Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dsjbd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-24T18:32:53.973Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Scattered Pearls: Exploring al-Suyī's Hermeneutics and Use of Sources in al-Durr al-manthūr fī’l-tafsīr bi’l-maʾthūr1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 February 2014

S. R. BURGE
S. R. BURGE*
Affiliation:
Institute of Ismaili Studies, London, [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abrstract

Jalāl al-Dīn al-Suyī's al-Durr al-manthūr fī’l-tafsīr bi’l-maʾthūr is almost unique in presenting an exegesis based entirely on adīth material, taking tafsīr bi’l-maʾthūr to the extreme. Since al-Suyī cites a source, or multiple sources, for every single adīth that he includes in his collection, it is possible to gain some insight into his compositional method and the way in which he engages with source material. This article presents a statistical analysis of the sources in this exegesis, taking a sample of twenty-three sūras, including over 5,000 aādīth. The source data is analysed and shows that there is a discernible pattern in al-Suyī's use of sources and that there is much to learn from studying this source data in detail. Al-Suyī's hermeneutical method is closely aligned with those of Ibn Taymiyya and Ibn Kathīr, and this article will also examine the extent to which al-Durr al-manthūr can be viewed as the culmination of Ibn Taymmiyya's approach to tafsīr.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society , Volume 24 , Issue 2 , April 2014 , pp. 251 - 296
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 2014 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

1

I would thank those at the Third World Congress of Middle Eastern Studies, Barcelona, July 2010, who commented on my paper, where the data in this article were first presented, and the helpful comments provided by the anonymous reviewers.

References

2 Saleh, Walid A., The Formation of the Classical Tafsīr Tradition: The Qurʾān Commentary of al-Thaʿlabī (d. 427/1035) (Leiden, 2004), pp. 67–76 Google Scholar.

3 See Gilliot, Claude, “Kontinuität und Wandel in der „klassischsen‟ islamischen Koranauslegung (II./VII. – XII/XIX Jh.),” Der Islam, LXXXV (2009), pp. 1–155 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4 See Saleh, Walid A., In Defense of the Bible: A Critical Edition and an Introduction to al-Biqāʿī's Bible Treatise (Leiden, 2008)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5 Fakhr al-Dīn Mu ammad b. ʿUmar al-Rāzī, Mafātī al-ghayb aw al-Tafsīr al-kabīr (Tehran, n.d.).

6 Another example is al-Thaʿlabī, who wishes to counter any potential criticism for his exegesis: through “the marshalling of these titles [in the Introduction], al-Thaʿlabī adopts, or wants to appear to adopt, a traditionalist hermenutiucal approach to the Qurʾān”. Saleh, The Formation of the Classical Tafsīr Tradition, pp. 68–69.

7 For a biography of al-Suy ī, see E. M. Sartain, Jalāl al-Dīn al-Suy ī: Biography and Background (Cambridge, 1975) and Marlis J. Saleh, “Al-Suy ī and His Works: Their Place in Islamic Scholarship from Mamluk Times to the Present”, Mamlūk Studies Review, V (2001), pp. 73–89.

8 Al-Suy ī, al-Durr al-manthūr fī‘l-tafsīr bi-‘l-ma’thūr (Beirut, n.d.).

9 I have only recently been made aware of Shabir Aly's excellent thesis on al-Durr al-manthūr, which covers some similar ground to this article, but no direct statistical analysis of the data, as seen here. See Shabir Aly, ‘The Culmination of Tradition-based Tafsīr: The Qur’an Exegesis al-Durr al-manthūr of al-Suyūṭī (d. 911/1505)’. Unpublished PhD Thesis, University of Toronto, 2012.

10 E.g. al-Suy ī, [Kitāb] al-Itqān fī ʿulûm al-Qurʾān (Cairo, n.d.); idem, Lubāb al-nuqūl fī asbāb al-nuzūl (Tunis, 1981).

11 Saleh, Walid A., “Ibn Taymiyya and the Rise of Radical Hermeneutics: An Analysis of An Introduction to the Foundation of Qurʾānic Exegesis ,” in Rapoport, Yossef and Ahmed, Shahab (eds), Ibn Taymiyya and his Times (Oxford, 2010), pp. 123–162 Google Scholar.

