muammad usayn Shams al-Dn

(Beirut: Dr al-kutub al-'ilmyah, 1998), vol. 5, 44.32 Ibid., 4445.

introduction 7

ignored, not just by the Israelites, but by humankind in general. Thisthird and nal rejection precipitates the day of resurrection and theend times, which for Ibn Kathr coincided with his own period.33

Srah 17 begins with revelatory episodes associated with Mosesand Muammad (verses 13). It then presents, and thrice repeatsover the course of the chapter, a pattern of revelation, destruction,the return of revelation or guidance, and nally, the onset of theeschaton (1659, 6071, 72100 respectively). In each instance, thereis a cycle whereby a) God gives revelation to the people who thenreject or corrupt it, b) they are punished through the destruction oflife and property, c) they are given a second chance to obey therevelation, and d) when they ultimately fail, God destroys them asecond time and introduces the day of judgement. In all cycles butthe rst (verses 115), the second destruction is conated with theapocalypse.

By drawing an analogy between the rst destruction of Israel andthe sack of Baghdd, Ibn Kathr argues that the Mongol attackbegan a period of eschatological turmoil and unless the communityreturns to obeying revelation and listens to those with knowledge('ilm),34 God will unleash apocalyptic destruction that will ultimatelylead to the day of resurrection.35 Ibn Kathr draws on centuries ofapocalyptic ideas that forecast a time when foreign non-Musliminvaders would attack and overwhelm the Muslim world. Apocalypticistssuch as al-asan b. Muammad al-Daylam (d. 8th/14th century)transmitted adth that foretold the end times. For instance, in onetradition, the Prophet Muammad states that

the 'ulam" are the guardians of the Messengers . . . [they are] faithfulas long as they do not intermingle with the Suln and (do not) haveintercourse with the world. When they intermingle with the Sulnand have intercourse with the world, then they have betrayed theMessenger, and so be wary and afraid of them.36

According to David Cook, in his book Studies in Muslim Apocalyptic,the failure of the 'ulam" to guide the community is a common theme

33 Ibid., 4547.34 Ibid., 69.35 Ibid., 82.36 Al-asan b. Muammad al-Daymal, Irshd al-qulb f al-maw'i wa "l-ikam

(Najaf: al-Maba'ah al-aydaryah, n.d.), vol. 3, 100 as quoted in David Cook,Studies in Muslim Apocalyptic (Princeton: The Darwin Press, 2002), 248.

8 introduction

in apocalyptic literature. Because the 'ulam" fail to set aside theirown interests and to focus on guiding the community, moral decay,described as ignorance ( jahl ), sets in and God is forced to punishthe ummah.37 Ironically, those specializing in legal rules are not thesubject of blame in apocalyptic literature, but, as with al-Dhahab,people who focus on auxiliary areas of intellectual endeavour suchas lexicography, grammar, Qur"an recitation, and legal methodologies.38

Apocalypticists mention a number of groups that cause the destruc-tion of the Muslim community, prominent among them the Turks.The Turks are describes as being among the Arabs most deadlyenemies.39 A number of prophecies said to have originated with theProphet Muammad foretell of a time when massive invasions fromthe east will overwhelm and destroy the Muslim community. Forinstance, one tradition states that

the hour will not arrive until you ght a group with small eyes, widefaces, as if their eyes were the pupils of locust, as if their faces werebeaten shields, wearing shoes made of hair. Taking up leather shieldsuntil they fasten their horses to palm trees in 'Irq.40

In another tradition, Ibn Tws (d. 664/1266), in his al-Malim wa"l-tan states

The incomprehensible ones are coming, the incomprehensible ones arecoming! They cut o your heads, steal your land-spoils, settle in yourland, expose your shame, enslave the best of you, and humiliate yournobility. [They are] ugly of colour, [with] rough necks, renownedswords; their sticks peeled, and their whips knotted at the end. Theywill be harsher on my community than the Pharaoh was on theChildren of Israel.41

In each instance, the invaders come as instruments of Gods will topunish the moral decay of the Muslim community.42

Ibn Kathr, and other Mamlk period historians, drawing fromthese apocalyptic visions, understood their time to be the beginning

37 Cook, 25051.38 Ibid., 25253.39 Ibid., 85.40 Ibid., 8485.41 See 'Al b. Ms Ibn Tws, al-Malim wa "l-tan (Najaf: al-Maba'ah al-

aydaryah, 1946), as quoted by Cook, 86.42 Cook, 88.

introduction 9

of the eschaton, the beginning of the end.43 They, however, clearlybelieved that there were ways to avoid the immediate end of cre-ation. Ibn Kathr, drawing from Srah 17:1841, lists a number ofthings that must be done in order to prevent the eschaton; theseinclude: worshipping God alone and without partners,44 obeying andbeing respectful to ones parents,45 maintaining ties of kinship,46 spend-ing ones money carefully,47 prohibiting the killing of children,48 pro-hibiting adultery and fornication,49 prohibiting homicide,50 prohibitingthe unlawful use of moneys provided for orphans,51 and fulllingcontractual obligations.52 Each of these requires religious leadershipand it is the 'ulam" that becomes the focus of Mamlk period ideasabout the preservation of Muslim society in the context the comingeschaton. Central to Ibn Kathrs eschatology is that the 'ulam" failedin its role as guides and interpreters of revelation.

Biography and the discourse of legal and moral decline

Although the apocalypicists did not specically blame the jurists forthe moral decline of the community, the jurists themselves had arguedfor centuries that they had failed to adhere to their own standards.Al-Nawaw (d. 676/1277), for instance, argued in the midst of theMongol invasion that legal standards had declined because they hadfailed to develop an understanding of legal history, especially thelives of the great jurists of the past in the contexts of their owntimes. He states that

an acquaintance with the elite [ jurists of the past] establishes a kindof relationship between them and those who know them. On the Day of Resurrection, such a relationship will be helpful in securingintercession. Now the relationship of a scholar to his pupil is like the

43 Also see, Remke Kruk, History and Apocalypse: Ibn al-Nafs Justication ofMamluk Rule, Der Islam 72, no. 2 (1995): 32437.

44 Ibn Kathr, Tafsr al-qur"n, vol. 5, 59.45 Ibid., 5962.46 Ibid., 63.47 Ibid., 6366.48 Ibid., 66.49 Ibid., 6667.50 Ibid., 6768.51 Ibid., 6869.52 Ibid.

