Al-Sakhawi

Shams ad -Din Muhammad ibn ʿ Abd al- Rahmaan al- Sachāwī (Arabic شمس الدين محمد بن عبد الرحمان السخاوي, Shams ad - Dīn Muḥammad DMG ibn ʿ Abd ar -Rahman as- Saḫāwī ) (* January 1427 in Cairo, † 1 May 1497 in Medina ) was one of the most important hadith scholars, historians and Prosopographen mamlukenzeitlichen in Egypt. Towards the end of the 15th century he emigrated to the Hijaz, where he also died. He is not to be confused with the Egyptian religious scholar ʿ Alam al- Dīn ʿ Alī ibn Muhammad as- Sachāwī (d. 1245 ), which has the same Nisba like him.

Life

Shams ad -Din as- Sachāwī belonged to a famous family of scholars from the city Sacha in the Nile Delta, which was two generations earlier emigrated to Cairo, and first visited several Islamic schools. 1433 he joined the well-known hadith scholar Ibn Hajar al - ʿ Asqalani and developed under his leadership in the following years championship in the hadith sciences. According to Ibn Hadschars death in 1449 as- Sachāwī made ​​several trips, so to Damietta (1450 ), the pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina ( 1452 ) and Syria ( 1455 ). From the beginning of his training at Ibn Hajar until his return from Syria heard as- Sachāwī, as he himself writes in his autobiography, traditions in more than 1,200 local sheikhs, tradition Aryans and poets to eighty different locations. Besides hadith science he studied fiqh, usul al - fiqh, Arabic grammar and Sufi teachings.

As- Sachāwīs hopes of a scholarly career have long been disappointed. His attempts to get hold of a chair at one of the Kairinier universities, were initially unsuccessful. 1446 he asked his tutor Ibn Hajar, to convey him to a vacant chair at the Mu ʾ aiyadīya, but he was informed that he had for the wrong qualification, because the chair in question was intended for fiqh. The second attempt he undertook in 1451, when he wrote for Sultan Dschaqmaq a book to draw in this way his attention, but did not respond to the Sultan. On the recommendation of the Islamic jurist Kamāl ad - Dīn Ibn al - Humam (d. 1469 ), he got while in May 1451 an audience with the Sultan, but this gave him no chair, but was limited to a financial donation. To 1465, he received at least a position as deputy professor of Hadith Studies at the of Baybars I. donated Zāhirīya - school, but it seems this office to have had only nominal character, because already in 1466 he went for a year to Mecca in order to worship exercises to dedicate.

A new disappointment experienced as- Sachāwī, as the Chair of hadith studies, he was appointed to the endowed by al -Malik al - Kāmil Kāmilīya School 1469. As the sons of the former incumbent Kamāl Ibn al - Imām Kāmilīya fought him vehemently, he had to leave again soon this post. Although he was appointed in 1475 to the chair of Hadith Studies at the School of Amīr Sarghitmisch, but this position did not satisfy him, apparently permanently, because already in 1480 he went back to the Hijaz, where he spent the next three years. In 1487 he moved his center of life permanently in the Hijaz. His professional disappointments in Egypt, discontent with the political situation in his home country as well as his friendship with eminent scholars in Mecca, in particular to Najm ad -Din Ibn Fahd al - Makki, the main reasons for this step seems to have been. Although he came again in 1489 for a year on a visit to Cairo, but he remained the rest of his life in the Hijaz. In August 1496 he moved from Mecca to Medina on. He died there in May 1497 and was buried in the cemetery Baqi al - ʿ Gharqad.

Works

In his autobiography, which he wrote shortly before his death, mentioned as- Sachāwī total of 199 texts drawn from it works. Special mention deserve the following works:

• Ad Dau ʾ al - Lami ʿ fī a ʿ yan al - ʿ qarn at- Tasi, a comprehensive biographical dictionary of men and women of the 9th century of the Hegira, which corresponds approximately to the 15th century of the Christian era. In it, he portrays his contemporaries sometimes with great viciousness. The work was published in twelve volumes 1934-1936.
• Al -I ʿ Lân bi- taubīḫ li -man damma ahl at- ta ʾ Rih, a defense of history against accusations of their critics. The work was translated into English by Franz Rosenthal.
• Waǧīh al - Kalam al - Islām Dail Duwal, continuation of the historical work of al-Dhahabi for the years 1344-1493. The work is the subject of the thesis of A. A. Hasso.
• Al - qaul al - munbi ʾ ʿ Ibn ʿ Arabī to tarǧamat, a refutation of the views of the Andalusian Sufi Ibn ʿ Muhyi d- Dīn Arabī. A manuscript of the work is located in the Berlin State Library and is available there online as full text is available.
• Al - Ǧawāhir wa -d - durar tarǧamat Shaykh al -Islam Ibn Ḥaǧar, three -volume biography of his teacher Ibn Hajar al - ʿ Asqalani.
• Iršād al - GAWI, bal is ʿ Ad aṭ - Talib wa -r -Rawi li - l -i ʿ lām bi- tarǧamat as- Saḫāwī, his autobiography. A manuscript of this work is in the Leiden University Library.