Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Dawud al-Zahiri, Abū Bakr Muḥammad ibn Dāwūd al-Iṣbahānī, also known as Avendeath, was a medieval theologian and scholar of the
Arabic language
Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walter ...
and
Islamic law
Sharia (; ar, شريعة, sharīʿa ) is a body of religious law that forms a part of the Islamic tradition. It is derived from the religious precepts of Islam and is based on the sacred scriptures of Islam, particularly the Quran and the ...
. He was one of the early propagators of his father
Dawud al-Zahiri
Dāwūd bin ʿAlī bin Khalaf al-Ẓāhirī ( ar, داود بن علي بن خلف الظاهري) (c. 815–883/4 CE, 199-269/270 AH) was a Persian Muslim scholar, jurist, and theologian during the Islamic Golden Age, specialized in the stud ...
's method in jurisprudence,
Zahirism
The Ẓāhirī ( ar, ظاهري, otherwise transliterated as ''Dhāhirī'') ''madhhab'' or al-Ẓāhirīyyah ( ar, الظاهرية) is a Sunnī school of Islamic jurisprudence founded by Dāwūd al-Ẓāhirī in the 9th century CE. It is chara ...
.
Life
Youth and education
Ibn Dawud was born in Baghdad in the year 255 according to the
Islamic calendar
The Hijri calendar ( ar, ٱلتَّقْوِيم ٱلْهِجْرِيّ, translit=al-taqwīm al-hijrī), also known in English as the Muslim calendar and Islamic calendar, is a lunar calendar consisting of 12 lunar months in a year of 354 or ...
, corresponding roughly to the year 868 according to the
Gregorian calendar
The Gregorian calendar is the calendar used in most parts of the world. It was introduced in October 1582 by Pope Gregory XIII as a modification of, and replacement for, the Julian calendar. The principal change was to space leap years dif ...
. By the age of seven, he had memorized the entire
Qur'an
The Quran (, ; Standard Arabic: , Quranic Arabic: , , 'the recitation'), also romanized Qur'an or Koran, is the central religious text of Islam, believed by Muslims to be a revelation from God. It is organized in 114 chapters (pl.: , sing. ...
by heart.
Louis Massignon
Louis Massignon (25 July 1883 – 31 October 1962) was a Catholic scholar of Islam and a pioneer of Catholic-Muslim mutual understanding. He was an influential figure in the twentieth century with regard to the Catholic church's relationship w ...
, ''The Passion of al-Hallaj: Mystic and Martyr of Islam''. Trans. Herbert W. Mason. Pg. 167. Princeton
Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the ni ...
: Princeton University Press
Princeton University Press is an independent publisher with close connections to Princeton University. Its mission is to disseminate scholarship within academia and society at large.
The press was founded by Whitney Darrow, with the financial su ...
, 1994. By the age of ten, he was already an exemplary student in the fields of
Arabic grammar
Arabic grammar or Arabic language sciences ( ar, النحو العربي ' or ar, عُلُوم اللغَة العَرَبِيَّة ') is the grammar of the Arabic language. Arabic is a Semitic language and its grammar has many similarities with ...
,
lexicography
Lexicography is the study of lexicons, and is divided into two separate academic disciplines. It is the art of compiling dictionaries.
* Practical lexicography is the art or craft of compiling, writing and editing dictionaries.
* Theoretica ...
and
Arabic literature
Arabic literature ( ar, الأدب العربي / ALA-LC: ''al-Adab al-‘Arabī'') is the writing, both as prose and poetry, produced by writers in the Arabic language. The Arabic word used for literature is '' Adab'', which is derived from ...
under his teacher
Niftawayh
Abu Abdillah Ibrahim bin Muhammad bin 'Urfah bin Sulaiman bin al-Mughira bin Habib bin al-Muhallab bin Abi Sufra al-Azdi () better known as Niftawayh, was a Medieval Muslim scholar. He was considered to be the best writer of his time,Al-Masudi's ...