10 introduction

relationship between a father and his son, in fact, it is something moresacred. A pupil who does not know his teacher is like a son who doesnot know his father, in fact, he is even more wrong. A jurist who isasked, for instance, about al-Muzan and al-Ghazl and does not knowthe interval of time between them and the distance between the placeswhere they lived certainly reveals a truly disqualifying lack of knowl-edge. Certainly the transmitters of traditions, the adth scholars havelong appreciated the truth of this and drawn the consequences: theyhave written monographs on personality criticism, and they have alsodealt with this subject in works which go under the title of history. Thejurists, on the other hand, have ceased to realize (the importance of )this subject. Thus, their previous awareness of the dierent degrees ofaccuracy and accomplishment among their leaders and experts ceasedto exist.53

Here, al-Nawaw articulates a potent critique of the legal professionthat would shape the development of a genre of legal biographicalhistorical text over the next 300 years. He argues that the crisis ofthe period was a crisis of authority that can chiey be blamed on afailure to maintain the teachings of the great jurists of previousgenerations.

Al-Nawaws critique came to dominate the internal discourse ofthe legal schools, especially the Sh's and anafs. Internal to theschools there was an attempt to sort out the problems of legal inter-pretation by seeking to delineate the chains by which authoritativeknowledge was passed from generation to generation. The root ofthe problem, according to this view, was that jurists had drifted awayfrom the core methods and doctrines of the schools of law; that theyhad become inuenced by ideas and intellectual traditions that ledjurists away from the purpose of the legal profession: to articulaterules for the guidance of the community. This view of the declineof legal abilities is expressed most fully in the genre of biographicalhistorical dictionaries known as abaqt (literally, generations or ranks).

An overview of the development of the abaqt genre

According to H. A. R. Gibb, Arab Islamic historiography embracesboth annals and biography.54 In fact, biographies were so compre-

53 Rosenthal, 303.54 See his Studies on the Civilization of Islam, ed. Stanford J. Shaw and William R.

Polk (Boston: Beacon Press: 1962), 108.

introduction 11

hensive by the Mamlk period that, biography was history in theview of many of its practitioners.55 This view is shared by mostscholars who have examined the biographical genre.56 abaqt texts,

55 Tarif Khalidi, Arabic Historical Thought in the Classical Period (Cambridge: UniversityPress, 1994), 210.

56 There has been extensive work done on and with biographical literature inthe Islamic tradition. The following represents a brief list of texts that are impor-tant examinations and applications of the genre. See Michael Cooperson, ClassicalArabic Biography: The Heirs of the Prophet in the Age of al-Ma"mn (Cambridge: UniversityPress, 2000); Jonathan P. Berkey, The Transmission of Knowledge in Medieval Cairo: ASocial History of Islamic Education (Princeton: University Press, 1992); Richard W.Bulliet, A Quantitative Approach to Medieval Muslim Biographical Dictionaries,The Journal of Economic and Social History 13 (1970): 195211, also see his Conversionto Islam in the Medieval Period: An Essay in Quantitative History (Cambridge: HarvardUniversity Press, 1979) and his Islam: The View from the Edge (New York: ColumbiaUniversity Press, 1994); Claude Cahen, History and Historians, in Cambridge Historyof Arabic Literature, ed. M. J. L Young, et al., vol. 3 (Cambridge: University Press,1990), 188233, and his Editing Arabic Chronicles: A Few Suggestions, IslamicStudies 1, no. 3 (1962): 125; Michael Chamberlain, Knowledge and Social Practice inMedieval Damascus, 11901350 (Cambridge: University Press, 1994); Hartmut Fhndrich,The Wafayat al-A'yan of Ibn Khallikan: A New Approach, Journal of the AmericanOriental Society 93 (1973): 432445; H. A. R. Gibb, Islamic Biographical Literature,in Historians of the Middle East, ed. B. Lewis and P. M. Holt, (London: OxfordUniversity Press, 1962), 5458; Ibrahim Hafsi, Recherches sur le genre Tabaqatdans la littrature arabe, Arabica 23 (September 1976): 22765; 24 (February 1977):141; 24 ( June 1977): 15086; Tarif Khalidi, Arabic Historical Thought in the ClassicalPeriod; Donald P. Little, An Introduction to Mamluk Historiography: An Analysis of ArabicAnnalistic and Biographical Sources for the Reign of an-Malik al-Nasir Muhammad ibn Qalaun(Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner, 1970), and see his History and Historiography of the Mamluks(London: Variorum Reprints, 1986), and Historiography of the Ayyubid andMamluk Epochs, in The Cambridge History of Egypt, ed. Carl F. Petry, vol. 1: IslamicEgypt, 640151 (Cambridge: University Press, 1998); Otto Loth, Die Ursprungund Bedeutung der Tabaqat, Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenlndischen Gesellschaft 23(1869): 593614; George Makdisi, abaqt-Biography: Law and Orthodoxy inClassical Islam, Islamic Studies 32 (1993): 37196; Carl F. Petry, The Civilian Eliteof Cairo in the Later Middle Ages (Princeton: University Press, 1981); William Popper,trans. History of Egypt: An Extract from Ab l-Masin Ibn Taghr Birds Chronicle (NewHaven: American Oriental Society, 1967); Wadad al-Qadi, Biographical Dictionaries:Inner Structure and Cultural Signicance, in The Book in the Islamic World: TheWritten Word and Communication in the Middle East, ed. George N. Atiyeh (Albany:State University of New York Press, 1995), 93122; Ruth Roded, Women in IslamicBiographical Collections (Boulder Co.: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1994); Franz Rosenthal,On Medieval Authorial Biographies: Al-Ya"qubi and Ibn Hajar, in Literary Heritageof Classical Islam: Arabic and Islamic Studies in Honor of James A. Bellamy, ed. MustansirMir (Princeton: Darwin Press, 1993), 25574, and especially his A History of MuslimHistoriography, 9395, 10006; Devin Stewart, Capital, Accumulation, and the IslamicAcademic Biography, Edebyat 7 (1997): 34662; Ferdinand Wstenfeld, Academiender Araber und ihre Lehrer (Gttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 1837); M. J. L.Young, Arabic Biographical Writing, in The Cambridge History of Arabic Literature:Religion, Learning and Science in the 'Abbasid Period, ed. M. J. L. Young, J. D. Lathamand R. B. Serjeant (Cambridge: University Press, 1990), 16887; and Chase Robinson,Islamic Historiography (Cambridge: University Press, 2003), 7274.

