Ibn ʿAsākir

Ibn ʿAsākir , with full name ʿAlī ibn al-Ḥasan ibn Hibat Alāh ibn ʿAbd Alāh ibn al-Ḥusain Abū ʾl-Qāsim al-Shāfiʿī ad-Dimashqī  /علي بن الحسن بن هبة الله بن عبد الله بن الحسين أبو القاسم الشافعي الدمشقي / ʿAlī b. al-Ḥasan b. Hibat Allaah b. ʿAbd Allaah b. al-Ḥusain Abū ʾl-Qāsim aš-Šāfiʿī ad-Dimašqī , known as Ibn ʿAsākir  /ابن عساكر(born September – October 1105 ; died January 1176 ), was a famous scientist and historian in the extended family of the Banū ʿAsākir in Damascus .

Life

Ibn ʿAsākir first studied in the circle of his father, who was a respected lawyer and theologian. His younger brother, Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan, was a Qādī in Damascus. His maternal uncles held other judicial offices in Syria. Ibn ʿAsākir's teachers in Damascus included Hibat Allah Abū Muhammad al-Akfānī (st. 1129) and Jamāl al-Islām ibn Muslim as-Sulamī (st. 1139).

After the death of his father, Ibn ʿAsākir and his older brother Ṣāʾin ad-Dīn Hibat Allah ibn al-Ḥasan (d. 1168) began his first study trip in 1126 to study Hadith and Fiqh and other scientific disciplines, initially in that of Nizam al-Mulk founded Nizāmīya school in Baghdad and a year later in Mecca . After returning from the pilgrimage, he stayed in Baghdad for five years. After a short stay in his hometown, he went on a five-year study trip to Persia . At the age of thirty-four he returned to Damascus for good and then worked as a professor in the Madrasa an-Nuriya. adh-Dhahabī , the most famous scholar -biographer of the 14th century, reports that Ibn ʿAsākir used to teach for a month in Damascus and then for a month in Jerusalem , in the madrasa aṣ-Ṣāliḥiyya. He and other members of the Banū ʿAskar were known for their sympathy for the teachings of al-Ašʿarī , which prompted him to avoid the district of the Hanbalites , who gave him "tamaschʿur" (i.e. Ash'arism) - a term coined by adh-Dhahabī - accused.

He lived to see the entry of Saladin into Damascus in 1175; a few months later he died. His funeral took place in the presence of Saladin.

Works

According to the Islamic biographers, Ibn ʿAsākir is the author of around 105 writings on the hadith , the hadith criticism , the scholarly biographies and the history of the city.

The "History of the City of Damascus"

Title page of part 325 of Ta'rich madinat Dimaschq: the vita of Uthman ibn Affan

His best known work is his monumental scholarly history of Damascus : Taʾrīch madīnat Dimaschqتأريخ مدينة دمشق / Taʾrīḫ madīnat Dimašq . The work, of which there are several fragmentary , mutually complementary manuscripts in large collections around the world , has only been fully accessible in print since 1995 and comprises 70 volumes (400 to 500 printed pages on average). The project started in the 1980s by the Academy of the Arabic Language in Damascus to publish the complete works in a critical edition was not carried out to the end.

The first volumes are devoted to describing the Fadā'il of Syria in general and the city of Damascus in particular. They are equipped with appropriate eulogies traced back to the Prophet Mohammed and his statements about the virtues of the city and its inhabitants. The topographical description of Damascus and its surroundings is followed by the biographies of the prophet and the four rightly guided caliphs. Only after these chapters, which in the printed edition comprise three volumes, does the actual Damascus scholarly biography begin; In alphabetical order - albeit beginning with the names Ahmad and Muhammad - Ibn ʿAsākir lists those historical personalities and scholars of high standing who lived, worked or visited the city in Damascus. The last two volumes are dedicated to women.

The value of this comprehensive work, on which Ibn ʿAsākir worked for over thirty years, lies in its compilatory character; he presents the immense material with reference to earlier writings of this genre, which are no longer available today. Important sources for the topographical part of the work are, in addition to the surviving book on the "Advantages of Syria and Damascus" ( Faḍāʾil aš-Šām wa-Dimašq ) by ar-Rabaʿī (d. 1052), two topographical works by Ahmad ibn Muʿallā (d . 802) and Tammām ar-Rāzī ibn Abī al-Husain (d. 1023), both of whom have been lost. For example, Ibn ʿAsākir relies on the treatise by Ahmad ibn Muʿallā in his reports on the construction of the Umayyad mosque and the disputes between Christians and Muslims about confiscated churches in and outside the city. Much of this material was imparted to him through his teacher al-Akfānī.

Other works

• A collection of traditions on the merits of jihad al-arbaʿūn fī l-ḥathth ʿalā l-jihād  /الأربعون في الحث على الجهاد / al-arbaʿūn fī l-ḥaṯṯ ʿalāʾl-ǧihād  / 'Forty hadiths on the incentive for jihad'.

