Taj ad-Dīn as-Subkī

Abū Nasr ʿAbd al-Wahhāb ibn ʿAlī ibn ʿAbd al-Kāfī Tādsch ad-Dīn as-Subkī ( Arabic أبو نصر عبد الوهاب بن علي بن عبد الكافي تاج الدين السبكي, DMG Abū Naṣr ʿAbd al-Wahhāb ibn ʿAlī ibn ʿAbd al-Kāfī Tāǧ ad-Dīn as-Subkī ; born in Cairo in 1327 ; died July 4, 1370 in Damascus ) was an Islamic legal scholar of the Shafiite school and follower of Ashʿarite theology, who held the office of Qādī several times in Damascus and wrote a socio-ethical work on the various professions of his time, which is of high cultural-historical value.

Life

Tādsch ad-Dīn as-Subkī came from a well-known family of scholars and received his first lessons in Cairo. In 1338 he moved with his father to Damascus, where he took over the position of senior qadi. Here he studied hadith and Arabic grammar with Jamāl ad-Dīn al-Mizzī and history and tradition in Shams ad-Dīn adh-Dhahabī .

At a young age Tādsch ad-Dīn received professorships at well-known law schools in Damascus. In 1353 he began to represent his father in the office of the Upper Cadis of Damascus. After he had held this office for two years, he was officially transferred to this office in March 1355 at the request of his father. Thus, at the age of 28, he received one of the highest offices in the entire country. He held this post with interruptions until his death.

The interruptions came about because he was accused of various misconduct. In some cases, he was able to refute the allegations made to him later. When he was recalled from his office for the second time in 1361, he exchanged positions with his brother Bahā 'ad-Dīn: the brother took over his judicial office, he himself went to Cairo and took over the position of his brother as a law teacher and preacher at the Ibn- Tulun mosque . In 1362 Tādsch ad-Dīn was reinstated in his old position as Oberkadi of Damascus and also received the position of preacher at the Umayyad Mosque . In January 1368 he experienced the greatest test of his life: on the charge that he had embezzled funds entrusted to him, he was again dismissed from all his offices and this time sentenced to 80 days imprisonment. His offices were passed on to his arch-rival Siraj ad-Dīn al-Bulqīnī. After friends were able to prove his innocence, he was reinstated in his offices.

A year later, however, Syria was struck by a plague epidemic, which killed many residents of the country, including Tādsch ad-Dīn as-Subkī. On Friday, June 28, 1370, he gave his last sermon in the Umayyad Mosque, and fell ill one day later. He passed away the following Tuesday, July 4th, in his country home in Nairab, near Damascus. He was buried in the family grave at the foot of Qāsiyūn Mountain .

Works

Carl Brockelmann provides a list of 24 works by Tādsch ad-Dīn as-Subkī in his History of Arabic Literature . The most famous of these are:

• Ǧamʿ al-ǧawāmiʿ fī l-uṣūl , Compendium on the Usūl al-fiqh
• Manʿ al-mawāniʿ ʿan Ǧamʿ al-ǧawāmiʿ , refutation of 33 objections raised by another scholar against the first-mentioned work.
• Ṭabaqāt aš-Šāfiʿīya al-kubrā , compilation with biographies of the Shafiite scholars, which are arranged according to temporal "layers" ( ṭabaqāt ). The work exists in three reviews, of which the longest ( Ṭabaqāt aš-Šāfiʿīya al-kubrā ) in the modern print version by ʿAbd al-Fattāḥ Muḥammad Ḥulw and Maḥmūd Muḥammad Ṭanāḥī ( digitized version ) comprises ten volumes. The main aim of the work was to show an inseparable connection between the Shafiite school of law and Ashʿarite theology.
• Nūnīya , long Qasīda in praise of Abū l-Hasan al-Ashʿarīs and his teaching, which names the differences between the Ashʿaritic and the Māturiditic teaching in the appendix . It has also been included in the Ṭabaqāt as-Šāfiʿīya al-kubrā .
• Al-Ašbāh wa-n-naẓāʾir , manual on Islamic legal maxims . It was edited in two volumes by ʿĀdil Aḥmad ʿAbd-al-Mauǧūd (Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmı̄ya, Beirut, 1991). Online version
• Muʿīd an-niʿam wa-mubīd an-niqam (" Restorer of benefits and annihilator of punishments"), treatise in which the author treats 112 social classes and professions from caliphs down to beggars, the main question being how the holders of these classes and professions must behave in order to obtain God's good pleasure. The work, which has a high cultural-historical value because of its description of contemporary customs and traditions, was edited by DW Myhrman in 1908. Oskar Rescher created a slightly abbreviated German translation under the title "On the moral duties of the various Islamic population classes", which was published in Istanbul in 1925.

literature

• Edward Badeen: Sunni theology in Ottoman times . Würzburg: Ergon 2008. pp. 10-19.
• Carl Brockelmann : History of Arabic Literature. 3 volumes + 2 supplement volumes Leiden: Brill 1938-1949. Vol. II, pp. 108-110, Suppl-Vol. II, pp. 105-107.
• David W. Myhrman: The restorer of favors and the restrainer of chastisements (= edition of Tāǧ ad-Dīn as-Subkī: Muʿīd an-niʿam wa-mubīd an-niqam with notes and introduction). London: Luzac 1908. Digitized
• J. Schacht, CE Bosworth: Art. "Al-Subkī 9." in The Encyclopaedia of Islam. New Edition Vol. IX, pp. 744b-745b.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ See Schacht / Bosworth 744b-745a.
2. ↑ See Ṭabaqāt aš-Šāfiʿīya al-kubrā Vol. III, pp. 379–383. Digitized