Ibn Hajar al-ʿAsqalānī

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Ibn Hajar al-ʿAsqalānī , whose full name is Shihāb ad-Dīn Ahmad ibn ʿAlī ibn Muhammad al-Kinānī al-ʿAsqalānī  /شهاب الدين أحمد بن علي بن محمد الكناني العسقلاني / Shihāb ad-Dīn Aḥmad b. ʿAlī b. Muḥammad al-Kinānī al-ʿAsqalānī (born 1372 ; died February 1449 in Cairo ), was one of the most important scholars of Islamic scholarship, well-known hadith scholar and traditionalist , historian, Qādī of Egypt and professor at the Azhar University in Cairo .

Life

His family came from ʿAsqalān - today Askalon - north of Gaza City on the Mediterranean coast. After Saladin's destruction of the city in 1191, the Muslim population fled to Syria and Egypt . The Jewish population emigrated to Jerusalem at that time . Ibn Hajar's ancestors settled first in Alexandria, then in Cairo. The scientist could not explain the origin of the name "Ibn Hajjar" in his own books. This nickname, under which he became famous, probably originated in the generation of his grandfather. After the early death of his father, he was raised by relatives in Fustat (Old Cairo). At the age of eleven he went on the pilgrimage and stayed in Mecca for another year to study the hadiths there. After 1384 he studied in Cairo and in Palestine , and then between 1396 and 1399 he took part in the lectures of the great scholars in Zabid in Yemen and in Mecca. After a short stay in Damascus, he returned to Yemen and Aden via Mecca .

After 1403 he lived in Cairo until his death and taught hadith and fiqh . In 1421 he was appointed Deputy Chief Qādī and then Chief Qādī over Egypt and Syria. He held this high office - with a few interruptions - until the end of his life. At the same time he held other offices. He was imam both in the Azhar and in the oldest mosque in the country, named after the conqueror of Egypt ʿAmr ibn al-ʿĀs in Fustat. As a librarian, he managed the rich collection of the Madrasa al-Mahmudiya in Cairo. Many of these manuscripts cataloged by him with his own handwritten notes are preserved in the Azhar library today.

Works

  • Fath al-bārī bi-sharh Saheeh al-Buchārī  /فتح الباري بشرح صحيح البخاري / Fatḥu ʾl-bārī bi-šarḥ Ṣaḥīḥi ʾl-Buḫārī  / 'The Creator's Victory in the Explanation of the “Saheeh” by al-Buchārī'

This comprehensive commentary on the aforementioned work of al-Buchari is the life's work of Ibn Hajar. In the introduction to his thirteen-volume commentary, he cites those reviews of the works of "Saheeh" for which he had the right to tradition based on the Isnade given. Because, according to Ibn Hajjar, Isnade - in this case the routes of transmission of a book - are "the genealogy of the books", the exact knowledge of which is essential. He quotes every sentence and all hadiths cited in "Saheeh" in full in order to first analyze the routes of transmission given by al-Buchari and then to discuss the contents of the respective traditions from a legal, theological, historical and philological point of view. Ibn Hajar makes use of an extensive material from his predecessors from the first centuries of Islamic scholarship, which were immediately available to him.

  • Tahdhīb tahdhīb al-kamāl fī asmāʾ ar-ridschāl  /تهذيب تهذيب الكمال في أسماء الرجال / Tahḏību tahḏībi ʾl-kamāl fī asmāʾi ʾr-riǧāl  / 'Summary of the expansion of the complete above the names of the narrators' - also called Tahdhīb at-tahdhīb for short.

It is the summary of thirty-five volumes of the biographical work of al-Mizzī . It should be noted that Ibn Hajar used the term tahdhībتهذيبused in its two meanings: his work is a summary , while the term in al-Mizzī is to be understood in the sense of expansion . The word “Kamāl” (“ the complete one ”) in turn stands for the biographical work of Al-Maqdisī , which was first significantly expanded by al-Mizzī in his above-mentioned work. The basic work of al-Maqdisī is only accessible in manuscripts.

  • Lisān al-mīzān  /لسان الميزان / 'The tongue of the scales'

is another biographical work about hadith narrators who are not mentioned in the Tahdhīb. The author completed the work in 1443. It is available in several editions in six volumes, the first edition was published in Hyderabad 1319-1321.

