Jamāl al-Dīn Abū al-Ḥajjāj Yūsuf ibn al-Zakī ʻAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Yūsuf ibn ʻAbd al-Malik ibn Yūsuf
al-Kalbī al-Quḍā’ī al-Mizzī, ( ar, يوسف بن عبد الرحمن المزي), also called
Al-Ḥāfiẓ Abī al-Ḥajjāj, was a
Syria
Syria ( ar, سُورِيَا or سُورِيَة, translit=Sūriyā), officially the Syrian Arab Republic ( ar, الجمهورية العربية السورية, al-Jumhūrīyah al-ʻArabīyah as-Sūrīyah), is a Western Asian country loc ...
n
muhaddith
Hadith studies ( ar, علم الحديث ''ʻilm al-ḥadīth'' "science of hadith", also science of hadith, or science of hadith criticism or hadith criticism)
consists of several religious scholarly disciplines used by Muslim scholars in th ...
and the foremost
`Ilm al-rijāl Islamic scholar
In Islam, the ''ulama'' (; ar, علماء ', singular ', "scholar", literally "the learned ones", also spelled ''ulema''; feminine: ''alimah'' ingularand ''aalimath'' lural are the guardians, transmitters, and interpreters of reli ...
.
Life
Al-Mizzī was born near
Aleppo
)), is an adjective which means "white-colored mixed with black".
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in 1256 under the reign of the last
Ayyubid
The Ayyubid dynasty ( ar, الأيوبيون '; ) was the founding dynasty of the medieval Sultan of Egypt, Sultanate of Egypt established by Saladin in 1171, following his abolition of the Fatimid Caliphate, Fatimid Caliphate of Egypt. A Sunni ...
emir
Emir (; ar, أمير ' ), sometimes transliterated amir, amier, or ameer, is a word of Arabic origin that can refer to a male monarch, aristocrat, holder of high-ranking military or political office, or other person possessing actual or cerem ...
An-Nasir Yusuf
An-Nasir Yusuf ( ar, الناصر يوسف; AD 1228–1260), fully al-Malik al-Nasir Salah al-Din Yusuf ibn al-Aziz ibn al-Zahir ibn Salah al-Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub ibn Shazy (), was the Ayyubid Emir of Syria from his seat in Aleppo (1236 ...
. From 1260 the region was ruled by the ''na'ib al-saltana'' (viceroys) of the
Mamluk Sultanate
The Mamluk Sultanate ( ar, سلطنة المماليك, translit=Salṭanat al-Mamālīk), also known as Mamluk Egypt or the Mamluk Empire, was a state that ruled Egypt, the Levant and the Hejaz (western Arabia) from the mid-13th to early 16th ...
. In childhood he moved with his family to the village of
al-Mizza outside
Damascus
)), is an adjective which means "spacious".
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, where he was educated in Qur’ān and fiqh.
In his twenties he began his studies to become a
muḥaddith and learned from the masters. His fellow pupil and life-long friend was
Taqī al-Dīn ibn Taymiyya. It was also Taymiyya’s ideological influence, which although contrary to his own Shāfi’ī legalist inclination, that led to a stint in jail.
Despite his affiliation with Ibn Taymiyya he became head of the ''Dār al-Ḥadīth al-Ashrafiyya'', a leading ḥadīth academy in Damascus, in 1319. And although he professed the
Ash’arī doctrine suspicion continued about his true beliefs. He travelled across the Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt,
Syria
Syria ( ar, سُورِيَا or سُورِيَة, translit=Sūriyā), officially the Syrian Arab Republic ( ar, الجمهورية العربية السورية, al-Jumhūrīyah al-ʻArabīyah as-Sūrīyah), is a Western Asian country loc ...
(), and
Ḥijāz and became the greatest
`Ilm al-rijāl () scholar of the Muslim world and an expert grammarian and philologist of Arabic. He died at ''Dar al-Hadith al-Ashrafiyyah'' in Damascus in 1341/2 and was buried in the ''Sufiyyah'' graveyard.