12 Ismāʿīl b. ʿUmar b. Kathīr (ed. ʿAlī Mu ammad Bajāwī), Tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-ʿa īm (Cairo, 1978).

13 K. E. Nolin, The Itqān and its Sources: A Study of al-Itqān fī ʿulūm al-Qurʾān by Jalāl al-Dīn al-Suy ī with Special Reference to Al-Burhān fī ʿulūm al-Qurʾān by Badr al-Dīn al-Zarkashī, Unpublished PhD. Dissertation, Hartford Seminary Foundation, 1968.

14 al-Zarkashī, [Kitāb] al-Burhān fī ʿulūm al-Qurʾān (Beirut, 1957).

15 Nolin, The Itqān and its Sources, pp. 25–31.

16 Claude Gilliot has raised concerns with some of Nolin's conclusions, however, the general principles (albeit perhaps not all of the precise details) provide an important foundation to gaining an understanding of how al-Suy ī utilised sources; see EQ, sv. “Traditional Disciplies of Qurʾānic Studies” (C. Gilliot).

17 Anton Heinen goes the furthest in considering al-Suy ī's sources, see Anton M. Heinen (ed. and tr.), Islamic Cosmology: A Study of as-Suy ī al-Hayʾa as-san a l-hayʾa as-sunn a, with Critical Edition, Translation, and Commentary (Beirut and Wiesbaden, 1982).

18 E.g. Krawulsky, Dorothea, Eine Einführung in die Koranwissenschaften: ʿUlūm al-Qurʾān (Bern, 2006)Google Scholar and McAuliffe, Jane Dammen, “Exegetical Sciences”, in The Blackwell Companion to the Qurʾān, (ed.) Andrew Rippin (Oxford, 2006), pp. 403–419 Google Scholar. Al-Suy ī's K. al-Itqān is also used exstensively in Wansbrough, John, Quranic Studies: Methods and Theories of Scriptural Interpretation (Repr. Amherst, 2004)Google Scholar.

19 E.g. Yusūf al-Sabāʿī (ed.), Jalāl al-Dīn al-Suy ī: B ūth al-qīt fī’l-nadwa allatī aqamuhā al-majlis al-aʿlā li-riʿāyat al-fanūn wa’l-ādāb wa’l-ʿulūm al-ijtimāʿiyya bi’l-ishtirāk maʿa al-Jamīʿa al-Mi riyya li’l-dirāsāt al-tārīkhiyya 6–10 Mārs 1976 (Cairo, 1978); M mūd Shalabī, ayat al-Imām Jalāl al-Dīn al-Suy ī (Beirut, 1998); M.J.A. Sharaf, Jalāl al-Dīn al-Suy ī: man ajuhu wa-ārāʿuhu al-kalāmiyya (Beirut, 1981); Q.S. Dandarāwī, Adab al-Suy ī: Dirāsa naqdiyya, (Cairo, 1994); asan mad Jaghām, al-Jins fī aʿmāl al-Imām al-Suy ī, (Sūsa, 2001); and ʿAdnān M ammad Salmān, al-Suy ī al-N wī (Baghdad, 1976).

20 The work is no longer extant in its entirety, but a reconstructed text has been attempted, see Ibn al-Mundhir (ed. ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿAbd al-M sin al-Turkī and Saʿd b. M ammad Saʿd), Kitāb Tafsīr al-Qurʾān (Medina, Dār al-Maʾāthīr, 2002).

21 Ibn Abī ātim (ed. mad Fat ī ʿAbd al-R mān al- ijāzī), Tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-ʿA īm (Beirut, Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 2006).

22 al-ʿAyyāshī, Kitāb al-Tafsīr (Qom, Chāpkhāna-yi ʿIlmiyya, 1961–1962); see also Bar-Asher, Meir M., Scripture and Exegesis in Early Imāmī Shīʿism (Leiden, 1999), pp. 56–63 Google Scholar; as a Shīʿī source al-ʿAyyāshī also includes the statements of the Imams.

23 See Saleh, Walid A., “Review: Hussein Abdul-Raof, Schools of Qurʾānic Exegesis: Genesis and Development ,” Journal of Islamic Studies, XXII (2011)Google Scholar, first published online July 8, 2011.

