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'Abd al-Qadir ibn 'Umar al-Baghdadi (; 1030–1093 AH / 1620–1682 AD) was a writer, philologist, grammarian, magistrate, bibliophile and a leading literary encyclopedist of the Ottoman era.


Life

He was born in Baghdad in 1030 AH (1630 AD), where he received his early education, excelling in science and literature, and mastering Arabic, Persian and Turkish. He travelled from Baghdad to
Damascus Damascus ( , ; ) is the capital and List of largest cities in the Levant region by population, largest city of Syria. It is the oldest capital in the world and, according to some, the fourth Holiest sites in Islam, holiest city in Islam. Kno ...
in 1048 AH/1638 AD and contacted the head of the student supervisors, who became his first professor in Damascus. He then joined the circle of Muḥammad bin Yaḥyā al-Furthi to study Arabic science. In 1050 AH/1640 AD, he went to Egypt to join a group of scholars of the
Al-Azhar Mosque Al-Azhar Mosque (), known in Egypt simply as al-Azhar, is a mosque in Cairo, Egypt in the historic Islamic core of the city. Commissioned as the new capital of the Fatimid Caliphate in 970, it was the first mosque established in a city that ...
. His most prominent professors were Yassin Al-Homsi and
Shahab ad-dīn Al-Khafaji Shahab () may refer to: *Shahab District, a district in Qeshm County, Hormozgan Province, Iran *Mayakovski, Armenia, a town in the shahabina the latina valentina ** Shahab-1 ** Shahab-2 ** Shahab-3 ** Shahab-4 ** Shahab-5 ** Shahab-6 Shahab-6 (, ...
, author of ''Rīhāna Al-Albā'' () and ''Shefa Al-Ghalīl'' (). Al-Khafaji recognised the cultural significance of al-Baghdadi's literary work and bequeathed him his library after his death. In 1077 AH/1667 AD, Abd al-Qadir left Egypt to visit the Ottoman capital in
Istanbul Istanbul is the List of largest cities and towns in Turkey, largest city in Turkey, constituting the country's economic, cultural, and historical heart. With Demographics of Istanbul, a population over , it is home to 18% of the Demographics ...
, but soon returned. He was a close companion of the governor Ibrāhīm Kutkhda. When the governor removed to the Levant in 1085 AH/1674 AD, and then to Edirne, he took Abd al-Qadir with him. In Edirne, Abd al-Qadir met Ibn Fadlallāh al-Mahabī, author of the ''Khlāsat al-'Athr'' () – 'Concise Traditions of the Eminent of the 11th-century' – who was a friend of his father's. In
Edirne Edirne (; ), historically known as Orestias, Adrianople, is a city in Turkey, in the northwestern part of the Edirne Province, province of Edirne in Eastern Thrace. Situated from the Greek and from the Bulgarian borders, Edirne was the second c ...
(
Turkey Turkey, officially the Republic of Türkiye, is a country mainly located in Anatolia in West Asia, with a relatively small part called East Thrace in Southeast Europe. It borders the Black Sea to the north; Georgia (country), Georgia, Armen ...
), Abd al-Qadir contracted an untreatable illness. He travelled in some Turkish countries before returning to Cairo where he died in 1093 AH/ 1682 AD The great reformist sultan Ahmed Pasha Köprülü brought Abd al-Qadir into his employ with a commission to surpass ibn Hishām al-Anṣarī’s «Commentary», by writing the definitive commentary on the ancient poem ''Bānat Su'ad'' by Kaʿb ibn Zuhayr. Meanwhile, Abd al-Qadir al-Baghdādī came to the notice of the Ottoman Sultan Muḥammad ibn Sultan Ibrāhīm, the reputated "Sultan of Literature". Al-Baghdadi left many works of translation, mostly of the pre-Islamic writers and poets.