12 introduction

however, are dierent from other forms of biography because oftheir focus on authority, especially in disciplines of knowledge thoughtto have originated with the Prophet Muammad. abaqt texts mapthe chains by which authoritative knowledge is transmitted from gen-eration to generation and in doing so present readers with overviewsof trends in the development of dierent scholarly traditions andschools of thought. The authors of abaqt texts present their histo-ries by retelling the lives of individuals; by linking scholars, concepts,intellectual traditions, events, alliances, and conicts together throughthe use of a range of rhetorical strategies. Historical understandingsare therefore presented in the details of each biographical entry,which when taken as a whole, show the ebbs and ows of intellec-tual development and how the authors of abaqt works understoodhistorical contexts to have inuenced the development of Islamicthought.

The earliest extant biographical dictionary is al- abaqt al-kubr byIbn Sa'd (d. 230/845).57 This abaqt text was rst analyzed by OttoLoth in a short work published in 1869.58 Ibn Sa'ds abaqt exam-ines the Companions of Muammad who transmitted sayings fromthe Prophet, who also fought in the battle of Badr (circa 2/624), aswell as those who later migrated to various areas of the newly emerg-ing Islamic world.59 According to Loth, as traditionists began todevelop a science that focused on those who transmitted adth, theystarted to develop biographical dictionaries that catalogued the qual-ities, qualications, and localities of those who transmitted traditionsof the Prophet.60 For Loth, H. A. R. Gibb, and others, biographi-cal genres developed as a sub-genre of adth science.61

Ibrahim Hafsi, in his monumental Recherches sur le Genre abaqt, one of the few analyses devoted solely to the abaqt genre,observes that abaqt texts are the highest expression of the bio-

57 Hamilton Gibb, Islamic Biographical Literature, 54; also see Ibrahim Hafsi,Recherches sur le Genre abaqt, (September 1976): 242.

58 Otto Loth, Die Ursprung und Bedeutung der Tabaqat, 593614.59 Ibn Sa'd, al- abaqt al-kubr, 9 vols. (Beirut: Dr al-masrah, 19571968); Gibb,

5455.60 Cooperson, 1; Gibb, Islamic Biographical Literature, 5455.61 Cooperson, 1; Gibb, Islamic Biographical Literature, 5556. This view has

been the standard by which biographical dictionaries, including abaqt, have beenanalyzed for over a century. For a more contemporary restatement of this thesissee Devin Stewart, Capital, Accumulation, 47.

introduction 13

graphical focus of adth specialists.62 For Hafsi, le genre abaqt estn dans le cadre du ad et en est insparable.63 Hafsi argues thatadth science not only inuenced the origins of the abaqt genre butalso came to dominate the later development of the tradition as itwas used by other professional groups.64

According to George Makdisi, however, the origins of the abaqtgenre and its later development may not have been inuenced byadth science.65 While he does not explore the origins of the abaqtgenre, his misgivings about the genres origins stem from W. Heeningsargument that the origins of the abaqt genre have more to do with the interest of the Arabs in genealogy and biography thanwith adth studies.66 Michael Cooperson and Tarif Khalidi agree withHeenings assessment and locate the origins of biographical diction-aries in Arab genealogies.67 One of the shortcomings of their analysesfor present purposes is that they fail to distinguish between abaqtand other kinds of biographical work.68 It is dicult to ascertain theaccuracy of their theories for the development of abaqt since theyaddress only the broad outlines of biographical literature while Loth,Makdisi, and Hafsi look more narrowly at the abaqt genre.

Khalidi argues that the origins of the biographical genre lie inpre-Islamic times.69 Interest in biography was motivated by the dom-inant cultural passion for genealogies and poetry. As Khalidi contends,

genealogy and the chain of poetic transmission (riwyah) were bothwell-established pre-Islamic cultural interests. Short biographies of theProphets Companions were intended to authenticate the history of theearly community as these Companions carried with them the guaran-tee of truth into far corners of the empire.70

62 Hafsi, 23 (1976), 22729.63 Ibid., 228.64 Ibid., 22829.65 Makdisi, abaqt, 37273.66 W. Heening, abaqt, in Encyclopedia of Islam, 1st ed. Also see Makdisi,

abaqt, 372.67 Cooperson, 18; Tarif Khalidi, 205.68 Cooperson points out that the lines between dierent biographical genres are

blurred, with many biographical texts being confused with annalistic histories, evenby medieval Muslim writers (p. 18). The blurring of biographical genres has madestudies of particular kinds of biographical texts, such as abaqt, dicult since manyof the qualities found in these texts are also found in other biographical and his-torical texts.

69 Khalidi, 205.70 Ibid.

14 introduction

Later, as the bureaucratic structure of the Umayyads and 'Abbsidstook shape biographical dictionaries became more important as therewas a need to catalogue warriors and their descendants who weredue state stipends for military service.71 Only later did traditionistsappropriate the genre for their own purposes.

Traditionists were only one in a series of groups that came to usethe genre to provide a trans-generational record of their member-ships. Khalidi, departing from other scholars, argues that the singlemost important group that contributed to the development of thegenre were the fs. He contends that biographical dictionaries areconcerned with mapping chains of descent in the transmission oftruth. Silsilah (conceived as a spiritual chain of transmission), notisnd (a scholarly chain of transmission) is the prime motivation behindbiographical method.72 By Mamlk times, Khalidi argues, the needto map the history of the transmission of truth became the mainmotive behind the writing of biographical texts.73

The problem with Khalidis theory is that the rst f abaqtwork postdates (by a century) the production of the earliest abaqtworks. As Makdisi and Hafsi point out, the earliest abaqt texts werewritten by the rationalist Wil ibn 'A" (d. 131/748) and by thetraditionalist al-Mu'f b. 'Imrn b. Nawfal al-Mawil74 (d. 184/800);although Chase Robinson has called into question al-Mawils roleinto the formation of the genre.75 The rst f abaqt was written