24 Ibn Taymiyya (ed. ʿAdnan Zarzūr), Muqaddima fī ūl al-tafsīr (Kuwait, Dār al-Qurʾān al-Karīm, 1971); some of the work has been translated by McAuliffe, Jane Dammen, “Ibn Taymiya: Treatise on the Priciples of Tafsir,” in Renard, John (ed.), Windows on the House of Islam: Muslim Sources on Spirituality and Religious Life (Berkeley, 1998) pp. 35–43 Google Scholar.

25 For discussions on the importance of the placement of ādīth in a collection, see S. R. Burge, “Reading between the Lines: The Compilation of adīṯ and the Authorial Voice”, Arabica, LVIII, 2011, pp. 168–197.

26 E.g. al-Bukhārī, ī (Riyadh, 1419/1998), K. 65 (K. Tafsīr al-Qurʾān), pp. 845–990.

27 R. Marston Speight, “The Function of adīth as Commentary on the Qurʾān, as Seen in the Six Authorative Collections”, Approaches to the History of the Interpretation of the Qurʾān, (ed.) Andrew Rippin (Oxford, 1988), pp. 63–81, p. 80.

28 Another good example is al-Suy ī's treatments of the ‘Light Verse’ (Q. 24:35) which contains 48 ādīth; and al-Suy ī's exegesis of Q. 2:185 (on awm), which includes a staggering 189 adīth. See al-Suy ī, al-Durr al-manthūr, v, pp. 47–50 and i, pp. 183–184.

29 See Appendix B; see also ʿUmar Gharāma ʿAmrawī, Fihris ādīth al-Durr al-manthūr fī’l-tafsīr bi’l-maʾthūr li-Jalāl al-Dīn al-Suy ī (Riyadh, 1988).

30 Cf. Gilliot, Claude, “Portrait «Mythique» d’Ibn ʿAbbās”, Arabica, XXXII (1985), pp. 127–184 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

31 Cf. Bauer, Thomas, “Islamische Totenbücher. Entwicklung einer Textgattung im Schatten al-Ġazālīs”, in Studies in Arabic and Islam (Proceedings of the 19th Congress of the Union Européenne des Arabisants et Islamisants, Halle 1998), (ed.) Leder, S. et al. (Leuven, 2002), pp. 421–426, p. 424Google Scholar; and S. R. Burge, Angels in Islam: Jalāl al-Dīn al-Suy ī's al- abāʾik fī akhbār al-malāʾik (London, 2012), pp. 21–25.

32 Cf. “There are also important (and suggestive) differences, the most prominent of which is that authority accorded to Ibn ʿAbbās in exegetical adīths is reserved for M ammad in legal adīths”. Berg, Herbert, The Development of Exegesis in Early Islam: The Authenticity of Mulsim Literature form the Formative Period (Richmond, 2000), p. 65 Google Scholar.

33 The data take into account only those ādīth with an explicit reference to soundness. Of course, the issue is slightly more complicated, in that whenever al-Suy ī cites al-Bukhārī or Muslim the implication is that a adīth is sound.

34 i.e. 11480 sources for 5087 ādīth.

35 Al-Suy ī, al-Durr al-manthūr, i, p. 6. The sources are: Mālik b. Anas (al-Muwa āʾ), Sufyān b. ʿUyayna (tafsīr), Abū ʿUbayd (f āʾil), Ibn Abī Shayba, mad (Musnad), al-Bukhārī (juzʾ al-qirāʾa), Muslim, Abū Dāʾūd, al-Tirmidhī, al-Nasāʾī, Ibn Māja, Ibn Jarīr, Ibn al-Anbārī (al-Ma ā if), Ibn ibbān, al-Dāraqu nī and al-Bayhaqī (Sunan). The authors are placed in chronological order.

36 Cf. Ignaz Goldziher, “Zur Charakteristik Gelâl ud-Dîn us-Sujû î's und seiner literarischen Thätigkeit”, in Ignaz Goldziher: Gesammelte Schriften, (ed.) Joseph Desomoggi (Hildescheim, 1969) ii, pp. 296–308.

37 See Hüseyin Hansu, “Notes on the Term Mutawātir and its Reception in adīth Criticism”, Islamic Law and Society, XVI (2009), pp. 383–408 and Wael B. Hallaq, “The Authenticity of Prophet adīth: a Pseudo-Problem”, Studia Islamica, LXXXIX (1999), pp. 75–90.

