Thursday, March 16, 2023

2023: Ibn Jama'a - Ibn Khalawayh

 


Ibn Jama‘a
Ibn Jama‘a.  Shafi‘i family of the Mameluke period in Syria and Egypt. 


Ibn Jami‘
Ibn Jami‘ (Jumay‘) (d. 1198).  Jewish physician who entered the service of Saladin.  He wrote a compendium of medicine, and a commentary on Ibn Sina (Avicenna).
Jumay' see Ibn Jami‘


Ibn Jazla, Abu ‘Ali Yahya
Ibn Jazla, Abu ‘Ali Yahya (Abu ‘Ali Yahya ibn Jazla)  (Abu ali Yahya ibn Isa Ibn Jazla Al Baghdadi) (Ibn Jazlah) (d. 1100). Arab physician of Baghdad.  Of Christian origin, he embraced Islam and wrote several works, one of which was translated into Latin in 1280 by the Sicilian Jewish physician Faraj ibn Salim (Magister Farachi) under the title Tacuini aegritiudinum.

Abu ali Yahya ibn Isa Ibn Jazla Al Baghdadi, or Ibn Jazlah, Latinized as Buhahylyha Bingezla, was an 11th-century physician of Baghdad and author of an influential treatise on regimen that was translated into Latin in 1280 by the Sicilian Jewish physician Faraj ben Salem.

Ibn Jazla was born of Christian Nestorian parents at Baghdad. He converted to Islam in 1074. He died in 1100 while under the tutelage of Abu `Ali ibn Al-Walid Al-Maghribi.

His Taqwim al-Abdan fi Dadbir al-Insan (dispositio corporum de constittutione hominis, Tacuin agritudinum), as the name implies contains tables in which diseases are arranged like the stars in astronomical tables.

Ibn Jazla also wrote another work, Al-Minhaj fi Al-Adwiah Al-Murakkabah, (Methodology of Compound Drugs), which was translated by Jambolinus and was known in Latin translation as the Cibis et medicines simplicibus.

Late in life he wrote a treatise in praise of Islam and criticizing Christianity and Judaism.

Abu 'Ali Yahya ibn Jazla see Ibn Jazla, Abu ‘Ali Yahya
Abu ali Yahya ibn Isa Ibn Jazla Al Baghdadi see Ibn Jazla, Abu ‘Ali Yahya
Ibn Jazlah see Ibn Jazla, Abu ‘Ali Yahya
Buhahylyha Bingezla see Ibn Jazla, Abu ‘Ali Yahya
Bingezla, Buhahylyha  see Ibn Jazla, Abu ‘Ali Yahya


Ibn Jinni
Ibn Jinni (c. 913-1002).  Arab grammarian.  He founded the science of Arab etymology -- the study of the origin and history of words.

Ibn Jubayr
Ibn Jubayr (Abū al-Ḥusayn Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad ibn Jubayr al-Kinānī) (b. September 1, 1145, Valencia, Emirate of Balansiya [Valencia] — d. November 29, 1217, Alexandria, Egypt).  Andalusian traveller and writer.  His journey to Mecca, executed between 1183 and 1185, brought him to Sardinia, Sicily, Crete, Alexandria, Cairo, Jidda, Mecca, Medina, Kufa, Baghdad, Mosul, Aleppo and Damascus.  A second journey lasted from 1189 to 1191, but of this he left no account.  The Travel-book of the first journey is the first and one of the best of its kind.  It served as a model to many other pilgrims, and many later authors have borrowed from it.  The work has been translated into English, French and Italian.

Ibn Jubayr, in full Abū al-Ḥusayn Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad ibn Jubayr al-Kinānī, was the son of a civil servant. Ibn Jubayr became secretary to the Almohad governor of Granada, but he left that post for his pilgrimage, which was begun in 1183 and ended with his return to Granada in 1185. He wrote a lively account of this journey, Riḥlah.

