Shams al-Dīn Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī ibn Aḥmad ibn Ṭūlūn al-Ṣāliḥī al-Dimashḳī al-Ḥanafī (1475 – 9 August 1546) was a
Damascene Damascene may refer to:
* Topics directly associated with the city of Damascus in Syria:
** A native or inhabitant of Damascus
** Damascus Arabic, the local dialect of Damascus
** Damascus steel, developed for swordmaking
** "Damascene moment", the ...
scholar of ''
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 ...
'' (traditions) and ''
fiqh
''Fiqh'' (; ) is the term for Islamic jurisprudence.[Fiqh](_blank)
Encyclopædia Britannica ''Fiqh'' is of ...
'' (jurisprudence) of the
Ḥanafī school. He is best known today for his autobiography and his historical writings, which covers the contemporary
Ottoman conquest of Mamlūk Egypt.
Life
Ibn Ṭūlūn was born in
al-Ṣāliḥiyya, a suburb of Damascus, in 1475. On his father's side, he could trace his ancestry back to a ''
mamlūk'', Khumārwayh ibn Ṭūlūn. His mother, Azdān, was from
Anatolia
Anatolia (), also known as Asia Minor, is a peninsula in West Asia that makes up the majority of the land area of Turkey. It is the westernmost protrusion of Asia and is geographically bounded by the Mediterranean Sea to the south, the Aegean ...
, either a
Turk or a
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...
. She died of
bubonic plague
Bubonic plague is one of three types of Plague (disease), plague caused by the Bacteria, bacterium ''Yersinia pestis''. One to seven days after exposure to the bacteria, flu-like symptoms develop. These symptoms include fever, headaches, and ...
while he was a child.
In 1484, Ibn Ṭūlūn received a scholarship to study ''fiqh'' at the Māridāniyya ''
madrasa
Madrasa (, also , ; Arabic: مدرسة , ), sometimes Romanization of Arabic, romanized as madrasah or madrassa, is the Arabic word for any Educational institution, type of educational institution, secular or religious (of any religion), whet ...
''. He received an ''
ijāza'' (authorization to teach) from
al-Suyūṭī. He spent his life teaching and writing. In old age, he declined the positions of ''
khaṭīb'' of the
Umayyad Mosque
The Umayyad Mosque (; ), also known as the Great Mosque of Damascus, located in the old city of Damascus, the capital of Syria, is one of the largest and oldest mosques in the world. Its religious importance stems from the eschatological reports ...
and Ḥanafī ''
muftī'' of Damascus. He never married and had no children. He died in Damascus on 9 August 1546.
Works
Ibn Ṭūlūn wrote an autobiography, ''al-Fulk al-mashḥūn fī aḥwāl Muḥammad ibn Ṭūlūn'', in which he lists all the scholars he studied with, all the books he ever read and all of his writings. He gives 750 titles to his name, although these range from short pamphlets to long multi-volume works. Less than 100 of his works are preserved. The ''
History of the Arabic Written Tradition'' knows of 75, but the library of
Aḥmad Taymūr in Cairo may have contained 100 uncatalogued manuscripts of Ibn Ṭūlūn. As of 2004, only 25 of his works have been printed.
Notes
Bibliography
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{{Authority control
1475 births
1546 deaths
Writers from Damascus
Syrian autobiographers