38 Speight, “The Function of adīth as Commentary”, pp. 79–80.

39 The relationship between ādīth and exegesis has been relatively understudied, save for discussions about authenticity, see Berg, The Development of Exegesis in Early Islam. Marston Speight briefly deals with the use of ādīth in exegesis; see Speight, “The Function of adīth as Commentary”, pp. 68–72.

40 See the Appendecies for details, particularly G-I.

41 For their full names and dates of death, see Appendix C.

42 Sufyān b. ʿUyayna's tafsīr is not longer extant, and was possibly not available to al-Suy ī; it may be that al-Suy ī cites this tafsīr through another text. For more on Sufyān b. ʿUyayna see EI2 , s.v. “Sufyān b. ʿUyayna b. Maymūn al-Hilālī” (Susan A. Spectorsky).

43 Cf. James A. Bellamy, The Noble Qualities of Character by Ibn Abī d-Dunyā; edited with an introduction and notes (Wiesbaden, 1973), pp. vii–x.

44 See Nolin, The Itqān and Its Sources; this seems to be a trend, for example al-Suy ī's al-Hayʾa al-saniyya is largely dependent on Abū ’l-Shaykh's K. al-ʿA ama; see Heinen, Islamic Cosmology, pp. 37–52; see also Burge, Angels in Islam, pp. 47–59.

45 See Appendices H and I for the precise figures.

46 The data-sample has been taken from Nolin, The Itqān and Its Sources, pp. 126–188. The information is not entirely comparable as it has been collected in a slightly different way, but it is similar enough to provide some useful comparison.

47 al-Zamakhsharī, al-Kashshāf ʿan aqāʾiq al-tanzīl wa ʿuyūn al-aqāwī fī wujūh al-taʾwīl (Beirut, 1987).

48 See Lane, Andrew J., A Traditional Muʿtazilite Qurʾān Commentary: The Kashshāf of Jār Allāh al-Zamakhsharī (d. 538/1144) (Leiden, 2006), pp. 86–91 Google Scholar.

49 “Despite certain reservations about the orthodoxy of all of its contents, the book was an important work of Quranic exegesis and formed a part of the curriculum of many students in the later Middle Ages. At the mosque of al-Ashraf Barsbāy, for example, it was required that the man hired as professor of anafī law be able to deliver lectures on al-Zamakhsharī's work”. Berkey, Jonathan P., The Transmission of Knowledge in Medieval Cairo: A Social History of Islamic Education (Princeton, 1992), pp. 185–186 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

50 The form of the work also has an impact on the way in which ādīth are integrated into the text. For example the nafaththāt in Q. 113:4 are treated differently in al-Durr al-manthūr and in the Tafsīr al-Jalālayn because of the form that the two exegeses take; see S. R. Burge, ‘Jalāl al-Dīn al-Suy ī, the Muʿawwidhatān and the Modes of Exegesis,’ in Karen Bauer (ed.), The Aims and Methods of Qur’anic Exegesis (8th – 15th centuries) (forthcoming).

51 Heinen, Islamic Cosmology, p. 10.

52 Ibid., pp. 9–11.

53 Ibn al-Jawzī is cited, but only once. Many of al-Suy ī's works critique anbalī positions, particularly Ibn Taymiyya and Ibn al- ājj. Cf. al-Suy ī, usn al-maq id fī f āʾil al-mawlid; Kaptein, N. J. G., Muhammad's Birthday Festival: Early History in the Central Muslim Lands and Development in the Muslim West until the 10th/16th Century (Leiden, 1993), pp. 48–64 Google Scholar, especially pp. 58–61. However, he did agree with Ibn Taymiyya's critique of Greek logic, cf. his awn al-man iq wa’l-kalām ʿan fann al-man iq wa’l-kalām (Beirut, 1983); see Hallaq, Wael B., Ibn Taymiyya Against the Greek Logicians (Oxford, 1993), pp. xlix–xl Google Scholar; see also El-Rouayheb, Khaled, “Sunni Muslim Scholars on the Status of Logic, 1500 – 1800”, Islamic Law and Society, XI (2004), pp. 213–232 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

54 Sartain, Jalāl al-Dīn al-Suy ī, pp. 33–37 and Geoffroy, Éric, Le Soufisme en Égypte et en Syrie: Sous les Derniers Mameloukes et les premiers Ottomans – Orientations Sprituelles et Enjeux Culturels (Damascus, 1995)Google Scholar. The influence on Sufism in al-Durr al-manthūr will be discussed in a little more detail below.