, himself a student of Ibn Dawud's father.
[ Devin J. Stewart, "Muhammad b. Dawud al-Zahiri's Manual of Jurisprudence." Taken from ''Studies in Islamic Law and Society'' Volume 15: Studies in Islamic Legal Theory. Edited by ]Bernard G. Weiss
Bernard G. Weiss (10 August 1933 – 8 February 2018) was a professor of languages and literature at the University of Utah. He has an extensive publication record and is recognized as one of the foremost scholars in Islamic law, Islamic theolog ...
. Pg. 114. Leiden
Leiden (; in English and archaic Dutch also Leyden) is a city and municipality in the province of South Holland, Netherlands. The municipality of Leiden has a population of 119,713, but the city forms one densely connected agglomeration wit ...
: 2002. Brill Publishers
Brill Academic Publishers (known as E. J. Brill, Koninklijke Brill, Brill ()) is a Dutch international academic publisher founded in 1683 in Leiden, Netherlands. With offices in Leiden, Boston, Paderborn and Singapore, Brill today publishes 27 ...
. In regard to the variant
readings of the
Qur'an
The Quran (, ; Standard Arabic: , Quranic Arabic: , , 'the recitation'), also romanized Qur'an or Koran, is the central religious text of Islam, believed by Muslims to be a revelation from God. It is organized in 114 chapters (pl.: , sing. ...
, Ibn Dawud learned from
Al-Duri
Abu ‘Amr Hafs Ibn ‘Umar Ibn ‘Abd al-‘Aziz al-Baghdadi, better known as Al-Duri (150-246AH),Muhammad Ghoniem and MSM Saifullah (c) Islamic Awareness. Updated January 8, 2002; accessed April 11, 2016.Shady Hekmat NasserIbn Mujahid and the Can ...
, a student of
Abu 'Amr ibn al-'Ala'
Abu ʻAmr ibn al-ʻAlāʼ al-Basri ( ar, أبو عمرو بن العلاء; died 770 CE/154 AH) was the Qur'an reciter of Basra, Iraq and an Arab linguist.
He was born in Mecca in . Ibn Khallikan's Biographical Dictionary, translated by William ...
, one of the ten primary transmitters of the Qur'an. Ibn Dawud's classmate,
Muhammad ibn Jarir al-Tabari
( ar, أبو جعفر محمد بن جرير بن يزيد الطبري), more commonly known as al-Ṭabarī (), was a Muslim historian and scholar from Amol, Tabaristan. Among the most prominent figures of the Islamic Golden Age, al-Tabari i ...
, also learned the Qur'an from the same study circle in addition to having been a student of Ibn Dawud's father, suggesting a close relationship early on, despite their later rivalry.
Ibn Dawud's relationship with his father was complex. As a child, Ibn Dawud was bullied by other children, being given the name "poor little sparrow." When he complained to his father about the nickname, his father insisted that names of people and things are predestined by
God
In monotheism, monotheistic thought, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator deity, creator, and principal object of Faith#Religious views, faith.Richard Swinburne, Swinburne, R.G. "God" in Ted Honderich, Honderich, Ted. (ed)''The Ox ...
; there was no reason to analyze the meaning of names in order to know that they had been established.
[ His father then actually affirmed the nickname given by the other children, emphasizing that all things occur according to divine will. While Ibn Dawud told his father that he was as mean as the other children were for laughing at his own son, it is not known if this episode continued to affect Ibn Dawud into adulthood, or if this was characteristic of the entire father-son relationship.
]
Academia and judiciary
Upon his father's death in 884, Ibn Dawud took up Dawud's teaching position in Baghdad.[J.C. Vadet]
Ibn Dāwūd
Encyclopaedia of Islam
The ''Encyclopaedia of Islam'' (''EI'') is an encyclopaedia of the academic discipline of Islamic studies published by Brill. It is considered to be the standard reference work in the field of Islamic studies. The first edition was published in ...