71 Ibid.72 Khalidi, 206.73 Ibid.74 Kitb abaqt al-muaddithn. Hafsi, 23 (1976), 241; Makdisi, abaqt, 374. It

is important not to confuse the dierence between traditionists and traditional-ists. A traditionist is a scholar who specializes in the transmission and collectionof adth. A traditionalist, in the context of early Islam, is a scholar who opposesrationalist theological and juridical thought. The confusion arises from the use ofthe term ahl al-adth (the people of tradition) that was used in Islamic texts to referto both adth specialists and adth specialists who oppose rational speculation.Certain abaqt texts are referred to as traditionalist in orientation because theyemphasize the authority of scholars who oppose rationalist theology and legal thought.Virtually all traditionalist abaqt texts focus on adth science as a genre of knowl-edge which leads to a further confusion as to the use and meaning of the terms.Where the dierence is discernable, the following will refer specically to tradi-tionalists when it is clear that the individual opposed rationalism. Otherwise, theterm traditionist will be used to refer to adth specialists for whom no knownaliation exists.

75 Hafsi, 24 (1977), 28. See Chase F. Robinson, al-Mu'f b. 'Imrn and theBeginnings of the abaqt Literature, Journal of the American Oriental Society 116, no. 1( Jan.March, 1996): 114120.

introduction 15

by Muammad b. 'Al b. asan al-Tirmidh76 (d. 285/898), and fol-lows the format of the previous eleven traditionist abaqt.77 If, asthese dates suggest, the rst abaqt was that compiled by Wil, thepurported founder of the Mu'tazil school of theology,78 it would sug-gest that the genre grew out of the rationalist/traditionalist debate,and only secondarily as a form specic to fs.79

Cooperson agrees with Khalidi that the origins of the biographi-cal genre predate the formation of traditionalist groups. For Cooperson,however, the purpose of biography is to identify those responsiblefor the transmission of knowledge, not truth. Following Heening,Cooperson argues that most biographical collections devoted to eldsother than adth studies are, for the most part, at least as old asthose of adth.80 He contends that the oldest biographical collectionsare those devoted to the life of the Prophet Muammad. Thesebiographies were written by akhbrs (collectors of reports), who becomean identiable group as early as the Caliphate of Mu'wiyah(29/66148/680). The oldest collections were, however, written beforethe specialization of professions began to take place.81 Akhbrs wouldinclude the genealogies of Companions and others who were impor-tant in Muammads story as they recounted the life of the Prophet.These genealogies often included a brief narrative about the lives ofthose included in the list of ancestors. The narrative collections ofgenealogies were the earliest kind of biography.82

Cooperson argues that Ibn Sa'ds al- abaqt al-kubr has beenmisidentied as a work about adth transmitters. The text, after all,contains much that one does not nd in later traditionist works, mostimportantly the biography of the Prophet. Ibn Sa'ds text neverthe-less inuenced how later traditionists constructed their biographicaldictionaries. It is, however, the dominance of the isnd as the pri-mary vetting agent that sets traditionist biographies apart from akhbrtexts, especially after al-Sh'.83 In adth science, examinations of

76 abaqt al-fyah.77 See Hafsi, 23 (1976) for a complete list of these texts.78 There is reason to believe that Wil ibn 'A" did not actually compose a

biographical text. The text is not mentioned in any early bibliographic dictionary,nor is it mentioned in any later Mu'tazil abaqt work.

79 Makdisi. abaqt, 373.80 Cooperson, 1.81 Ibid., 12.82 Ibid., 23.83 Ibid., 56.

16 introduction

the chain of transmission became the most important avenue forevaluating the worth of adth. Scholars examined such variables asthe general knowledge of each member in the chain, their reputa-tions for truthfulness, histories of mental illness, and whether or notit would have been physically possible for each link in the chain tohave met and passed on the tradition.

Coopersons chief insight into the genre is the idea that biogra-phy becomes central to Islamic historical literature because the notionof descent (here metaphorical, not literal) from the Prophet Muammadbecomes one of the most important concepts in Islamic intellectualthought. As specialization in religious professions becomes more dis-tinct (by the 2nd/8th century) so does the need to map out thechains through which the Prophets knowledge was communicatedto dierent professional groups.84 The idea that dierent professionalgroups are heirs to specic kinds of knowledge particular to thatgroup lies at the heart of the biographical genre.85

The idea that specialized disciplines of knowledge originate withthe Prophet Muammad is based on a adth which states that schol-ars are heirs to the prophets.86 Over time, as various disciplines ofspecialized knowledge formed (law, theology, grammar, lexicography,medicine, even poetry) their practitioners began to assert that theirauthority originated with knowledge passed on to them from theProphet.87 As specialization in religious professions became more dis-tinct (by the 2nd/8th century) so did the need to map out the chainsthrough which the Prophets knowledge was communicated to dierentprofessional groups.88

According to George Makdisi, as religious vocations became moreprofessionalized, abaqt works, which had been concerned with author-ity, began to focus on outlining orthodoxies within each religious

84 Ibid., 78.85 Ibid., 1314.86 Al-Khaib al-Baghdd, Kitb al-faqh wa "l-mutafaqqih, vol. 1 (Beirut: Dr al-

kutub al-'ilmyah, 1980), 17; for a discussion of the various arguments for juridicalauthority, see Devin Stewart, Islamic Legal Orthodoxy: Twelver Shiite Responses to the SunniLegal System (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1998), 215. For an excellentdiscussion on the importance of descent in medieval Muslim culture, see RoyMottahedeh, Loyalty and Leadership in an Early Islamic Society (New York: I. B. Tauris,2001), 98104.

87 Stewart, Islamic Legal Orthodoxy, 215.88 Cooperson, 78.

introduction 17

profession.89 While biographical histories such as Trkh baghdd byal-Khab al-Baghdd (463/1071)90 may contain biographies of juristsand other members of professional groups, abaqt works are specicallydedicated to listing only those whose opinions can be consideredauthoritative in the formation of orthodoxy, regardless of the eldof specialization.91 Makdisi goes on to argue that because abaqt textsare central in delimiting the boundaries of permissible opinion, theymark o the peripheries of dierent professional schools of thought.This, he argues, is particularly important for understanding the his-tory of Islamic legal institutions.92 abaqt works, therefore, not onlydemarcate the boundaries of permissible opinion; they can also tellus something about the internal debates and struggles of legal schools.

abaqt and the crisis of authority during the Mamlk period

By the Mamlk period, because of the crises that shook the Muslimcommunity in the Middle East, the abaqt genre became a mani-festation of the crisis of religious authority. Because it had previouslybeen used to map the contours of authoritative knowledge in eachof the religious sciences, abaqt texts became the locus of intellec-tual debates over how the crisis of authority had arisen and the kindsof curatives that were needed to repair the situation.

