Abū Bakr ʿAbdallāh ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿAbdallāh al-Qurashī al-Qayrawānī al-Mālikī ( 1036–1057) was an Ifrīqiyan historian, Mālikī jurist and Ashʿarī theologian and traditionist. He played a major role in spreading Mālikism and Ashʿarism in Ifrīqiya. Al-Mālikī was born in

Kairouan Kairouan (, ), also spelled El Qayrawān or Kairwan ( , ), is the capital of the Kairouan Governorate in Tunisia and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The city was founded by the Umayyads around 670, in the period of Caliph Mu'awiya (reigned 661� ...

. His father, Muḥammad, was trained in '' sharīʿa'' (law) and ''

ḥadīth Hadith is the Arabic word for a 'report' or an 'account f an event and refers to the Islamic oral tradition of anecdotes containing the purported words, actions, and the silent approvals of the Islamic prophet Muhammad or his immediate circle ...

'' (tradition) and wrote a biography of the jurist Abu 'l-Ḥasan al-Qābiṣī. Al-Mālikī studied in Kairouan under Abū Bakr ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān and Muḥammad ibn ʿAbbās al-Anṣārī, who died in 1036. After studying for a time in the

emirate of Sicily The island of SicilyIn Arabic, the island was known as (). was under Islam, Islamic rule from the late ninth to the late eleventh centuries. It became a prosperous and influential commercial power in the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean, with ...

, he taught in Kairouan, where al-Māzarī was one of his students. According al-Dabbāgh, writing over two centuries later, al-Mālikī remained in Kairouan after the Hilālī sack of 1057, when most other scholars decamped to

Mahdia Mahdia ( ') is a Tunisian coastal city with 76,513 inhabitants, south of Monastir, Tunisia, Monastir and southeast of Sousse. Mahdia is a provincial centre north of Sfax. It is important for the associated fish-processing industry, as well as w ...

. He died sometime after this date, perhaps in 1081 or 1097. Only one work by al-Mālikī has survived, ''Riyāḍ al-nufūs'' ("Gardens of the Souls" or "Meadow of Souls"). It is a

biographical dictionary A biographical dictionary is a type of encyclopedic dictionary limited to biographical information. Many attempt to cover the major personalities of a country (with limitations, such as living persons only, in ''Who's Who'', or deceased people o ...

of the Mālikīs of Ifrīqiya. It contains 275 biographies and is a valuable historical source. Later Muslim scholars who used it include al-Qāḍī ʿIyāḍ and al-Ṭurṭūshī. Al-Mālikī was probably inspired to write by the twin devastations of the Hilālī invasion and the

Norman conquest of Sicily The Normans, Norman conquest of southern Italy lasted from 999 to 1194, involving many battles and independent conquerors. In 1130, the territories in southern Italy united as the Kingdom of Sicily, which included the island of Sicily, the sout ...

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Bibliography

* * {{refend People from Kairouan 11th-century deaths 11th-century historians of the medieval Islamic world 11th-century people from Ifriqiya 11th-century Muslim theologians 11th-century jurists 11th-century Arabic-language writers 11th-century biographers Year of birth unknown Year of death unknown