al-Qudai

Abu Abdallah Muhammad ibn Salama al-Qudai ( Arabic أبو عبد الله محمد بن سلامة القضاعي, DMG Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad b. Salāma al-Quḍāʿī ; † November 21, 1062 in al-Fustat ) was a Muslim legal scholar, diplomat of the Fatimid Caliphate and chronicler in the 11th century.

life and work

Although a Sunni , al-Qudai, a descendant of the Qudāʿa tribe , entered the civil service of the Ismaili Fatimid caliphs . In 1021 he served as a Sunni judge ( qāḍī ) of the Shafi law school in the old town of al-Fustat and was probably an eyewitness to the events surrounding the disappearance of the caliph al-Hakim in February of that year . He suspected the Princess Sitt al-Mulk of conspiracy against her brother for the purpose of a coup. During the reign of az-Zahir he was an adjunct to the vizier al-Jardjarai . In 1049, during the reign of al-Mustansir , he was one of the assistant judges of the Ismaili chief judge of the caliphate, who at that time fell victim to an intrigue and was replaced by the Sunnis al-Yazuri , who a little later also became vizier and whose advisory staff al-Qudai belonged from then on. In 1053 he made the pilgrimage ( ḥaǧǧ ) to Mecca.

In the autumn of 1054 al-Qudai was entrusted by the vizier with the management of a diplomatic embassy to Constantinople , to be there with Emperor Constantine IX. to request the delivery of grain after a famine broke out in Egypt after the failure of the Nile flood. Among other things, he brought along an elephant and a giraffe as gifts . In accordance with the old Byzantine-Fatimid alliance, the emperor had complied with the request and promised the delivery of over 35,000 hectoliters of grain. But the emperor died surprisingly in January 1055, whereupon his sister Theodora III. seized power and made delivery dependent on the support of the caliphate against their domestic enemies. But since the caliphate did not intend to interfere in the internal affairs of the Byzantine Empire , the Empress withheld the grain delivery. Relations between Cairo and Constantinople deteriorated further when, in the spring of 1056, an embassy from the Seljuks , who had just taken power in Baghdad , arrived at the Byzantine capital with the intention of breaking the Byzantine-Fatimid alliance. In fact, Empress Theodora was inclined to approach the Seljuks, which she underscored by the decision to have the Friday sermon held in the capital mosque in the name of the Sunni Abbasid caliph al-Qaim , the protégé of the Seljuks, which was previously the privilege of the Fatimid caliph. Before the alliance threatened to finally break, the Empress died on August 27, 1056, followed by Emperor Michael VI. immediately returned to the status quo ante of relations, to which his successors held on until the Battle of Manzikert in 1071.

Al-Qudai was known for his extensive literary output, although much of his oeuvre has been lost over the centuries or only survived in fragments. His most famous and fully preserved works are the "Book of the Shining Star" (Kitāb aš-Šihāb) , a comprehensive collection of stories ( ḥadīṯ ) about the Prophet, which was transcribed several times, and a chronicle (Tārīḫ al-Quḍāʿī) , which covers the period from the creation of Adam to the year 427 AH (1036). A description of Cairin's old town , the “Book of the City Quarters of Misr” (Kitāb al-Ḫiṭaṭ Miṣr) , is no longer preserved, but was used especially by al-Maqrizi (d. 1442) as the main source for his own work of the same name.

source

• Ibn Challikan : "The Death of Eminent Personalities and the News of the Sons of Time" (Wafayāt al-aʿyān wa-Anbāʾ abnāʾ az-zamān) , ed. by William Mac Guckin de Slane : Ibn Khallikan's biographical dictionary, Vol. 2 (1843), pp. 616 f.

literature

• Heinz Halm : The Caliphs of Cairo. The Fatimids in Egypt 973-1074. CH Beck, Munich 2003, p. 171, 381 ff. ISBN 3-406-48654-1 .
• Tahera Qutuddin: Al-Qāḍī al-Quḍāʿī, Light in the Heavens: Sayings of the Prophet Muḥammad. New York University Press, New York 2016. ISBN 1479867853 .

Remarks

1. ↑ His complete genealogy reads: Ibn Salama ibn Jafar ibn Ali ibn Hakmun ibn Ibrahim ibn Muhammad ibn Muslim.