  • ad-Durar al-kāmina fī aʿyān al-miʾa ath-thāmina  /الدرر الكامنة في أعيان المائة الثامنة / ad-Durar al-kāmina fī aʿyāni ʾl-miʾati ʾṯ-ṯāmina  / 'The hidden pearls among the great personalities of the eighth century'
Autograph by Ibn Hajar (15th century)

In this comprehensive scholarly biography the author lists the hadith scholars, politicians, secretaries and other well-known personalities of his epoch, including many contemporaries. He evaluates numerous writings of his immediate predecessors from Syria to al-Andalus , including the universal story of Ibn Chaldun . In the first part of this work he names 5323 personalities. In a supplementary volume written for this purpose adh-dhail  /الذيل / aḏ-ḏail  / 'Supplement; Appendix ', which is available as an autograph in the Azhar library, where Ibn Hajjar worked until the end of his life, he names another 639 public figures of his time. The entries begin with the year 1399 and end with the year 1419.

  • al-isāba fī tamyīz as-sahāba  /الإصابة في تمييز الصحابة / al-iṣāba fī tamyīzi ʾṣ-ṣaḥāba  / 'The hit in distinguishing the companions of the Prophets'

This work, which has been reprinted several times in four volumes in the Orient since the first edition by the orientalist Aloys Sprenger (Calcutta 1854–1888), is devoted exclusively to the biography of the companions of Muhammad ( sahaba ) in alphabetical order of their names. In this biographical lexicon, the author evaluates numerous books from the first centuries of Islam, including the Kitab ar-ridda by the historian Wathima b. Musa (died 851), which is no longer available today.

  • al-muʿdscham al-mufahrah  /المعجم المفهرس / al-muʿǧamu ʾl-mufahras  / 'scholarly dictionary '

is a collection of work titles to which Ibn Hajjar received the direct transmission rights: either through the reading of the book by his teacher (shaich) or by himself or by another student, but in his presence. The title of the work is followed by an indication of the Isnade , that is, the precise indication of the transmission over generations to the author of the book in question. This book as an independent genre of the scholar's biography is known under different titles; it first appeared in print in 1999. The arrangement of the book corresponds to the Islamic scientific disciplines and begins with the listing and transmission of the hadith collections, Koran exegesis, historiography, philosophy, theology and ends with poetry. Such works were also called Fahrasa / Fihristفهرسة, فهرست / 'Directory'. In it, the author compiles those writings that he received from his teachers during his studies in the tradition he described in detail.

al-majmaʿ al-muʾassas lil-muʿdscham al-mufahras  /المجمع المؤسس للمعجم المفهرس / al-maǧmaʿ al-muʾassas li-ʾl-muʿǧam al-mufahras is another fahrasa work , as such collections are usually referred to because of their different titles in the specialist literature, in which the names of his teachers and the titles of books acquired by them, often with the time and place. The work also lists scholars with whom the author had no actual teacher-student relationship, but only had scientific contact.

in the last line the confirmation of the tradition by Ibn Hajar
  • al-Amālī al-halabiyya  /الأمالي الحلبية / al-Amālī ʾl-ḥalabiyya  / 'The dictates of Aleppo' is a small booklet in the manuscript collection of Alexandria , which contains hadiths that Ibn Hajar al-ʿAsqalānī had dictated and discussed in 1432 in the main mosque of Aleppo . On the last page, Ibn Hajar himself confirms the correctness of the tradition rights. Such dictations have been an integral part of Islamic teaching since the early 9th century.
  • al-adschwiba al-jaliya ʿan al-asʾila al-halabiya  /الأجوبة الجلية عن الأسئلة الحلبية / al-aǧwiba al-ǧalīya ʿani ʾl-asʾila al-ḥalabīya  / 'The clear answers to the questions from Aleppo'. In this little work, a contemporary of Ibn Hajar in Aleppo asks 39 questions about the substantive details of some hadiths at al-Bukhari, which the author then answers in a short version after receiving the questions from Aleppo, since the matter was already in his extensive commentary on al- Buchari (see above) has been discussed in detail. The printed version of these answers goes back to a copy made in Mecca in the late 15th century.
  • inbāʾ al-ghumr bi-abnāʾ al-ʿumr  /إنباء الغمر بأبناء العمر / inbāʾu ʾl-ġumr bi-abnāʾi ʾl-ʿumr  / 'News about famous sons of the epoch' is a political and literary history of Syria and Egypt between 1371 and 1446. The work is incomplete in two volumes.
  • At the request of his students, Ibn Hajar wrote two short treatises ; one is dedicated to the Egyptian scholar al-Laith ibn Saʿd († 791), in which, in addition to a short biography, he describes the scientific position and the best-known hadiths handed down by al-Laith:
  • الرحمة الغيثية بالترجمة الليثيّة / ar-raḥma al-ġayṯiyya bi-t-tarǧama al-layṯiyya

