ash-Shaʿrānī

ʿAbd al-Wahhāb ibn Ahmad asch-Shaʿrānī ( Arabic عبد الوهاب بن أحمد الشعرانی, DMG ʿAbd al-Wahhāb b. Aḥmad aš-Šaʿrānī ; * 1491 in Sāqiyat Abū Schaʿra; † 1565 in Chatt Baina ʾs-Surain; both in Egypt ) was an important teacher and historian of Sufism .

Life

As asch- Schaʿrānī writes in his autobiography Laṭāʾif al-Minan , one of his ancestors was Mūsā Abū ʿImrān, a son of the Sultan of Tlemcen in Algeria . Mūsās grandson Ahmad asch-Schaʿrānī († 1424) moved to the place Sāqiyat Abū Schara in the Egyptian governorate al-Minufiyya . Ahmad's son Nūr ad-Dīn ʿAlī († 1486), the grandfather of al-Sharānī, studied at the al-Azhar mosque in Cairo, acquired the reputation of a pious and morally strict scholar and became a sheikh in the zāwiya (Sufi monastery) he founded by Sāqiyat Abū Schara. Ash-Shaʿrānī's father, the scholar Shihāb ad-Dīn Ahmad († 1501), who was an exception in the family and did not become a Sufi and is therefore not mentioned in the work of his son aṭ-Ṭabaqāt al-Kubrā (see below), studied with famous people Ulema (religious scholar) in Cairo, but then returned to his hometown. There he dealt with agriculture and acted as a registrar of the taxes that had to be paid by the fellahs (farmers).

At the time of his father's death, Ash-Shâ'rānī was only ten years old. His older brother ʿAbd al-Qādir took care of him and, after his younger brother reached the age of majority, made the Hajj (pilgrimage) with him to Mecca . In 1505 asch-Schaʿrānī was able to move to Cairo with financial support from a high official and study and teach there at the Sufi al-Gamri mosque in the north of the city, where he stayed for 17 years. He spent his youth studying, including the art of preaching, and with ascetic exercises. He was introduced to some famous Sufi scholars by the imam of the mosque, Amīn ad-Dīn an-Najār ad-Dimyātī. Since he soon enjoyed great popularity, he had well-known friends and students, but also strong opponents who were ultimately able to urge him to quit his work at the al-Gamri mosque. He went to the madrasah (college) Umm Chond in Chatt Bayna ʾs-Surayn, where he found a new group of duties as a preacher of the Friday prayers and a zāwiya founded with the help of a rich kadi , and also charity ( waqf ) - food for 200 people per day - could practice.

Ash-Schaʿrānīs influence extended beyond the Sufi circles to many students and teachers of well-known Cairo madrasas, but especially to the Sufi sheikhs. At the al-Azhar mosque, however, he had some enemies and the famous Karīm ad-Dīn Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Chalwatī († 1578), head of the Chalwatī Sufi , became his opponent because of different religious interpretations and personal differences. After al-Sharānīs death, his only son ʿAbd ar-Rahīm could no longer reach the position of his father, although the Shaʿrānī direction of Sufism continued into the 19th century.

The most important information about asch-Schaʿrānī passed down his student ʿAbd ar-Raʾūf al-Munāwī († 1621) in a biography. A second source is a work by Muhammad Muhyī ʾd-Dīn al-Malīdschī, a follower of the tariqa ("the path on which the mystic wanders", the teaching) of asch-Sharānīs. He quotes the works of his master and relies on the traditions of his son ʿAbd ar-Rahīm.

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Ash-Schaʿrānīs writings dealt with mysticism , law , theology and the history of Sufism in Egypt. His writings were borne by a strong social awareness and affection for the weak in society, especially women and the poor. He and his students made special efforts to spread the charity prescribed by Islam in places with no resident religious communities. Obedience and respect for the rules were very important to him. He praised Sultan Suleyman I († 1566) with the nickname al-Quṭb aẓ-ẓāhir ("the visible pole"), a Sufi expression for veneration.

"The unrighteous" (aẓ-ẓalama) within the ruling class were attacked by him, even if not named. However , he refrained from criticizing the Ottoman occupation of Egypt , evidently warned against doing so. But there is evidence to show his dissatisfaction with the situation; In a religious treatise there was a cryptic note that some knowledge had been lost in Egypt since 1517 - the time when the occupation began. He was also critical of the qawānīn , the (secular) legislation introduced by the Ottomans in addition to the traditional sharīʿa (religious law), which he regarded as un-Islamic. In this context he also complained to the declining Arabic-speaking judges in favor of the Turkish-speaking judges.

Like all Sufis, he advocated the ʿazīma (strict observance of the ʿibāda [commandments] in all cases), but tolerated ruḫṣa (release from this duty if prevented). The ʿazīma is intended for the strong, but the ruḫṣa for the weak. In his treatise al-Mīzān al-Ḫiḍrīya (“The Chidrical Standard”) he stated that the sharīʿa is possible in two forms, namely as “mitigation” (taḫfīf) or “tightening” (tašdīd) . Ash-Shaʿrānī assured that he had received this knowledge from the mysterious al-Chidr , who had shown him the pure Sharia and was therefore the namesake of the treatise.

Ash-Shaʿrānī emphasized several times that he wanted to contribute to the moral education of his readers through his writings. He was often imprecise with dates, numbers and events, and he usually told usable anecdotes without historical evidence. In doing so, however, he drew a lively moral picture of Cairo society, especially the Sufi society, of the 15th century including the first decades of Ottoman rule in Egypt. His rather naive writing style made his works easy to read, which proves his popularity to this day. A large collection of autographs and manuscripts is kept in Dār al-Kutub al-Miṣrīya , the Egyptian national library.