Rihlah is a valuable source for the history of the time, containing memorable descriptions of his voyages across the Mediterranean in Genoese ships, his unhappy encounters with both Christian and Muslim customs collectors, the Cairo of Saladin, his trip up the Nile to Upper Egypt, and across the Red Sea to Jidda, Mecca, and Medina, and of his return by way of Iraq, Syria, and Sicily. Ibn Jubayr journeyed east twice more without recording his travels. The second trip lasted from 1189 to 1191. The third, begun in 1217, was ended by his death in Egypt.

Ibn Jubayr (b. September 1, 1145 CC, Valencia, Taifa of Valencia (now Province of Valencia, Spain – d. November 29, 1217 CC, Alexandria, Ayyubid dynasty, Egypt), also written Ibn JubairIbn Jobair, and Ibn Djubayr, was an Arab geographer, traveller and poet from al-Andalus.  His travel chronicle describes the pilgrimage he made to Mecca from 1183 to 1185, in the years preceding the Third Crusade. His chronicle describes Saladin's domains in Egypt and the Levant which he passed through on his way to Mecca. Further, on his return journey, he passed through Christian Sicily, which had been recaptured from the Muslims only a century before, and he made several observations on the hybrid polyglot culture that flourished there.

Ibn Jubayr was born in 1145 CC in Valencia, Spain, to an Arab family of the Kinanah tribe. He was a descendant of 'Abd al-Salam ibn Jabayr, who, in 740 CC, had accompanied an army sent by the Caliph of Damascus to put down a Berber uprising in his Spanish provinces. Ibn Jubayr studied in the town of Xativa, where his father worked as a civil servant. He later became secretary to the  Almohad governor of Granada. 

Ibn Jubayr does not explain the reason for his travels. It has been suggested that as secretary for the ruler of Granada in 1182, he was threatened into drinking seven cups of wine. Seized by remorse, the ruler then filled seven cups of gold Dinara, which he gave him. To expiate his godless act, although it had been forced upon him, Ibn Jubayr decided to perform the duty of Hajj to Mecca. Robert Irwin has recently argued that dubious provenance aside, this seems an unlikely explanation, as Hajj was rarely penitential.


He left Granada on February 3, 1183, accompanied by a physician from the city.


Ibn Jubayr left Granada and crossed over the Strait of Gibraltar to Ceuta, then under Muslim rule. He boarded a Genoese ship on February 24, 1183, and set sail for Alexandria. His sea journey took him past the Balearic Islands and then across to the west coast of Sardinia. Offshore, he heard of the fate of 80 Muslim men, women and children who had been abducted from North Africa and were being sold into slavery. Between Sardinia and Sicily, the ship ran into a severe storm. He said of the Italians and Muslims on board who had experience of the sea that "all agreed that they had never in their lives seen such a tempest". After the storm, the ship went on past Sicily and Crete and turned south and crossed over to the North African coast. He arrived in Alexandria on March 26, 1183.


Everywhere that Ibn Jubayr traveled in Egypt, he was full of praise for the new Sunni ruler, Saladin.  For example, he said, "There is no congregational or ordinary mosque, no mausoleum built over a grave, nor hospital, nor theological college, where the bounty of the Sultan does not extend to all who seek shelter or live in them". He pointed out that when the Nile did not flood enough, Saladin remitted the land tax from the farmers. He also said that "such is his (Saladin's) justice, and the safety he has brought to his high-roads that men in his lands can go about their affairs by night and from its darkness apprehend no awe that should deter them". Ibn Jubayr, on the other hand, was very disparaging of the previous Shi'a dynasty of the Fatimids. 


Of Cairo, Ibn Jubayr noted, the colleges and hostels that were erected for students and pious men of other lands by Saladin. In those colleges, students found lodging and tutors to teach them the sciences that they desired as well as also allowances to cover their needs. The care of the sultan also granted them baths, hospitals, and the appointment of doctors, who could even come to visit them at their place of stay who would be answerable for their cure. One of Saladin's other generous acts was that every day, 2000 loaves of bread were distributed to the poor. Also impressing Ibn Jubayr in the city was the number of mosques, estimated at between 8,000 and 12,000, with four or five of them often in the same street.


