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Murtada al-Zabidi
Title Al-Ḥāfiẓ
Personal
Born1732 (1732)
Died1790 (aged 57–58)
Cairo, Egypt
Religion Islam
Era Early modern period
Denomination Sunni
Jurisprudence Hanafi [1]
Creed Maturidi [2]
Main interest(s) Hadith, Lexicography, Linguist, Philology, Genealogy, History, Theology, Tasawwuf, Geography, Medicine
Notable work(s) Tāj al-ʻĀrūs min Jawāhir al-Qāmūs
OccupationMuslim scholar, Muhaddith, lexicographer
Muslim leader

Al-Murtaḍá al-Husaynī al-Zabīdī ( Arabic: المرتضى الحسيني الزبيدي), or Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad Murtaḍá al-Zabīdī (1732–1790 / 1145–1205 AH), also known as Murtada al-Zabidi, was an Indian Sunni polymath based in Cairo. [3] He was a Hanafi scholar, lexicographer, linguist, a hadith specialist, genealogist, biographer, historian, philologist, mystic and theologian. [4] [5] [6] He was considered one of the leading intellectuals of the 18th century. [7] He was also regarded as the leading hadith scholar of his time. [8] He was the famous student of the prominent and renowned scholar, Shah Waliullah Dehlawi. [9]

Biography

Murtaḍá' was born in 1732 (1145AH) in Bilgram, Hardoi, Uttar Pradesh, India. His family originated from Wasit in Iraq, from where his parents had emigrated to the Hadramawt region in the east of Yemen – where the Husaynī tribe is situated. Murtaḍá earned his nisba 'al-Zabīdī' from Zabīd in the south western coastal plains of Yemen, which was a centre of academic learning where he had spent time studying. He travelled to Hejaz ( Jeddah, Mecca and Madinah) and then settled in Egypt. He was renowned in the Islamic world. Rulers from Hejaz, India, Yemen, Levant, Iraq, Morocco, Turkey, Sudan and Algiers corresponded with him; people sent him presents and gifts from everywhere. He was revered and admired so much that some people in Western Africa believed that their Hajj was incomplete if they did not plan to see Murtađa Zabīdī. He died in Cairo during an epidemic plague in the year 1205AH/1790CE. [10]

Reception

Al-Kattānī states in his book, Fahris al-Fahāris: "Zabīdī was peerless in his time and age. None after Ibn al-Ĥajar al-Ásqalāni and his students can match Az-Zabīdī in terms of his encyclopaedic knowledge of traditions and its associated sciences; nor in fame or list of students." [10]

Zabidi's immense proficiency of diverse sciences and his thriving trade with books as well as with his own writings was described with commendation by one of his Maghribi visitors, Ibn 'Abdal al-Salam al-Nasiri: [11]

"He was master of [Collections of] hadith, tafsir, Arabic Lexigraphy and other diverse sciences, unequalled by any of those scholars whom we met in the East or West [...] You find him continuously buying and copying against payment, borrowing books from remote regions, other books being sent to him as presents. Apart from that he makes gifts and donations. [...] He is a highly prolific author. By Allah (God), he is indeed the Suyuti of his time, like Suyuti himself or Ibn Sahin and Ibn Hajar far beyond ordinary men. (Even) if those came together with him, they would surely admit that superiority is not with the first ones (al-Fadila lam tankin li'l-uwal)."

Works

  • Itḥāf al-sadāh al-muttaqīn bi sharḥ iḥyāʾ ʿulūm al-dīn: A commentary on al-Ghazali's monumental Ihya' Ulum al-Din.
  • Al-Rauḍ al-ǧalī fī ansāb Āl Bā ʻAlawī (الروض الجلي في أنساب آل با علوي) ( Damascus, Dār Kinān li-ṭ-Ṭibāʻa wa an-Našr wa-t-Tauzī, 2010)
  • Al-Ūqyānūs al-basīṭ fī tarjamat al-Qāmūs al-muḥīṭ (الأوقيانوس البسيط في ترجمة القاموس المحيط); ( al-Qāhirah, Maṭbaʻat Būlāq, 1834)

References

  1. ^ Brown, Jonathan (30 September 2007). The Canonization of Al-Bukhārī and Muslim The Formation and Function of the Sunnī Ḥadīth Canon. Brill. p. 237. ISBN  978-90-04-15839-9. The great Indian Hanafi hadith scholar of Cairo, Muhammad Murtada al-Zabidi (d. 1205/ 1791)
  2. ^ Jens Hanssen, Max Weiss (22 December 2016). Arabic Thought Beyond the Liberal Age Towards an Intellectual History of the Nahda. Cambridge University Press. p. 30. ISBN  978-1-107-13633-5. In Gran's account, the Maturidi polymath and hadith scholar, Muhammad Murtada al-Zabidi (1732–91), who arrived in Cairo from South Asia in 1767
  3. ^ Jens Hanssen, Amal N. Ghazal (11 November 2020). The Oxford Handbook of Contemporary Middle-Eastern and North African History. Oxford University Press. p. 47. ISBN  978-0-19-967253-0.
  4. ^ Reichmuth, Stefan (2011). "The World of Murtada Al-Zabidi (1732-91) Life, Networks and Writings". The Arab Studies Journal. 19 (1): 142–146. JSTOR  23265818.
  5. ^ Martin, B. G. (13 February 2003). Muslim Brotherhoods in Nineteenth-Century Africa. Cambridge University Press. p. 48. ISBN  978-0-521-53451-2.
  6. ^ Nelly Hanna, Raouf Abbas (November 2005). Society and Economy in Egypt and the Eastern Mediterranean, 1600-1900 Essays in Honor of André Raymond. American University in Cairo Press. ISBN  978-1-61797-240-9.
  7. ^ Esposito, John L. (27 December 1999). The Oxford History of Islam. Oxford University Press. ISBN  978-0-19-988041-6.
  8. ^ Voll, John O. (December 1994). Islam Continuity and Change in the Modern World, Second Edition. Syracuse University Press. p. 61. ISBN  978-0-8156-2639-8.
  9. ^ Robinson, Francis (2001). The 'Ulama of Farangi Mahall and Islamic Culture in South Asia. C. Hurst. p. 225. ISBN  978-1-85065-475-9.
  10. ^ a b "Imam Sayyid Murtada al-Zabidi". attahawi.com.
  11. ^ Reichmuth, Stefan (2009). The World of Murtada Al-Zabidi (1732-91) Life, Networks and Writings. Gibb Memorial Trust. p. 72. ISBN  978-0-906094-60-0.
  12. ^ Muhanna, Elias (2017). The World in a Book: Al-Nuwayri and the Islamic Encyclopedic Tradition. Princeton University Press. p. 55. ISBN  978-0-691-17556-0.

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