The use of the abaqt genre as a vehicle for debating the crisisof authority during the Mamlk period is demonstrated by the explo-sion in the production of texts beginning in the 7th/14th centuries.As gure 1.1 demonstrates, the number of abaqt works produceddeclines steadily after the initial formation of the genre in the 3rd/9thcentury. This decline continues until the period following the Mongolinvasion in the mid 7th/13th century. In the 8th/14th and 9th/15thcenturies the production of the genre increases, doubling the totalnumber of texts produced just two centuries earlier, before steadilydeclining once again in the 10th/16th century.

89 George Makdisi, abaqt, 37273.90 Al-Khab al-Baghdd, Trkh baghdd aw madnat al-salm, 16 vols., ed. (Beirut:

Dr al-kutub al-'ilmyah, n.d.).91 Makdisi, abaqt, 373.92 Ibid., 37982.

18 introduction

Besides the Mongol destruction of the 'Abbsid Empire in 1258, theMiddle East was subjected to the outbreak of the plague in 749/1348,which reoccurred every 1012 years until 1516.93 The plague wasextremely traumatic for Muslims living in Egypt and Syria. Whilethe sometimes fantastic death tolls listed by medieval Muslim histo-rians, ranging into the hundreds of thousands, have been discred-ited by medieval and modern researchers,94 they speak to the horrorthat the plagues caused. Additionally, the region continued to beinvaded from the east and the north until nally being conquered

93 See Lawrence I. Conrad, 'n and Wab": Conceptions of Plague andPestilence in Early Islam, Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 15,pt. 3 (1982): 268307 and his Arabic Plague Chronologies and Treatises: Socialand Historical Factors in the Formation of a Literary Genre, Studia Islamica, no.54 (1981): 5193. Also see Michael Dols, Plague in Early Islamic History, Journalof the American Oriental Society 94, no. 3 (1974): 37183 and his The Black Death in theMiddle East (Princeton: University Press, 1977) which remains the only detailed analy-sis of the plague in the region.

94 Conrad, Arabic Plague Chronologies, 6566.

35

30

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th

3rd/9

th

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18th

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2420

18 16

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96

Figure 1.1. Total number of abaqt texts produced by century

Source: Data from Ibrahim Hafsi, Recherches sur le genre Tabaqat dans la littra-ture arabe, Arabica 23 (September 1976): 22765; 24 (February 1977): 141; 24( June 1977): 15086.

introduction 19

by the Ottomans in 1517. The invasions of Tmr (d. 1405)95 andother Turko-Mongol states along with pressure from the Franks,96

impressed upon the people of the Mamlk period that the Muslimcommunity was in serious danger.

Internally, the Mamlk state was extremely chaotic. The rst halfof the era, known as the Bar period, lasted from 1260 to 1382.Over the course of little more than a century, the Sulnate changedhands 24 times. The second half of the period was dominated bythe violent rise of the Circassian Mamlks who saw the Sulnatechange 27 times between 1382 and 1517. With each change of Sulnthere would follow purges of political authority at all levels of admin-istration. By the middle of the 9th/15th century these purges becameextremely violent with mass executions and mutilations as new lead-ers sought to consolidate their control.

The jurists were intimately involved in these political upheavals.Siding with dierent contenders to the throne, jurists frequentlysuered punishments for falling in with defeated groups, losing wealth,and suering torture and sometimes even death.97 The crisis of author-ity lead jurists to think seriously about how their circumstances hadchanged so radically from a past that was, especially in comparisonto present conditions, valorized as a golden period of enlightenment,security, and intellectual vitality. Legal abaqt works (those dedicatedto the legal profession) become increasingly important sources forsorting out the roots of the declining fortunes of jurists and in map-ping out chains of authority that were still considered valid giventhe perception that most jurists were no longer capable of inter-preting the texts of revelation directly.

As gure 1.2 demonstrates, the crisis of authority was primarilyexpressed in legal abaqt and not in texts devoted to other religiousdisciplines. Figure 1.2 shows that there had been a steady increasein the number of legal abaqt works written since the 3rd/9th cen-tury, even as non-legal abaqt texts declined in production. The

95 See Beatrice Forbes Manz, The Rise and Rule of Tamerlane (Cambridge: UniversityPress, 1989).

96 Norman Housley, The Later Crusades 12741580: From Lyons to Alcazar (NewYork: Oxford University Press, 1992), 178203.

97 See for instance, Ibn Taghr Bird, al-Nujm, vol. 5, 53334; Ibn ln, Qutdimashq, 119; Ibn Q Shuhbah, Trkh, ed. 'Adnn Darwsh (Damascus: InstitutFranais de Damas, 1997), vol. 1, 39192.

20 introduction

increase, however, was slow until the 7th/13th and 8th/14th cen-turies. While there was an initial jump in the production of all textsin the century following the Mongol invasion and during the for-mation of the Mamlk Sulnate and the outbreak of the plague,the production of non-legal abaqt began to decline after this, whilethe production of legal texts continued to increase for the next cen-tury. Figure 1.2 indicates that there may have been a widespreadsense of crisis across most of the religious disciplines in the earlyMamlk period, but that there was a prolonged sense of crisis inthe legal profession.