Upon arrival at Alexandria, Ibn Jubayr was angered by the customs officials who insisted on taking zakat from the pilgrims, regardless of whether or not they were obliged to pay. In the city, he visited the Lighthouse of Alexandria, which was then still standing, and he was amazed by its size and splendor.

One of the greatest wonders that we saw in this city was the lighthouse which Great and Glorious God had erected by the hands of those who were forced to such labor as 'Indeed in that are signs for those who discern' Qur'an 15:75 and as a guide to voyagers, for without it they could not find the true course to Alexandria. It can be seen for more than seventy miles and is of great antiquity. It is most strongly built in all directions and competes with the skies in height. Description of it falls short, the eyes fail to comprehend it, and words are inadequate, so vast is the spectacle.

Ibn Jubayr was also impressed by the free colleges, hostels for foreign students, baths and hospitals in the city. They were paid for by awqaf and taxes on the city's Jews and Christians. He noted that there were between 8,000 and 12,000 mosques in Alexandria. After a stay of eight days, he set off to Cairo. 


Ibn Jubayr reached Cairo three days later. In the city, he visited the cemetery at al-Qarafah, which contained the graves of many important figures in the history of Islam. He noted that under Saladin, the walls of the citadel were being extended by the Mamluks with the object of reinforcing the entire city from any future Siege by Crusaders. Another work that he saw being built was a bridge over the Nile, which would be high enough not to be submerged in the annual flooding of the river. He saw a spacious free hospital, which was divided into three sections: for men, women and the insane. Ibn Jubayr saw the pyramids and the Sphinx, but he was unaware for whom they had been built. He also saw a device that was used to measure the height of the Nile flood.


In Sicily, at the very late stages of his travels (December 1184 to January 1185), Ibn Jubayr recounted other experiences. He commented on the activity of the volcanoes:

At the close of night a red flame appeared, throwing up tongues into the air. It was the celebrated volcano (Stromboli). We were told that a fiery blast of great violence bursts out from air-holes in the two mountains and makes the fire. Often a great stone is cast up and thrown into the air by the force of the blast and prevented thereby from falling and settling at the bottom. This is one of the most remarkable of stories, and it is true.

As for the great mountain in the island, known as the Jabal al-Nar [Mountain of Fire], it also presents a singular feature in that some years a fire pours from it in the manner of the `bursting of the dam'. It passes nothing it does not burn until, coming to the sea, it rides out on its surface and then subsides beneath it. Let us praise the Author of all things for His marvelous creations. There is no God but He.

Also impressing Ibn Jubayr was the city of Palermo, which he described as follows:

It is the metropolis of these islands, combining the benefits of wealth and splendor, and having all that you could wish of beauty, real or apparent, and all the needs of subsistence, mature and fresh. It is an ancient and elegant city, magnificent and gracious, and seductive to look upon. Proudly set between its open spaces and plains filled with gardens, with broad roads and avenues, it dazzles the eyes with its perfection. It is a wonderful place, built in the Cordova style, entirely from cut stone known as kadhan [a soft limestone]. A river splits the town, and four springs gush in its suburbs.... The King roams through the gardens and courts for amusement and pleasure... The Christian women of this city follow the fashion of Muslim women, are fluent of speech, wrap their cloaks about them, and are veiled.


Ibn Jubayr also travelled to Medina, Mecca, Damascus, Mosul, Acre and Baghdad. At Basra, Ibn Jubayr saw how Indian timber was carefully used to make Lateen sail ships. He returned in 1185 by way of Sicily. His path was not without troubles, including a shipwreck. On both occasions, he travelled on Genoese ships.


Frequently quoted is Ibn Jubayr's famous description of Muslims prospering under the Christian Crusaders' Kingdom of Jerusalem: 

We moved from Tibnin - may God destroy it - at daybreak on Monday. Our way lay through continuous farms and ordered settlements, whose inhabitants were all Muslims, living comfortably within the Franks.... They surrender half their crops to the Franks at harvest time, and pay as well a poll-tax of one dinar and five qirat for each person. Other than that they are not interfered with, save for a light tax on the fruit of their trees. The houses and all their effects are left to their full possession. All the coastal cities occupied by the Franks are managed in this fashion, their rural districts, the villages and farms, belong to the Muslims. But their hearts have been seduced, for they observe how unlike them in ease and comfort are their brethren in the Muslim regions under their (Muslim) governors. This is one of the misfortunes afflicting the Muslims. The Muslim community bewails the injustice of the landlord of its own faith, and applauds the conduct of its opponent and enemy, the Frankish landlord, and is accustomed to justice from him.