The second treatise deals with the life and work of the school's founder, al-Shāfidī :

  • توالي التأسيس بمعالي ابن ادريس / tawālī at-taʾsīs bi-maʿālī Bni Idrīs

Both works were published in one volume in 1994 in Cairo.

effect

His student, the famous traditionalist and biographer Shams ad-Dīn as-Sachāwī (d. 1497), has presented the life and work of his teacher Ibn Hajar in three volumes: al-Jawāhir wa-ʾd-durar tardschamat shaik al-islām Ibn Hajar  /الجواهر والدرر ترجمة شيخ الإسلام ابن حجر / al-Ǧawāhir wa-ʾd-durar tarǧamat šaiḫi ʾl-islām Bni Ḥaǧar  / 'Precious stones and pearl; the biography of the Sheikh of Islam Ibn Hajar 'summarized.

literature

  • Carl Brockelmann : History of Arabic Literature . Second edition adapted to the supplement volumes. II. 80-84. Brill, Leiden 1949, ISBN 90-04-14624-5 (reprint February 1996)
  • Wilhelm Hoenerbach : Waṯīma's K. ar-Ridda from Ibn Ḥaǧars Iṣāba . A contribution to the history of the apostasy of the Arab tribes after Muḥammad's death. Mainz 1951
  • Jacqueline Sublet: Les Maîtres et les études de deux traditionnistes de l'époce mamelouke . al-Mašyaḫa al-bāsima lil-Qibābī wa-Fāṭima ibn Ḥaǧar al-ʿAsqalānī. In: Bulletin d'Études Orientales 20 (1967), 7-99
  • Heinrich Schützinger: The Kitāb al-Muʿǧam of Abū Bakr al-Ismāʿīlī . Franz Steiner, Wiesbaden 1978. Treatises for the customer of the Orient (AKM), Volume XLIII, 3 ISBN 3-515-02700-9
  • The Encyclopaedia of Islam . New Edition. Brill. Leiden, Vol. 3, p. 776

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. The work has been printed several times. The edition in fourteen volumes that is commonly used today was published in Cairo in 1960.
  2. Printed multiple times. The first edition in twelve volumes was published in Hyderabad in 1325 H and has been reprinted several times.
  3. The currently best print was published in 1997 in Beirut in five volumes
  4. See the reconstruction of the work in: Wilhelm Hoenerbach: Waṯīma's K. ar-Ridda from Ibn Ḥaǧars Iṣāba . A contribution to the history of the apostasy of the Arab tribes after Muḥammad's death. Mainz 1951
  5. See: Heinrich Schützinger, pp. 41–43
  6. ^ Printed in Beirut. Al-Resalah Publishers. 1998
  7. See: Heinrich Schützinger, p. 42. The work was published in three volumes with a name register in 1992 by Dār al-maʿrifa, Beirut
  8. The little book of 64 pages has been in print since 1996 (Beirut).
  9. Printed in Damascus 1994
  10. ^ Printed in Cairo 1969–1971
  11. ^ Fuat Sezgin: History of Arabic literature. Brill, Leiden 1967. Vol. 1, p. 520
  12. Eds. ʿAbdarraḥmān Ḥasan Maḥmūd and Aḥmad ʿAlī Ḥasan. Maktabat al-Ādāb. Cairo
  13. ^ Last printed by Dar Ibn Hazm. Beirut 1999