But was the sense of crisis spread across the entire legal profes-sion or was it restricted to certain schools? The Mliks and theanbals seem to have been largely unaected by crises of theMamlk period. Mlik production never rises above one text in anycentury and the anbals never produce more than two.98 Both the

98 Hafsi, Recherches sur le genre Tabaqat, 24 (February 1977): 141.

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Figure 1.2. The production of legal abaqt compared to other genres of knowledge

Source: Data from Ibrahim Hafsi, Recherches sur le genre Tabaqat dans la littra-ture arabe, Arabica 23 (September 1976): 22765; 24 (February 1977): 141; 24( June 1977): 15086.

introduction 21

Mliks and the anbals were marginal in the Mamlk state, nei-ther having much inuence with the ocials at court or the publicat large.99

As gure 1.3 shows, the situation was much dierent for the Sh'sand the anafs. The Sh's were the dominant school under theMamlks with but few exceptions, as when the anafs held greaterinuence at court during the brief reign of al-Mlik al-hir aar(d. 824/1421).100 Because of the role that the Sh's and the anafs

99 See Joseph Escovitz, The Establishment of the Four Chief Judgeships in theMamlk Empire, Journal of the American Oriental Society 102, no. 3 ( July-October,1982): 52932 and his The Oce of Q al-Qut in Cairo under the Bar Mamlks(Berlin: Klaus Schwarz Verlag, 1984); A. Allouche, The Establishment of the FourChief Judgeships in Fatimid Egypt, Journal of the American Oriental Society 105 (1985):31720; and Sherman Jackson, The Primacy of Domestic Politics: Ibn Bint al-Aazz and the Establishment of Four Chief Judgeships in Mamluk Egypt, Journalof the American Oriental Society 115, no. 1 ( JanuaryMarch, 1995): 5265.

100 Ibn Taghr Bird, al-Nujm, vol. 6, 517.

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Source: Data from Ibrahim Hafsi, Recherches sur le genre Tabaqat dans la littra-ture arabe, Arabica 23 (September 1976): 22765; 24 (February 1977): 141; 24( June 1977): 15086.

22 introduction

played in Mamlk society was much greater they also bore the heav-ier burden when the crises struck and the challenges to their author-ity were thus more pronounced. It is also important to note that themajority of abaqt were produced in the Circassian Mamlk periodwhen the greatest number of challenges to Muslim society occurredand the need to sort out the crisis of authority was the greatest.

abaqt al-fuqah" al-sh'yah and the crises of the Circassian period

This book will examine abaqt al-fuqah" al-sh' yah (The Generationsof the Sh' Jurists) written by Ab Bakr b. Amad Ibn QShuhbah (d. 851/1448), a text written during the worst of theCircassian Mamlk period, and will test the thesis that abaqt workswere used to sort out the causes for the declines of the Muslim com-munity during the Mamlk era.101 Ibn Q Shuhbahs abaqt con-tains the biographies of 784 jurists laid out chronologically, beginningwith the students (ib pl. ab) of Imm Muammad b. Idrs al-Sh' (d. 204/820), the eponym of his school, and continuing down29 generations to 840/1436, or to Ibn Q Shuhbahs own time.Ibn Q Shuhbah was one of the most important jurists of his dayand was trained not only in law but also in history. It is argued thatIbn Q Shuhbah wrote his abaqt out of his concern for thedecline of legal training among Sh' jurists. Working within thetheoretical framework of the hierarchy of legal authorities outlinedby al-Nawaw in his al-Majm' f shar al-mudhahhab, Ibn Q Shuhbahsought to demonstrate that while ijtihd continued on a limited basis,the majority of jurists had simply become memorizers of substantiverules handed down from earlier times. This is not to say that hewas troubled by this state of aairs; to the contrary, he sees this asthe natural consequence of the political, economic, and environ-mental decay of the late 'Abbsid and Mamlk periods.

The original title of this book, He Died in Prison and in Chains, wasa quotation from Ibn Q Shuhbahs text which refers to the deathof Ab Ya'qb al-Buway (d. 231/846). Al-Buway, al-Sh's clos-

101 There have been three published editions of the abaqt al-fuqah" al-sh' yah:the 'Al Muammad 'Umar edition [2 vols. (Cairo: Maktabat al-thaqfah al-dnyah,199398)]; and two editions produced by al- 'Abd al-'Al Khn [4 vols.(Hyderabad: D"irat al-ma'rif al-'uthmnyah, 197880) and 4 vols. (Beirut: 'lamal-kutub, 1987). The following analysis is based on the Khn 1987 edition and willbe referred to in the notes as Khn.

introduction 23

est disciple and transmitter, is presented as dying prematurely dueto the inquisition (Mihna c. 833850) which attempted to force onthe Muslim community a single theological conception of revelation.Because of al-Buways death at the hands of the government, IbnQ Shuhbah argues that two sub-schools of thought emerged inSh' jurisprudence: one devoted to the faithful transmission of al-Sh's original ideas and methodologies and another that soughtto expand the limits of acceptable opinion through the use of widelydivergent ideas. Over time, according to Ibn Q Shuhbah, theseopinions become catalogued in two massive commentaries writtenby Ab al-Qsim al-R' (d. 623/1226), and al-Nawaw, which, heargues, reach the highest level of authority because they transmit thewidely ranging opinions of the masters of the Sh' school. Theauthoritative authors of divergent opinion therefore provide a pro-tective barrier for the madhhab by guarding it from the insertion oflegal rulings by less qualied jurists. In addition, and perhaps moreimportantly, these texts show jurists secondary approaches to legalreasoning that permitted them to continue discovering new legal ruleswithout having to make recourse to ijtihd so that the law did notbecome static after the decline of legal capabilities.

Overview of the study

Ultimately, the purpose of the abaqt is to demonstrate to Sh'jurists who believed they were living in a time of eschatological cri-sis, not only who the holders of diverging opinions were, but alsowhat kinds of opinions they held and how they thought about thelaw. As is discussed throughout this book, Ibn Q Shuhbah soughtto describe the causes of legal decline and curatives that jurists couldturn to in times of crisis. It was meant by its author to be a text-book for jurists to use as a companion to the great ikhtilf texts ofthe time; to fulll the directive issued by al-Nawaw 200 years earlier.

Chapter one looks at the life of Ibn Q Shuhbah and the eventsthat shaped his life and worldview. In particular, the chapter exam-ines the events surrounding the publication of the text and gives anoverview of the major themes he seeks to develop in his work. Itthen looks at his rise as a judge and the publication of the nalthree editions of the abaqt before closing with a description of hisnal years and death.