55 Al-Suy ī ( amid Algar, Michael Schub and Ayman Abdel Haleem), The Perfect Guide to the Sciences of the Qurʾān, (Reading, 2011) i, p. xxxii

56 E.g. al-Suy ī, Taʾyīd al- aqīqa al-ʿaliyya wa-tashyīd al- arīqa al-Shādhiliyya; Qamʿ al-muʿār fī n rat Ibn al-Fārid; and al-Khabar al-dāll ʿalā wujūd al-qu b wa’l-awtād wa’l-nujābāʾ wa-’l-abdal; see Sartain, Jalāl al-Din al-Suy ī, pp. 36–37.

57 E.g. al-Suy ī, Asrār tartīb al-Qurʾān (Cairo, 1376/1976).

58 Cf. Saleh, Walid A., “Prelimary Remarks on the Historiography of tafsīr in Arabic: A History of the Book Approach,” Journal of Qurʾānic Studies, XII (2010), pp. 6–40 Google Scholar.

59 Al-Suy ī's biography of Ibn Jarīr is extremely effusive about his qualities as a scholar; see Jalāl al-Dīn al-Suy ī, abaqāt al-mufassirīn (Beirut, n.d.), pp. 82–84.

60 Saleh, “Ibn Taymiyya and the Rise of Radical Hermeneutics”, p. 125.

61 Ibid., p. 154.

62 Calder, Norman, “ Tafsīr from abarī to Ibn Kathīr: Problems in the description of a genre, illustrated with reference to the story of Abraham,” in Hawting, G.R. and Shareef, Abdul-Kader A. (eds), Approaches to the Qurʾān (London, 1993), pp. 101–140, p. 130Google Scholar.

63 Some modern scholars have attempted to find the sources, e.g. Abū ʿAbd al-R mān ʿĀdil b. Yūsuf al-ʿAzzāzī, Hidāyat al-mustansīr bi- ādīth Tafsīr Ibn Kathīr (Cairo, al-Maktaba al-Islāmiyya, 2003).

64 The data can be seen in Appendices E and F.

65 i.e. the percentage that the author is used in the work as a whole.

66 See al-Suy ī, al- usn al-maq id fī ʿamal al-mawlid; Kaptein, N. J. G., Muhammad's Birthday Festival: Early History in the Central Muslim Lands and the Development in the Muslim West until the 10th/16th Century, (Leiden, 1993), pp. 48–67 Google Scholar.

67 Th. Homerin, From Arab Poet to Muslim Saint: Ibn al-Fār , His Verse, and His Shrine (Cario, 2001), pp. 65–67.

68 Racha el Omari, “Ibn Taymiyya's ‘Theology of the Sunna’ and his Problems with the Ashʿarites,” in Rapoport and Ahmed (eds), Ibn Taymiyya and his Times, pp. 109–119, especially pp. 115–116; and Yossef Rapoport, “Ibn Taymiyya's Radical Legal Thought: Rationalism, Pluralism, and the Primacy of Intention,” in Rapoport and Ahmed (eds), Ibn Taymiyya and his Times, pp. 193–226, pp. 218–221.

69 Al-Suy ī, awn al-mantiq.

70 Al-Suy ī, The Perfect Guide to the Sciences of the Qurʾān, §9, i, pp. 55–70.

71 Ibid., i, pp. 59–60.

72 Ibid., i, pp. 63–68.

73 Ibid., i, pp. 68–69.

74 Cf. Ibid., i, p. 51 and p. 71.

75 Cf. Ibid., i, p. 12; and p. 92.

76 Saleh, “Preliminary Remarks on the Historiography of tafsīr in Arabic”, p. 18.

77 Ibid., p. 18.

78 Ibn Taymiyya, Muqaddima fī ūl al-tafsīr, p. 94; tr. McAuliffe, “Ibn Taymiya: Treatise on the Principles of Tafsir”, pp. 36–37.