Class books

• Lawāqiḥ al-anwār fī ṭabaqāt al-sāda al-aḫyār , or aṭ-Ṭabaqāt al-kubrā ("the big class register")

This work, completed in 1545, contains 430 biographies, beginning with the four Rāschidūn , the four rightful (properly guided) caliphs ( Abū Bakr , ʿUmar ibn al-Chattāb , ʿUthmān ibn ʿAffān , ʿAlī ibn Abī Tālib ), and ending with the Presence of Ash-Sharānī. The older biographies are not written by the author himself and often consist of a series of Sufi praises. Particularly important for historians is the part of the treatise in which asch-Shâʿrānī deals with the life of Sufis who lived from the second half of the 15th century. They are often scholars who have been his own teachers and role models. Since the book is very popular to this day, there are many editions, but so far none that compare all existing editions ( Bulaq 1875; Cairo 1961, 1965 and 1992; Beirut 1988). The most recent is the version by ʿAbd ar-Rahmān Chudā Mahmūd (Cairo 1992), which, according to the editor, is based on the Bulaq manuscript from 1875 and on manuscripts from the al-Azhar library, which he does not specify in detail. An excellent index was made by Jean-Claude Garcin in 1966.

• aṭ-Ṭabaqāt aṣ-ṣuġrā ("the little class register")

This work is a supplement (ḏayl) to the above, written by asch-Schaʿrānī in 1554. It consists of 106 further biographies, divided into: 1. His own teachers in Sufism; 2. Scholars whom he knew personally and consulted on a case-by-case basis, but who are not to be counted among his direct teachers; 3. Ulama of other maḏhahib (doctrines) outside of his preferred shafi'ī (traditional legal conception of Muḥammad ibn Idrīs al-Shāfiʿī ); 4. other ulamas living in his time. However, he does not consistently maintain this classification, so the famous scholar Jalāl ad-Dīn as-Suyūtī († 1505) is named in the group of his teachers, although he died as asch-Shaʿrānī just arrived in Cairo at the age of fourteen and probably still as a student was too young. The Ṭabaqāt aṣ-ṣuġrā contains a lot of information about distinguished Sufites that has not been passed down anywhere else, for example about the founding family of the tarīqa (here in the sense of brotherhood) Bakrī as-Siddīqī, who influenced the religious life of Egypt up to the 20th century. The only edition to date is based on the same Cairo manuscript that Garcin used for his index.

• Lawāqiḥ al-anwār al-qudsīya fī manāqib al-ʿulamāʾ wa-ṣ-ṣūfīya or aṭ-Ṭabaqāt al-wusṭā ("the middle class register")

This third as yet unpublished collection was completed in 1557. It is structured in three parts: 1. Early Sufis and ulamas, whom he had not known personally, up to his grandfather Nūr ad-Dīn ʿAlī; 2. Sufis from the beginning of the 10th century ( Islamic calendar ), whom he already got to know personally; 3. Other ulama. This anthology has collected all the anecdotes and topics that Ash-Shaʿrānī thought he overlooked in the first two volumes. The manuscript is kept in Cairo.

Translations

• Virginia Vacca: Vite e detti di santi musulmani. Turin , 1968 (abridged version of aṭ-Ṭabaqāt al-kubrā )

literature

• Jean-Claude Garcin: Index des ṭabaqāt de Sha-rānī (pour la fin du IXe et le debut du Xe SH ) In: Annales Islamologiques 6 , Cairo 1966.
• Jean-Claude Garcin: L'insertion sociale de Sha-rānī dans le milieu cairote. In: Colloque international sur l'historie du Caire. Cairo 1969.
• Michael Winter: al-Sha-rānī. October 2005. In: C. Kafadar, H. Karateke, C. Fleischer: Historians of the Ottoman Empire. Harvard University. Center for Middle Eastern Studies, ISBN 978-0-9762727-0-0 , pp. 97-99. in Google Book Search
• Michael Winter: Al-Shaʿrānī, ʿAbd al-Wahhāb b. Aḥmad. In: Encyclopedia of Islam, 9 , 1996, p. 316.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Published in Cairo in 1939.
2. ↑ al-Munāwī: Tarǧamat aš-šayḫ ʿAbd al-Wahhāb aš-Šaʿrānī. Berlin, State Library, 10112.
3. ↑ Al-Malīdschīs work was written in 1697 and published in 1932 by Safar al-Scharānī in Cairo.
4. ↑ Al-Shaʿrānī: al-Aḫlāq al-Matbūliyya. Los Angeles, University of California, Special Collections Box 40, p. 236a.
5. ↑ Michael Winter: Society and Religion in Early Ottoman Egypt: Studies in the Writings of 'Abd al-Wahhāb Sha'rānī. New Brunswick / London, 1982; Pp. 268, 298.
6. ↑ Michael Winter: Society and Religion in Early Ottoman Egypt: Studies in the Writings of 'Abd al-Wahhāb Sha'rānī. New Brunswick / London, 1982; Pp. 244-245.
7. ↑ Patrick Franke: Meeting with Khidr. Source studies on the imaginary in traditional Islam. Franz Steiner Verlag Stuttgart, 2000, ISBN 978-3-515-07823-8 ; P. 300.
8. ↑ aš-Ša'rānī: aṭ-Tabaqat as-sugra. Edition ʿAbd al-Qādir ʿAṭā, Cairo 1970.
9. ↑ Dar al-kutub, Ta'rīḫ 513 ; 60 folios, Naschī - calligraphy , 1st part 55, 2nd part 51 biographies; Egyptian National Library, Cairo.
10. ↑ Dar al-kutub, Ta'rīḫ 1423 ; 294 folios, Nasḫī calligraphy; Egyptian National Library, Cairo.