Legacy

Abd al-Qadir al-Baghdadi's library with its philological and literary collections, is one of the most important libraries of the Ottoman era. His methodology of transmission takes the classical form, known as isnād, as a way of explaining and controlling his narration by citing an unbroken chain of witness testimony. In the accounts of some of the famous poets he mentions not just the witness, but also the 'house', i.e. the genealogy, and the preceding and succeeding verses on which the meaning depends, or in the case of rare poems, he quotes the entire poem, cites its witness and explains the strange and the background of its origin. Thus, he preserved material important to interpretation of the ancient Arabic poetry within its cultural context. Abd al-Qadir contributed to the conservation of the prose traditions of the Arabs, together with the scientific-literary corpus held within. He memorized the al-dawawin (collected poems) of
Maqamat Badi' az-Zaman al-Hamadhani ''Maqamat Badi' al-Zaman al-Hamadhani'' (Arabic: مقامات بديع الزمان الهمذاني), are an Arabic collection of stories from the 9th century, written by Badi' al-Zaman al-Hamadani. Of the 400 episodic stories, roughly 52 have su ...
and
Maqama The ''maqāma'' (Arabic: مقامة aˈqaːma literally "assembly"; plural ''maqāmāt'', مقامات aqaːˈmaːt is an (originally) Arabic prosimetric literary genre of picaresque short stories originating in the tenth century C.E.Qian, ...
of Al-Hariri and the histories of the Arabs, the Persians and the Turks. His writings express a liberal mind, keen awareness and deep knowledge, while they record his critical approach to received dogma. Critics called him the best scholar and preserver of the literary canon of the Arabs, their systems and prose, narrators of facts and wars and days, and the headquarters of Hariri, the Arab authors, language and poetry contained in the wonderful stories fixed in the transfer and increased in credit through his analytical criticism.


Works

* ''
Khizānat al-adab wa-lubb lubab lisān al-ʻArab 'Abd al-Qadir ibn 'Umar al-Baghdadi (; 1030–1093 AH / 1620–1682 AD) was a writer, philologist, grammarian, magistrate, bibliophile and a leading literary encyclopedist of the Ottoman era. Life He was born in Baghdad in 1030 AH (1630 AD), w ...
'' () 'Library of literature and door of the heart of the Arab language'; encyclopaedia on Arabic sciences and literature (13 vols.). * ''Sharah Shawāhid ar-Raḍī ‘alā ash-Shafīa'' () – ‘Analysis on the Evidence of Healing.’ * ''Al-Hashiat alā Sharah Bānat Su’ad lī Ibn Hisham'' () – Footnote to Commentary on Bānat Su’ad by Ibn Hisham.’ (Manuscript) * ''Sharah ash-Shahdī al-Jama’ bayn al-Fārisī wa’l-Turkī'' () – ‘Commentary View Between the Persian and Turkish.’ * ''Sharah shawahid Sharah at-Tuhfat al-Wardia'' () ‘- ‘Commentary on View of Commentary of the Rose Masterpiece.’ * ''Risālat fī Manā at-Talmīdh'' () – ‘Letter on the Meaning of Study.’


Non-Arabic Works

*Shahnamah (in Turkish) *Explanation of the masterpiece of the witness (in Turkish)


Sources


shamela.ws.Abd al-Qadir al-Baghdādī (Arabic)www.adab.com.Abd al-Qadir al-Baghdādī (Arabic)


See also

*
List of Arab scientists and scholars Arab scientists and scholars from the Muslim World, including Al-Andalus (Spain), who lived from antiquity up until the beginning of the modern age, include the following. The list consists primarily of scholars during the Middle Ages. Both th ...
*
Encyclopædia Britannica Online An encyclopedia is a reference work or compendium providing summaries of knowledge, either general or special, in a particular field or discipline. Encyclopedias are divided into articles or entries that are arranged alphabetically by artic ...


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Abd al-Qadir al-Baghdadi 1620 births 1682 deaths 17th-century philologists 17th-century writers from the Ottoman Empire Bibliophiles Encyclopedists from the Ottoman Empire People from Baghdad 17th-century linguists