79 Saleh, “Preliminary Remarks on the Historiography of tafsīr in Arabic”.

80 Ibid., p. 32.

81 Al-Suy ī The Perfect Guide to the Sciences of the Qurʾān, i, p. xxxii. [The transliteration of the names of the authors and works follows the translation, including a number of errors].

82 Ibid., i, p. xxxiii.

83 Ibid., i, pp. xxxii - xxxiii.

84 Saleh, “Preliminary Remarks on the Historiography of tafsīr in Arabic”, p. 32.

85 See S. R. Burge, “Reading Between the Lines: The Compilation of adīṯ and the Authorial Voice”.

86 Al-Suy ī, al-Durr al-manthūr, v, p. 47. [My translation].

87 Cf. Hamza, Feras, Rizvi, Sajjad with Mayer, Farhana (eds), An Anthology of Qur’anic Commentaries - Vol. 1: On the Nature of the Divine (Oxford, 2008), pp. 347–453 Google Scholar.

88 Al-Suy ī, al-Durr al-manthūr, i, pp. 2–17; i, 322–329; and vi, 416–420.

89 Knysh, Alexander D., Ibn ʿArabi in the Later Islamic Tradition: The Making of an Image in Medieval Islam (Albany, 1999), pp. 87–112 Google Scholar

90 Ibid., pp. 80–83 and 119–120; see also Homerin, From Arab Poet to Muslim Saint, pp. 55–75.

91 Knysh, Ibn ʿArabi in the Later Islamic Tradition, pp. 119–120.

92 See al-Suyūṭī, al-Durr al-manthūr, vi, p. 424. However, this may refer to a final revision, as al-Suyūṭī states in his autobiography that he sent a student to the Hijaz with his ‘tafsīr bi’l-maʾthūr’ in 879/1474, which Sartain identifies as al-Durr al-manthūr; see al-Suy ī, al-T adduth bi-niʿmat Allāh; Sartain (ed.), Jalāl al-Dīn al-Suy ī, ii, p. 157 (al-Durr al-manthūr) and i, 200. For more al-Suy ī's involvement in the Ibn al-Fār debate see, Homerin, From Arab Poet to Muslim Saint, pp. 65–75.

93 See MacGregor, Richard J. A., ‘A Sufi Legacy in Tunis: Prayer and the Shadhiliyya,” International Journal of Middle East Studies, XXIX (1997), pp. 255–277 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

94 Al-Suy ī, ʿAmal al-yawm wa-’l-layla (Cairo, 1946).

95 See Burge, Angels in Islam (throughout).

96 See Salmān, al-Suy ī al-N wī.

97 Jalāl al-Dīn al-Mahallī and al-Suy ī (tr. Feras Hamza), Tafsīr al-Jalālayn (Amman, 2007), p. 440.

98 Al-Suy ī, al-Durr al-manthūr, v, p. 244.

99 Ibid., vi, p. 418.

100 Ibn Abī Hātim is recognised more as a m addith; cf. Eerik Dickinson, The Development of Early Sunnite Hadith Criticism: The Taqdima of Ibn Abī ātim al-Rāzī (240/854–327/938) (Leiden, 2001).

101 Christopher Melchert describes the silver age as the 11th-15th centuries, and the golden period preceeding it, see Melchert, Christopher, “Review: The Canonization of al-Bukhārī and Muslim: the Formation and Function of the Sunnī adīth Canon. By Jonathan Brown,” JRAS, XVIII (2008), pp. 526–528, p. 528CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

102 Berkey, The Transmission of Knowledge in Medieval Cairo, pp. 20–25.

103 There are some ādīth which are not given an authority.

104 A range of resources have been used to locate the authors, viz. Brockelmann, Carl, Geschichte der arabischen Litteratur (Weimar, 1898–1902; Second Edition, Leiden, 1937–42)Google Scholar; Sezgin, Fuat, Geschichte der arabischen Schrifttums (Leiden, 1967–84)Google Scholar; al-Ziriklī, Khayr al-Dīn, al-Aʿlām (Cairo, 1970)Google Scholar; mad b. M ammad Ibn Khallikān; William MacGukin Slane (tr.), Ibn Khallikan's Biographical Dictionary (Paris, 1868).

105 I would like to express my gratitude to Prof. Claude Gilliot, who helped me locate some of the more obscure authors in this list, and to Dr. Karen Bauer for her comments and advice.