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Abū l-Qāsim ʿAlī ibn al-Ḥasan ibn Hibat Allāh Ibn ʿAsākir Date of Birth: 13 September 1105 Place of Birth: Damascus Date of Death: 25 January 1176 Place of Death: Damascus Biography Abū l-Qāsim ʿAlī ibn al-Ḥasan Ibn ʿAsākir is the most notable figure of the Sunnī ʿAsākir family, whose members occupied prestigious scholarly positions in Damascus for more than two centuries (11th-13th centuries). Ibn ʿAsākir was born in 1105. He started his pursuit of religious education at a very young age, accompanying his father and elder brother to the teaching circles …

Usāma ibn Murshid ibn ‘Alī Date of Birth: 1095 Place of Birth: Shayzar Date of Death: 16 November 1188 Place of Death: Damascus Biography Usāma is the best known of the Banū Munqidh clan of Shayzar. He lived in the town from his birth until 1131, when he joined the ruler Zangī at Aleppo and, due to a family dispute over the succession, returned only once, the occasion of his father’s death and also the siege of the town by the Byzantine Emperor John Comnenus in 1138. After leaving Shayzar for the last time, he eschewed…

Abū l-Ḥasan ʿAlī ibn Ṭāhir ibn Jaʿfar ibn ʿAbdallāh al-Qaysī al-Sulamī al-Naḥwī Date of Birth: 1039 or 1040 Place of Birth: Unknown Date of Death: 19 November 1106 Place of Death: Unknown Biography Al-Sulamī is an obscure figure, and what little we know about him comes from only four short entries in biographical dictionaries. He was a teacher of grammar in the Great Umayyad Mosque in Damascus, where he had a ḥalqa (circle of students), upon whom he endowed his collection of books. However, al-Sulamī was not merely a teacher of grammar; he also took an interest in …

Al-Jūzajānī Date of Birth: Unknown, probably early 9th c. Place of Birth: Khurāsān Date of Death: 870 or 873 Place of Death: Damascus Biography Al-Jūzajānī was originally from Khurāsān and traveled widely in the Muslim world before settling in Damascus. He is primarily known as a scholar and transmitter of ḥadīth, from Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal among others. Some of his works and the traditions he cited in them are known through ḥadīth collectors of subsequent generations and also through the works of Muḥammad ibn Jarīr al-Ṭabarī, who used al-Jūzajānī as a source. Al-Ṭabarī…

Al-Jāḥiẓ Date of Birth: c. 776 Place of Birth: Basra Date of Death: 869 Place of Death: Basra Biography Al-Jāḥiẓ was born and brought up in Basra, and there learnt the Arabic language and literary skills for which he became celebrated. In kalām he was a student of Ibrāhīm al-Naẓẓām, though he did not always agree with his master’s views. Even while still a student in the early 800s, al-Jāḥiẓ wrote works that brought him to the attention of the Caliph al-Maʾmūn. He spent long periods in Baghdad and Samarra, though he always returned to his home town. He made a living by his li…

Ta’rīkh DimashqTa’rīkhHistory of Damascus Ibn ʿAsākir Date: Between 1134 and 1176 Original Language: Arabic Description The parts of Ibn ʿAsākir’s Taʾrīkh that are relevant to Christian-Muslim relations are the following entries: ʿIsā ibn Maryam (Jesus), xlvii, pp. 347-524 (also edited by Mourad, Sīrat al-Sayyid al-Masīḥ); Yaḥyā ibn Zakariyya (John the Baptist), lxiv, pp. 168-218; Ḥawāriyyūn ʿIsā ibn Maryam (Disciples of Jesus), lxviii, pp. 55-71; and Maryam bint ʿImrān (Mary), lxx, pp. 75-122. In these entries one comes across the variety of Muslim opinions about t…

Chapters Al-Ashʿarī Date: Unknown, probably between about 900 and 932 Original Language: Arabic Description The work has not survived. Ibn ʿAsākir ( Tabyīn, p. 128, McCarthy, Theology, pp. 211-12) describes its contents as follows: ‘A refutation of the atheists and those who are outside the religion of Islam, such as the philosophers, the naturalists, the materialists, the assimilators and those who teach about the eternity of destiny, according to the differences of their views and the varieties of their positions; then…