The collection was created under the sign of the Crusades and after the entry of the emir of Aleppo Nur ad-Din Mahmud ibn Zangi into Damascus in 1154. After the conquest of Edessa under the leadership of his father Zengi in 1144, this ruler was given the task of Champions of Islam to fight the unbelievers on a broad front. Under his rule, six Islamic universities of Sunni character arose , at which Ibn 'Asakir also taught and, at the request of the ruler, not only wrote this collection of traditions on the necessity of the holy war, but also completed the Damascus scholar's biography.

• His treatise, which he wrote in defense of the theological teachings of al-Ašʿarī , who mediated between the Mu'tazila and Ahmad ibn Hanbal , is entitled: tabyin kadhib al-muftari fima nusiba ila al-imam Abi l- Hasan al-Ash'ari  /تبيين كذب المفتري فيما نسب إلى الإمام أبي الحسن الأشعري / tabyīn kaḏib al-muftarī fī-mā nusiba ilā ʾl-imām Abī ʾl-Ḥasan al-Ašʿarī  / 'Explanation of the lies of the slanderer about what was charged against Imam Abu' l-Hasan al-Ash'ari '; it has been in print since 1928 (Cairo) and has been the subject of several studies.

• Forty hadiths on the merits of Muhammad's wives كتاب الأربعين في مناقب أمهات المؤمنين / kitāb al-arbaʿīn fī manāqib ummahāt al-muʾminīn is a traditional collection of around one hundred pages in which selected statements of Muhammad about the virtues and virtues of his wives, arranged in the chronology of their marriage to the Prophet, are handed down. The collection was taught in the main mosque of Damascus during the author's lifetime .

• Mu'jam ash-shuyuch معجم الشيوخ / Muʿǧamu ʾš-šuyūḫ  / 'Lexicon of teachers'.

Many scholars of Islamic sciences have written books under this title in which they summarized the names of their teachers with the abbreviated version of their vitae and the description of the scientific disciplines they cultivate. Ibn 'Asakir's work is available in several manuscripts and was edited in three volumes in Damascus in 2000, based on a completely preserved manuscript . In this book, the author lists 1,619 scholars whose lectures he attended in Damascus and on his study trips. He wrote his own collection about his more than eighty teachers: mu'dscham al-niswan  /معجم النسوان / Muʿǧamu ʾl-niswān  / 'Lexicon of Women' which has been lost (see: Lit. H. Schützinger).

• A small treatise of 28 manuscript pages on the merits of al-Muwatta ' by Mālik ibn Anas is in the National Library of Damascus under the title kaschf al-mughatta fi fadl al-Muwatta  /كشف المغطى في فضل الموطأ / kašfu ʾl-muġaṭṭā fī faḍli ʾl-Muwaṭṭaʾ / 'Explain  (literally: revelation) of the virtue of the Muwatta' '(see Lit. F. Sezgin). The author, who received his training in the al-Shafii school of law ( madhhab ), has put together a collection of positive statements and eulogies about Malik's groundbreaking work.

literature

• Carl Brockelmann: History of Arabic Literature. Second edition adapted to the supplement volumes. Vol. I. 403-404. Brill, Leiden 1943. First supplement , p. 566, Brill, Leiden 1937
• Gerhard Conrad: The Quḍāt Dimašq and the maḏhab al-Auzāʿī. Materials on Syrian legal history. P. 75ff. Beirut texts and studies. Volume 46.Beirut 1994 ISBN 3-515-05588-6
• Nikita Elisséeff: La description de Damas d'Ibn-ʿAsākir. Inst. Français de Damas, Damascus, 1959.
• Nikita Elisséeff: Art. "Ibn-ʿAsākir" in The Encyclopaedia of Islam. New Edition . Vol. III, pp. 713a-715a.
• James E. Lindsay: Ibn ʿAsākir and early Islamic history . Princeton, NJ, The Darwin Press, 2001.
• MJ McCarthy: The Theology of al-Ash'ari . Pp. 145-229. Beirut 1953
• Franz Rosenthal: A History of Muslim Historiography , p. 451. Brill, Leiden 1968
• Heinrich Schützinger: The Kitāb al-Muʿǧam of Abū Bakr al-Ismāʿīlī , pp. 24-25 and passim . Treatises for the customers of the Orient. Volume XLIII, 3rd Wiesbaden 1978. ISBN 3-515-02700-9
• Fuat Sezgin : History of Arabic Literature . Vol. I., p. 463. No. 5; Pp. 602-603. Brill, Leiden 1967
• Ferdinand Wüstenfeld: The historians of the Arabs and their works , p. 93. Göttingen 1882

Individual evidence

1. ↑ See Elisséeff in EI² 714a.
2. ↑ Printed in 70 volumes. Ed. ʿUmar b. Ġarāma al-ʿAmrawī. Dār al-Fikr. Beirut 1995-1998. The work is also available on CD-ROM (www.turath.com)
3. ↑ See Nancy Khalek: Damascus after the Muslim Conquest. Text and Image in Early Islam. Oxford University Press, New York, 2011. pp. 144, 167.
4. ↑ See Khalek 144.
5. ^ Edited by ʿAbdallāh b. Yūsuf. Kuwait 1984. The work title given in the Encyclopaedia of Islam needs to be corrected
6. ↑ Edited by Muhammad Hafiz Muṭī'. Damascus 1986