, Second Edition. Brill Online, 2013. Reference. 9 January 2013 Despite being only fifteen years old, he was still considered an outstanding jurist, and the four-hundred or so students of his father became his own students. Ibn Dawud had a tendency to speak using Saj'
Saj‘ ( ar, سجع) is a form of rhymed prose in Arabic literature. It is named so because of its evenness or monotony, or from a fancied resemblance between its rhythm and the cooing of a dove. It is a highly artificial style of prose, character ...
, a form of Arabic rhymed prose, in everyday speech. This caused difficulty for many who sought verdicts from him, though it is not regarded as having lessened his popularity.
Some years after his teaching position, the Abbasid
The Abbasid Caliphate ( or ; ar, الْخِلَافَةُ الْعَبَّاسِيَّة, ') was the third caliphate to succeed the Islamic prophet Muhammad. It was founded by a dynasty descended from Muhammad's uncle, Abbas ibn Abdul-Muttalib ...
administration appointed him to a judicial post in western Baghdad.
Death
Although Ibn Dawud is generally considered to have died young, his exact date of death has been a matter of some dispute. Masudi
Al-Mas'udi ( ar, أَبُو ٱلْحَسَن عَلِيّ ٱبْن ٱلْحُسَيْن ٱبْن عَلِيّ ٱلْمَسْعُودِيّ, '; –956) was an Arab historian, geographer and traveler. He is sometimes referred to as the "Herodot ...
recorded Ibn Dawud's death at 296 Hijri, corresponding to 908 or 909 Gregorian. The ''Encyclopaedia of Islam
The ''Encyclopaedia of Islam'' (''EI'') is an encyclopaedia of the academic discipline of Islamic studies published by Brill. It is considered to be the standard reference work in the field of Islamic studies. The first edition was published in ...
'' records his death as 294 Hijri and 909 Gregorian,[ yet the two dates do not match. ]Ibn Khallikan
Aḥmad bin Muḥammad bin Ibrāhīm bin Abū Bakr ibn Khallikān) ( ar, أحمد بن محمد بن إبراهيم بن أبي بكر ابن خلكان; 1211 – 1282), better known as Ibn Khallikān, was a 13th century Shafi'i Islamic scholar w ...
recorded Ibn Dawud's death as Ramadan 9, 297 Hijri, or May 22, 910 Gregorian. While the exact cause of death is not known, Ibn Dawud proclaimed a deathbed confession to his teacher Niftawayh that he was dying of a broken heart, due to a forbidden love for another man.[Lois Anita Giffen, "Ibn Hazm and the Tawq al-Hamama. Taken from ''The Legacy of Muslim Spain'', pg. 425. Ed. ]Salma Jayyusi
Salma Khadra Jayyusi ( ar, سلمى الخضراء الجيوسي; born 1926 or 1927) is a Palestinian poet, writer, translator and anthologist. She is the founder and director of the Project of Translation from Arabic (PROTA), which aims to provi ...
. Leiden
Leiden (; in English and archaic Dutch also Leyden) is a city and municipality in the province of South Holland, Netherlands. The municipality of Leiden has a population of 119,713, but the city forms one densely connected agglomeration wit ...
: Brill Publishers
Brill Academic Publishers (known as E. J. Brill, Koninklijke Brill, Brill ()) is a Dutch international academic publisher founded in 1683 in Leiden, Netherlands. With offices in Leiden, Boston, Paderborn and Singapore, Brill today publishes 27 ...
, 1994. The topic of Ibn Dawud's affections has been the topic of much discussion, as his confession of such feelings is unique among Muslim theologians even up to the present era.