An explanation of the doctrine of the Christians Al-Ashʿarī Date: Unknown, between 932 and 935 Original Language: Arabic Description The work is lost, and its original title is unknown. All that is known is this brief description of it in a list of al-Ashʿarī’s late works by Ibn Fūrak, which Ibn ʿAsākir incorporated into his list ( Tabyīn, p. 135; McCarthy, Theology, p. 227, no. 84). As the reference indicates, it set out what were in all likelihood the main Christian teachings of the Trinity and Incarnation, possibly going into details about the differen…

A book containing arguments against the Christians from what can be brought against them from all the books they acknowledge Al-Ashʿarī Date: Unknown, between 932 and 935 Original Language: Arabic Description Since this description appears in Ibn Fūrak’s additions to al-Ashʿarī’s own list, which Ibn ʿAsākir incorporated into his ( Tabyīn, p. 135, McCarthy, Theology, p. 227, no. 86), the work can be dated to the last few years of al-Ashʿarī’s life. It appears to have focused expressly on Christian scripture, rather than doctrines, and al-Ashʿarī mus…

Abū Bakr Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī ibn Ismāʿīl al-Qaffāl al-Kabīr al-Shāshī Date of Birth: 903-4 Place of Birth: Tashkent (Shāsh) Date of Death: August 976 Place of Death: Tashkent Biography Abū Bakr al-Qaffāl was regarded as one of the leading exponents of Shāfiʿī jurisprudence of his day, and was known for his erudition in a range of scholarly disciplines. He travelled widely from his native Shāsh in search of knowledge, and as a young man he was a student of the great historian al-Ṭabarī (d. 923) (q.v.). After abandoning Muʿtazi…

Abū l-Ḥasan ʿAlī ibn Ismāʿīl ibn Isḥāq al-Ashʿarī Date of Birth: 873 Place of Birth: Basra Date of Death: 935 Place of Death: Baghdad Biography Al-Ashʿarī was a descendant of the leading Companion of the Prophet, Abū Mūsā l-Ashʿarī. Born in Basra, he became a student of Abū ʿAlī l-Jubbāʾī (q.v.), the leader of the Basra Muʿtazila in the later 9th century, and followed his teacher’s intellectual lead throughout his early life. But then, at the age of about 40 according to the accounts, he had a decisive change of heart; he turned against Muʿtazilī princip…

Abū l-Maʿālī ʿAbd al-Malik ibn ʿAbdallāh ibn Yūsuf al-Juwāynī, Imām al-Ḥaramayn Date of Birth: 17 February 1028 Place of Birth: Bushtanikān near Nīshāpūr Date of Death: 20 August 1085 Place of Death: Bushtanikān Biography Al-Juwaynī studied under his own father, and when the latter died in 1046-47 he took his place as teacher. But he was forced to leave Nīshāpūr after a few years to escape the Seljuk vizier’s hostility towards Shāfiʿīs and Ashʿarīs. For 15 years between about 1048 and 1063 he moved from place to place, including…

Fundamentals of the proofs for the principles of religion Abū l-Qāsim al-Balkhī Date: Unknown; before 931 Original Language: Arabic Description The Awāʾil al-adilla appears to have been a compendium of Muslim doctrines according to Muʿtazilī principles, and it was evidently a significant work. It attracted refutations from al-Ashʿarī (q.v.), al-Māturīdī (q.v.), Ibn Fūrak, and others, while the historian Abū Naṣr al-Muṭahhar ibn Ṭāhir (or al-Muṭahhar) al-Maqdisī (q.v.) praises its argument for the existence of a Creator ( Kitāb al-badʾ wa-l-taʾrīkh, 6 parts in 2 vols, Cairo…

