ʿAbd al-Ghanī an-Nābulusī

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ʿAbd al-Ghanī an-Nābulusī ( Arabic عبد الغني النابلسي, DMG ʿAbd al-Ġanī an-Nābulusī ; * March 19, 1641 in Damascus , Syria ; † March 5, 1731 ) was an Arab Sufi and man of letters from Damascus. He is considered a key figure in the Islamic Enlightenment . As a contemporary of many great thinkers, scientists, poets and philosophers of the European Enlightenment, his life and work are at the roots of modernity in the Arab world.

Life

Abd al-Ghani grew up as an orphan and joined the Sufi order of Qādirīya and Naqschbandīya . He then spent seven years in isolation in his home to study the divine experiences of Sufis . He traveled extensively in the Islamic world, visiting places like Istanbul (1664), Lebanon (1688), Jerusalem and Palestine (1689), Egypt and Arabia (1693) and Tripoli (1700).

Muhammad Kamal al-Din al-Ghazzi (1760–1799), the chief Shafi'ite legal scholar and great-grandson of al-Nabulusi, wrote his biography.

In recent times, Samer Akkach ( University of Adelaide ) has made a particular contribution to researching the life and work of Nabulusi.

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His more than 200 writings can be divided into three categories: Sufism , travelogues and other topics such as poetry , eulogies , correspondence , prophecies , the interpretation of dreams and the question of the legality of tobacco consumption . The main part of his Sufi writings is the concept of waḥdat al-wujūd ("divine existential unity" of God and the universe ).

His travel books serve as important sources for knowledge of the Arab countries of the time, including his trip to the holy cities of Mecca and Medina and the trip through Lebanon. Orientalists such as Alfred von Kremer and Johannes Gildemeister (1908) had started evaluating them.

Fonts

  • Taḥqīq al-qaḍīya fi l-farq baina r-rišwa wa-l-hadīya , treatise on the difference between a bribe ( rišwa ) and a gift ( hadīya ).
  • at-Tuḥfa an-Nābulusīya fī ʾr-riḥla aṭ-ṭarābulusīya. Introduced u. ed. by Heribert Busse under the title: The journey of ʿAbd-al-Ġanī an-Nābulusī through Lebanon. Beirut texts and studies 4. Steiner, Wiesbaden 1971.
  • al-Ḥaqīqa wa-l-maǧāz fī riḥlat Bilād aš-Šām wa-Miṣr wa-'l-Ḥiǧāz , report on a trip through Syria, Egypt and the Hejaz . Ed. Riyāḍ ʿAbd-al-Ḥamīd Murād. Damascus 1989.

literature

  • Elizabeth Sirriyeh: Sufi Visionary of Ottoman Damascus: 'Abd Al-Ghani Al-Nabulusi, 1641-1731. Routledge Chapman & Hall (2005)
  • Samer Akkach: Abd al-Ghani al-Nabulusi. Islam and the Enlightenment. Makers of the Muslim World 2007
  • Samer Akkach: Letters of a Sufi Scholar: The Correspondence of 'Abd Al-Ghani Al-Nabulusi (1641-1731) ( Islamic History and Civilization ). Brill Academic Pub (2009)
  • Samer Akkach: Intimate Invocations. Brill, 2012. ISBN 9789004211414
  • Studies on ʿAbdalġanī an-Nābulusī (d. 1731) and his travels. Frankfurt am Main: Inst. For the History of Arab.-Islamic Science, 1993

References and footnotes

  1. Samer Akkach. University of Adelaide. Intimate invocations. Brill, 2012. ISBN 9789004211414