[, by al-Kattani, pg. 208, ''Dar al-Basha'ir al-Islamiyyah'', Beirut, seventh edition, 2007.]
Pupils
*
Al-Dhahabī
Shams ad-Dīn adh-Dhahabī (), also known as Shams ad-Dīn Abū ʿAbdillāh Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad ibn ʿUthmān ibn Qāymāẓ ibn ʿAbdillāh at-Turkumānī al-Fāriqī ad-Dimashqī (5 October 1274 – 3 February 1348) was an Islamic historia ...
*
‘Abd al-Wahhab al-Subkī
*
Ismā‘īl ibn Kathīr Ibn Kathir
Abū al-Fiḍā’ ‘Imād ad-Dīn Ismā‘īl ibn ‘Umar ibn Kathīr al-Qurashī al-Damishqī (Arabic: إسماعيل بن عمر بن كثير القرشي الدمشقي أبو الفداء عماد; – 1373), known as Ibn Kathīr (, was ...
married a daughter of al-Mizzī.
*
Ibn al-Furat
Nāṣir al-Dīn Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-Raḥīm b. ʿAlī al-Miṣrī al-Ḥanafī () (1334–1405 CE), better known as Ibn al-Furāt, was an Egyptian historian, best known for his universal history, generally known as ''Taʾrīkh al-duwal wa ’ ...
[Fozia Bora, ''Writing History in the Medieval Islamic World: The Value of Chronicles as Archives'', The Early and Medieval Islamic World (London: I. B. Tauris, 2019), p. 38; .]
*
Najm ad-Din al-Tufi
Najm ad-Dīn Abū r-Rabīʿ Sulaymān ibn ʿAbd al-Qawī aṭ-Ṭūfī ( ar, نجم الدين أبو الربيع سليمان بن عبد القوي الطوفي) was a Hanbali scholar and student of Ibn Taymiyyah. He referred to ibn Taymiyyah a ...
Works
*''Tahdhīb al-kamāl fī asmā’ al-rijāl''; biographical lexicon and comprehensive reworking of
Al-Kamal fi Asma' al-Rijal, a collection of
narrator biographies of the transmitters of ''
isnāds'' in the
Six major Hadith collections
The ''Kutub al-Sittah'' ( ar-at, ٱلْكُتُب ٱلسِّتَّة, al-Kutub as-Sittah, lit=the six books) are six (originally five) books containing collections of ''hadith'' (sayings or acts of the Islamic prophet Muhammad) compiled by six S ...
and others, based upon the ''tarf'' (beginning segment) of the
hadith
Ḥadīth ( or ; ar, حديث, , , , , , , literally "talk" or "discourse") or Athar ( ar, أثر, , literally "remnant"/"effect") refers to what the majority of Muslims believe to be a record of the words, actions, and the silent approval ...
.
The Tahdhīb includes ''Ruwāt kuttub al-sitta''.
Al-Asqalānī and others wrote compendia of this work.
*''Tuḥfat al-ashraf bi-Ma’rifat al-Aṭraf''; alphabetically indexed encyclopaedia of the ''musnads'' of the first generation transmitters, the
Companions of the Prophet
The Companions of the Prophet ( ar, اَلصَّحَابَةُ; ''aṣ-ṣaḥāba'' meaning "the companions", from the verb meaning "accompany", "keep company with", "associate with") were the disciples and followers of Muhammad who saw or m ...
. An indespensible resource for the study of Muslim tradition that comprises al-Nasā’ī's ''Al-Sunan al-kubrā''.
References
Bibliography
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Jamal Din Mizzi
1256 births
1342 deaths
13th-century Arabs
14th-century Arabs
Sunni Muslim scholars of Islam
Shafi'is
Atharis
Hadith scholars
People from Damascus
14th-century Muslim scholars of Islam
Proto-Salafists
13th-century jurists
14th-century jurists
Biographical evaluation scholars
Banu Kalb