Abū Bakr Muḥammad ibn al-Ṭayyib ibn Muḥammad ibn al-Bāqillānī Date of Birth: Unknown, about 941-42 Place of Birth: Basra Date of Death: 5 June 1013 Place of Death: Baghdad Biography Although the date of al-Bāqillānī’s birth is not known, from details of his later life it is possible to say that he was probably born just after 940 (Allard, Le problème des attributs divins, p. 291). He studied under scholars who had been students of al-Ashʿarī (q.v.), and the intellectual promise he showed brought him to the attention of the Būyid amīr ʿAḍud al-Dawla, who att…

The letter of the Byzantine emperor to al-Muṭīʿ Representative of Nicephorus Phocas Date: 966 Original Language: Arabic Description According to the Vienna manuscript, the poem comprises 54 verses written in ṭawīl meter (in al-Subkī, Ṭabaqāt, it is 49 verses, and in Ibn Kathīr, who says he takes it from Ibn ʿAsākir, quoting it from the 10th century historian al-Farghānī’s lost Kitāb ṣilat al-ṣila, it is 70 verses). After a brief introduction (vv. 1-2), it details the Byzantine conquests of Muslim towns in the mid-10th century up to Nicopherus’ most recent in the year 966 (vv. …

‘The history of humankind’ Al-Maqrīzī Date: Started shortly after 1433, completed in 1442 Original Language: Arabic Description Al-khabar ʿan al-bashar is the last major work al-Maqrīzī compiled. He devoted the last years of his life to it after he had completed another major work, his biography of the Prophet ( Imtāʿ al-asmā ʿ). Conceived as an introduction ( madkhal) to this latter work, Al-khabar consists of a history of mankind. It starts with the creation of the world, a geographical account of the earth divided into seven zones, and remarks about chro…

Kitāb jumal al-maqālātThe doctrines of non-MuslimsCompendium of doctrines Al-Ashʿarī Date: Unknown, probably between 900 and 932 Original Language: Arabic Description This work has disappeared almost without trace. It is known through references by Ibn Taymiyya ( Minhāj al-sunna l-nabawiyya, ed. M.R. Sālim, 9 vols, s.l., 1986, v, p. 283, and Kitāb al-radd ʿalā al-manṭiqiyyīn, ed. S. al-Nadwī, Bombay, 1949, p. 334), who says that it was much larger than al-Ashʿarī’s extensive Maqālāt al-Islāmiyyīn. The title does not appear in this form in Ibn ʿAsākir’s list of al-A…

‘The selected saying concerning the prohibition on preferring infidels’, ‘The selected saying’ Al-qawl al-mukhtār fī l-manʿ ʿan takhyīr al-kuffār Date: Uncertain; 14th century, possibly before 1341 Original Language: Arabic Description Al-qawl al-mukhtār has scarcely been studied in either the Islamic or Western scholarly traditions; this description and the details it contains are thus provisional. At 76 lithographed manuscript pages of approximately 27 lines per page, it is a substantial work. Its topical coverage extends t…

Shurūṭ ʿUmarʿAhd ʿUmar, ʿAqd ʿUmarThe Pact of ʿUmarThe Conditions of ʿUmar Unknown author Date: 8th to beginning of 9th c. Original Language: Arabic Description The Pact of ʿUmar is the name given to the canonical text that defines the status of non-Muslims under Muslim rule and the restrictions imposed upon them. The name does not refer to various other documents which attempt to do the same but have not been canonized such as, for example, the document adduced by al-Shāfiʿī ( Kitāb al-umm, 4 vols, Cairo, 1968, iv, pp. 118-19, trans. B. Lewis, Islam, from the prophet Muhammad to the cap…

An account of the burning of the Cathedral of Our Lady St Mary in Damascus, the destruction of other churches, the expulsion of priests robbed of their vestments [lit. ‘naked’], the plunder of church property, and the terrible calamities that befell all the Christians of Damascus, Destruction of the Cathedral of Our Lady Mart Maryam in Damascus Unknown author Date: Unknown (probably before 1300; see discussion below) Original Language: Arabic Description The anonymous text Destruction of the Cathedral of Our Lady Mart Maryam in Damascus occupies three folios in the only survivi…