Ibn Jubayr traveled to the East on two further occasions (1189–1191 and 1217) without leaving an account. He died on November 29, 1217 in Alexandria, during the second trip.

Ibn Jubayr provides a highly-detailed and graphic description of the places he visited during his travels. The book differs from other contemporary accounts in not being a mere collection of toponyms and descriptions of monuments but containing observation of geographical details as well as cultural, religious and political matters. Particularly interesting are his notes about the declining faith of his fellow Muslims in Palermo after the recent Norman conquest and about what he perceived as the Muslim-influenced customs of King William II of Sicily under the Norman-Arab-Byzantine culture.

 

His writing is a foundation of the genre of work called Rihla, or the creative travelogue. It is a mix of personal narrative, description of the areas traveled and personal anecdotes.


Ibn Jubayr's travel chronicle served as a model for later authors, some of whom copied from it without attribution. Ibn Juzayy, who wrote the account of Ibn Battuta's travels in around 1355 CC, copied passages that had been written 170 years earlier by Ibn Jubayr that described Damascus, Mecca, Medina and other places in the Middle East. Passages copied from Ibn Jubayr are also found in the writings of al-Sharishi, al-Abdari and al-Maqrizi. 


A surviving copy of Ibn Jubayr's manuscript is preserved in the collection of the Leiden Universtiy Library. The 210-page manuscript was produced in Mecca in 875 AH (1470 CC) and appears to have been written at high speed: diacritic marks are often missing, words are omitted and there is confusion between certain pairs of letters. The complete Arabic text was first published in 1852 by the orientalist William Wright.  An updated edition was published in 1907 by Michael Jan de Goeje.  A translation into Italian by Celestino Schiaparelli was published in 1906, a translation into English by Ronald Broadhurst was published in 1952, and a translation into French by Maurice Gaudefroy-Demombynes appeared in three volumes between 1949 and 1956.


Abū al-Ḥusayn Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad ibn Jubayr al-Kinānī see Ibn Jubayr
Kinani, Abū al-Ḥusayn Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad ibn Jubayr al- see Ibn Jubayr

Ibn Juljul
Ibn Juljul.  Arab physician from Cordoba.  Among other works, he wrote a history of physicians, probably one of the oldest collections of biographies on this subject in Arabic, and the earliest example of the use of Arabic translations from Latin.


Ibn Kathir, ‘Imad al-Din
Ibn Kathir, ‘Imad al-Din (‘Imad al-Din ibn Kathir) (Ismail ibn Kathir) ('Imad ad-Din Isma'il bin 'Umar bin Kathir al-Qurashi al-Busrawi) (c. 1300/1301-1373). Syrian historian and traditionist.  His history of Islam in fourteen volumes is one of the principal historical works of the Mameluke period.  He also wrote a monumental compilation of hadith, and was interested in jurisprudence.

Ismail ibn Kathir was an Islamic scholar and renowned commentator on the Qur'an.

His full name is 'Imad ad-Din Isma'il bin 'Umar bin Kathir al-Qurashi al-Busrawi. He was born in 1301 in Busra, Syria (hence al-Busrawi). He was taught by Ibn Taymiyya in Damascus, Syria and Abu al-Hajjaj al-Mizzi, (d. 1373), Fiqh with Ibn al-Firkah, Hadith with ‘Isa bin al-Mutim, Ahmed bin Abi-Talib (Ibn ash-Shahnah), Ibn al-Hajjar, the Hadith narrator of ash-Sham (modern day Syria and surrounding areas), Baha ad-Din al-Qasim bin Muzaffar bin ‘Asakir, Ibn ash-Shirazi, Ishaq bin Yahya Al-Ammuddi, aka; Afif ad-Din, the Zahriyyah Shaykh, and Muhammad bin Zarrad.