24 introduction

Chapter two looks at how Ibn Q Shuhbah utilizes his sourcematerial and the extent to which authors of abaqt texts had con-trol over the composition of their biographies. It has been arguedthat biographical writers merely regurgitated source material and thatthey had little ability to manipulate their texts to make specic argu-ments about history or religious authority. The chapter demonstratesthat while authors were bound closely to their source material, thebiographical traditions that developed around many historical gureswere extremely diverse, and that authors such as Ibn Q Shuhbahhad extensive control over what they used and how they combinedand manipulated information.

Chapter three explores various rhetorical strategies that abaqtauthors use to create histories of Islamic intellectual traditions. Itfocuses of the use of assorted forms of allusion, causation, hyper-textual referencing, and forms of paronomasia. It then looks at howIbn Q Shuhbah uses these micro-textual rhetorical strategies topregure the major themes of his text: the importance of suddendeath on the creation of new historical trends and the centrality ofikhtilf in the formation of Islamic law.

Chapter four focuses on analytical techniques useful in under-standing both the rhetoric of abaqt works and how they depicttrends in the development of Islamic legal history. These techniqueswill examine how terms for the acquisition of knowledge are rankedand classied, repeated, and progressively developed over the courseof the text, exposing trends in the rise and fall of various classes ofeducative associations (akhadha, ishtaghala/ashghala, aala, baatha,takharraja, darasa/darrasa, and tafaqqaha). The chapter then comparesIbn Q Shuhbahs depiction of education to theories presented bysuch scholars as George Makdisi, J. Gilbert, Jonathan Berkey, andMichael Chamberlain. It argues that Ibn Q Shuhbah presents apicture of medieval Islamic learning that emphasizes both institu-tional styles of education (the madrasah) typied by references todarasa/darrasa, ishtaghala/ashghala, and takharraja, and highly personalmodes of learning exemplied by akhadha. Ibn Q Shuhbah, how-ever, presents tafaqqaha as the preferred mode of acquiring knowl-edge of law and argues that because of its decline, the abilities oflegal scholars to produce new rules declines as well.

Chapter ve examines Ibn Q Shuhbahs description of thetransmission of various genres of religious knowledge ('ilm, plural'ulm) and compares his depiction of the historical development of

introduction 25

legal authority to modern debates concerning the decline of ijtihd.It argues that he was largely unconcerned with the kinds of issuesthat so interest modern scholars: whether the gate of ijtihd closed.Instead, he is interested in the development of levels of juridicalauthority and especially of the ability of low and middle level aliatedjurists to discover new rules in the texts of revelation. He describesa process whereby legal abilities decline, but one in which high levelmujtahids continue to exist to answer questions of special need. ForIbn Q Shuhbah, low and middle level jurists are the ones mostresponsible for maintaining the law, and their decline prompts therise of a class of memorizers of legal dicta that do not have the abil-ity to carry-out basic legal functions, thus threatening the existenceof the community and precipitating the crises of the period.

Chapter six examines the role of ul al-qh and allied sciences inthe development of Islamic law. It challenges the idea that the abil-ity to discover new rules in the texts of revelation was tied to exper-tise in speculative legal methodologies. Instead, it argues that, accordingto Ibn Q Shuhbah, basic methods of legal discovery, derived fromthe method of al-Sh', are the only tools necessary to produce law.Ibn Q Shuhbah argues, through the progressive development ofhis text, that knowledge of basic legal method was communicatedthrough tafaqqaha educational relationships to the exclusion of otherforms of learning, and with its decline the ability of low and mid-dle level jurists to discover law was seriously challenged. He alsoargues that as the legal profession became more specialized, juristswere attracted to speculative legal methodologies and other kinds ofexpedient sciences that had little to do with the discovery of law.With the Mongol invasion in the thirteenth century and the outbreakof the plague in the fourteenth, the ranks of jurists were so severelydevastated that there were few scholars left who could use the basicmethods necessary for the day-to-day functioning of the law.

Ibn Q Shuhbahs text is not just a description of the develop-ment and decline of Islamic law; it also seeks to point contempo-rary and future jurists toward curatives for the collapse of legal abilityamong low and middle level jurists. He mentions 2058 texts overthe course of his work, but describes 32 as being especially importantfor the continuing maintenance of the school. Eight texts representthe core doctrine (madhhab) of the school, thirteen refer to the cen-tral sources of divergent opinion, and the remaining eleven are sourcesthat Ibn Q Shuhbah considers to be the most authoritative in

26 introduction

disciplines such as ul al-qh, grammar, lexicography, and history.Chapter seven examines these texts and the kinds of authority theyimpart on those who use them. It also explores the kinds of basiclegal methods that the doctrinal and divergent opinions texts pre-sent for low and middle level jurists.

The nal chapter returns to the context in which Ibn Q Shuhbahwrote his text. It argues that he was not only concerned with depict-ing the rise of law, the crises that were interwoven with its decline,and the texts that could point a way out of the morass, but that hewas also interested to using the text as an intellectual autobiographythat would legitimize his claim on the leadership of the Sh' school.Ibn Q Shuhbah produced four editions of the text, each writtenin the context of his rise to the position of chief Sh' judge ofDamascus. One of the purposes of the text was to give him an intel-lectual lineage to establish his place in the highest levels of Sh'legal authority and thus mark him as a leader of the school whowas uniquely qualied to guide it through the troubled waters of theMamlk period.

1 Shams al-Dn Muammad b. 'Abd al-Ramn al-Sakhw, al-aw" al-lmi' li-ahl al-qarn al-ts' (Beirut: Manshrt dr maktabat al-ayh, 1966), vol. 11, 21.

2 Khn, vol. 3, 173. Also see his death notice in al-Maqrz, al-Sulk, vol. 3, 407.3 Khn, vol. 2, 267. Also see Ibn Taghr Bird, al-Manhal al-f wa "l-mustawf

ba'ad al-wf, ed. Sa'd 'Abd al-Fatth 'shr (Cairo: n.p., 1984), vol. 2, 263.4 Khn, vol. 3, 183.