Upon completion of his studies he obtained his first official appointment in 1341, when he joined an inquisitorial commission formed to determine certain questions of heresy. Thereafter he received various semi-official appointments, culminating in June/July 1366 with a professorial position at the Great Mosque of Damascus.

Ibn Kathir wrote a famous commentary on the Qur'an named Tafsir al-Qur'an al-'Adhim which linked certain Hadith, or sayings of Muhammad, and sayings of the sahaba to verses of the Qur'an. Tafsir Ibn Kathir is famous all over the Muslim world and among Muslims in the Western world, is one of the most widely used explanations of the Qu'ran today.

Ibn Kathir was renowned for his great memory regarding the sayings of Muhammad and the entire Qur'an. Ibn Kathir was also known as a qadi, a master scholar of history, and a mufassir (Qur'an commentator). Ibn Kathir saw himself as a Shafi'i scholar. This is indicated by two of his books, one of which was Tabaqaat ah-Shafai'ah, or The Categories of the Followers of Imam Shafi.

In later life, he became blind. He attributes his blindness to working late at night on the Musnad of Ahmad Ibn Hanbal in an attempt to rearrange it topically rather than by narrator.

Ibn Kathir died in February 1373 in Damascus.

The works of Ibn Kathir include:

    * Tafsir ibn Kathir
    * The Beginning and the End (Arabic: Al Bidayah wa-Nihayah or Tarikh ibn Kathir)
    * Al-Sira Al-Nabawiyya (Ibn Kathir)
    * al-Baa'ith al-Hatheeth: an abridgement of the Muqaddimah by Ibn al-Salah in Hadith terminology
    * Tabaqaat ah-Shafi'iah
    * Talkhis al-Istighatha
    * Signs Before the Day of Judgement
    * Sins and their Punishments
    * Stories of The Prophets (Qasas ul Anbiya)

'Imad al-Din ibn Kathir see Ibn Kathir, ‘Imad al-Din
Ismail ibn Kathir see Ibn Kathir, ‘Imad al-Din
'Imad ad-Din Isma'il bin 'Umar bin Kathir al-Qurashi al-Busrawi see Ibn Kathir, ‘Imad al-Din


Ibn Kaysan
Ibn Kaysan (d. 911).  Arab grammarian of Baghdad.  He was a representative of the so-called eclectic school of Baghdad, refusing to take sides between the conflicting grammatical doctrines of Basra and Kufa.


Ibn Khafaja
Ibn Khafaja (1058-1139).  Andalusian poet.  He is best known as a poet of nature.

Ibn Khafaja(h) or Abu Ishaq Ibn Ibrahim Ibn Abu Al-Fath Ibn Khafajah (1058-1138/9) of Alzira was one of the most famous poets of Al-Andalus during the reign of the Almoravids. He was born in 1058 in Alzira near Valencia where he spent most of his life.

He developed nature poetry to a great level of sophistication. His poetry includes a few panegyrics, e.g. to Yusuf ibn Tashfin whom he praised out of thankfulness that he had saved Al-Andalus from chaos by retaking the region of Valencia from the Spaniards in 1109. During the occupation of the surroundings of Valencia by the Spaniards (ca. 1100) Ibn Khafaja had fled the city to North Africa. He remained umarried but had many friends. At the age of 64 he collected his poems and wrote introductions to them. He lived to be over eighty.

According to Khadra Jayyusi, Khafaja demonstrates, in some of his poems a revolutionary attitude to language, using a vocabulary of great originality, which she describes as "warm and sensuous, obsessed with human intimacy, turbulent and conscious of the violence of life around him in a war-ridden country, awed by nature and eternally mystified both by its beauty and by its permanence vis-avis human mutability."

Ibn Khalawayh
Ibn Khalawayh (d. 980).  Arab grammarian and man of letters.  Like Ibn Kaysan, he was, in grammatical doctrines, an eclectic between the Basrans and the Kufans.  .

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