CHAPTER ONE

A BRIEF BIOGRAPHY OF IBN Q SHUHBAH

Early life and family

Taq al-Dn Ab Bakr b. Amad b. Muammad b. 'Umar b.Muammad b. 'Abd al-Wahhb b. Muammad b. Dhu"ayb b. al-Asad al-Shuhb al-Dimashq al-Sh', better known by his familyname, Ibn Q Shuhbah, was born on I Rab' 14, 779 ( July 22,1377) in Damascus.1 His family was a well known, though largelyminor member of the elite households of the city. His grandfatherMuammad b. 'Umar (d. 782/1380) had been a leading legal scholarand educator in Damascus for most of the 8th/14th century, teach-ing at a number of colleges and initiating many people into the ranksof the 'ulam". He was particularly well known as a scholar of adthand grammar, writing a number of books on those subjects, and onthe law.2 Besides his grandfather, the most famous person in thefamily was his great-uncle 'Abd al-Wahhb b. Muammad (d. 726/1326). 'Abd al-Wahhb was an important scholar of Arabic, gram-mar, and lexicography and appears to have been a well knownteacher who produced a large number of students.3

Ibn Q Shuhbahs uncle, Ysuf b. Muammad (d. 789/1388),studied law from his father Muammad and other scholars in Damas-cus and taught at several legal schools. He appears not to have beenwell known outside Syria and is not mentioned by al-Maqrz orother authors from the period.4

Ibn Q Shuhbahs father Amad b. Muammad (d. 790/1388),studied alongside his brother Ysuf with their father Muammadand other jurists of the age. He taught at the Umayyad Mosque anda number of colleges, and was a specialist in inheritance law, on

28 chapter one

which he wrote several books. He was also given a permission toissue legal opinions by his father Muammad b. 'Umar.5 Ibn QShuhbahs father died when he was just eleven years old and heappears to have been reared by his fathers friend Shihb al-DnIbn ijj (d. 816/1413). Ibn ijj was a jurist of some note andserved as a deputy judge of Damascus and chief preacher of theUmayyad Mosque on several occasions.6 Ibn ijj was, however, pri-marily an historian whom Ibn Q Shuhbah describes as being adisciple (tilmdh) of Ibn Kathr.7

The relationship between Ibn ijj and Ibn Q Shuhbah wasquite close. In passages that mention him, Ibn Q Shuhbah alwaysspeaks in the rst person, indicating that he was present with Shihbal-Dn when various events took place. They were so close that in803/1401, when Damascus was sacked and burned by Tmr, IbnQ Shuhbah ed the city with Shihb al-Dn to Jerusalem.8 Healso seems to have been close to Najm al-Dn Ibn ijj (d. 830/1427),Shihb al-Dns brother. When Najm al-Dn was appointed chiefSh' judge of Damascus in 820/1417, Ibn Q Shuhbah servedas his deputy,9 a position he held under Najm al-Dn several times.10Ibn Q Shuhbah may have even followed his mentor to Cairowhen Najm al-Dn served as condential secretary to the Suln in827/1424.11

Education and life as a scholar

Ibn Q Shuhbah also studied with a long list of scholars includ-ing 'Umar b. Muslim al-Qurash (d. 793/1391), who was torturedand killed by Suln Barqq (d. 801/1399) after the jurist sided withrebels who had seized Damascus in 792/1390.12 Additionally, IbnQ Shuhbah studied under Muammad b. Sulaymn Shams al-Dn

5 Khn, vol. 3, 148.6 Ibn ln, Qut dimashq, 127; al-'Asqaln, Inb" al-ghumr, vol. 6, 65.7 Khn, vol. 3, 56, 86.8 Ibn Q Shuhbah, Trkh, vol. 4, 16162.9 Ibn ln, Qut dimashq, 133, 151.

10 Ibid., 12829.11 Ibid., 139; Ibn Taghr Bird, al-Nujm, vol. 6, 57778.12 Ibn Taghr Bird, al-Nujm, vol. 5, 53334; Ibn Q Shuhbah, Trkh, vol. 1,

39192.

a brief biography of ibn q shuhbah 29

Ab 'Abdallh al-arkhad (d. 792/1390), Amad b. li b. Amadb. Khab b. Maram al-Zuhr (d. 795/1392), Mamd b. Muam-mad b. Amad b. Muammad b. Amad al-Sharsh (d. 795/1393),Muammad b. Amad b. 's b. 'Askr b. Sa'd al-Suwad, betterknown as Ibn Maktm (d. 797/1395), 's b. 'Uthmn b. 's Sharafal-Dn Ab al-Raw al-Ghazz (d. 799/1397), 'Abd al-Ramn b.Muammad b. Amad al-Dhahab, better known as Ab Hurayrah(d. 799/1397), Amad b. Rshid b. urkhn Shihb al-Dn Abal-'Abbs al-Malkw (d. 803/1401), 'Umar b. Rasln al-Bulqn(d. 805/1403), and Jaml al-Dn 'Abdallh b. Muammad al-aymn(d. 815/1412). 13

Ibn Q Shuhbahs own authority as a historian of law was builton intensive study in both areas. His work would not have beenconsidered as important by later scholars had he not been able toclaim knowledge and an intellectual lineage that linked him with thegreat historians and legal scholars of the past. One scholar who wastremendously inuential in establishing his chain of transmission fromthe great historians of the previous century was 'Abd al-Ramn b.Muammad b. Amad al-Dhahab, better known as Ab Hurayrah,the grandson of al-Dhahab the famous biographer.14 Ab Hurayrahwas a specialist in adth and it is likely that Ibn Q Shuhbahheard traditions and historical information from him. Besides Shihbal-Dn Ibn ijj, al-Dhahab is one of the most commonly citedsources of information used by Ibn Q Shuhbah in his abaqt.

Throughout his abaqt and other historical writings, Ibn QShuhbah most usually introduces the information cited in his textwith the expression so and so said instead of using the formulaso and so said in his book, even though the material originatedcenturies earlier. In each instance where he uses the former expres-sion he can be demonstrated to have a direct link through a chainof transmission to the individual who originally produced the infor-mation. Although it is unlikely that the specic material presentedwas actually transmitted orally to him, Ibn Q Shuhbah uses theauthority gained by the personal link to the original author to estab-lish his own legitimacy as a historian by saying so and so said,implying rhetorically that the originating author said it directly to

13 Al-Sakhw, al-aw" al-lmi', vol. 11, 26.14 Ibid., vol. 4, 45; vol. 11, 21.

30 chapter one

him. The importance of the attribution has nothing to do with mod-ern historiographical concerns with rst-person documentation ver-sus second-hand and third-hand material. Instead, the use of themore interactive expression originates in