The setting of his death has been perhaps the most vividly described piece of his biography. During his final moments, Ibn Dawud lied on a bed between the light filtering in through the grated window and the empty space of the floor as a blind nightingale sang in a gilded cage nearby; he was described as weary with regrets, yet also serene in his last moments. His body was ritually washed by his student Ibn al-Mughallis
Abdallāh ibn Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad (), better known as Ibn al-Mughallis (), was a medieval Arab Muslim theologian and jurist.Muhammad ibn Jarir al-Tabari, History of the Prophets and Kings, trans. Franz Rosenthal. Vol. 1: General Introductio ...
according to Islamic funeral
Funerals and funeral prayers in Islam ( ar, جنازة, Janazah) follow fairly specific rites, though they are subject to regional interpretation and variation in custom. In all cases, however, sharia (Islamic religious law) calls for burial ...
rites.
Philosophy
Ibn Dawud was an opponent of using analogical reason and juristic preference in Muslim jurisprudence
Jurisprudence, or legal theory, is the theoretical study of the propriety of law. Scholars of jurisprudence seek to explain the nature of law in its most general form and they also seek to achieve a deeper understanding of legal reasoning a ...
. At the same time, Ibn Dawud still upheld the validity of using inference
Inferences are steps in reasoning, moving from premises to logical consequences; etymologically, the word '' infer'' means to "carry forward". Inference is theoretically traditionally divided into deduction and induction, a distinction that in ...
in order to deduce religious verdicts.[Nu'man, pg. 193.] The same views were held by his father, whom Ibn Dawud followed in his Zahirite religious views.
Ibn Dawud also rejected the notion that verdicts of the first generation of Muslims could constitute a source of law. This position is not specific to the Zahirite rite, being the preferred view of the Shafi'i
The Shafii ( ar, شَافِعِي, translit=Shāfiʿī, also spelled Shafei) school, also known as Madhhab al-Shāfiʿī, is one of the four major traditional schools of religious law (madhhab) in the Sunnī branch of Islam. It was founded by ...
tes as well.
Theology
Like his father, Ibn Dawud has not left theological works which have survived to the modern era. Ibn Dawud was known to have been involved in public debates with the Mu'tazila
Muʿtazila ( ar, المعتزلة ', English: "Those Who Withdraw, or Stand Apart", and who called themselves ''Ahl al-ʿAdl wa al-Tawḥīd'', English: "Party of ivineJustice and Oneness f God); was an Islamic group that appeared in early Islamic ...
, an ancient Muslim sect, in a court of the caliph Al-Muwaffaq
Abu Ahmad Talha ibn Ja'far ( ar, أبو أحمد طلحة بن جعفر}; 29 November 843 – 2 June 891), better known by his as Al-Muwaffaq Billah (), was an Abbasid prince and military leader, who acted as the ''de facto'' regent of the Abba ...
in Wasit
Wasit ( ar, وَاسِط, Wāsiṭ, syr, ܘܐܣܛ) is an ancient city in Wasit Governorate, south east of Kut in eastern Iraq.
History
The city was built by al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf in c. 702 CE on the west bank of the Tigris across from the hist ...
. This is not surprising considering the Mu'tazilites ill reception of Ibn Dawud's father, in whose footsteps Ibn Dawud followed, and the scorn which the Mu'taziltes heaped upon Zahirites in general. More is known about what Ibn Dawud opposed theologically rather than what he himself believed.
Nature of the soul
In his book on love, Ibn Dawud quoted Greek playwright Aristophanes
Aristophanes (; grc, Ἀριστοφάνης, ; c. 446 – c. 386 BC), son of Philippus, of the deme
In Ancient Greece, a deme or ( grc, δῆμος, plural: demoi, δημοι) was a suburb or a subdivision of Athens and other city-states ...
who, according to Plato
Plato ( ; grc-gre, Πλάτων ; 428/427 or 424/423 – 348/347 BC) was a Greek philosopher born in Athens during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. He founded the Platonist school of thought and the Academy, the first institution ...
's Symposium
In ancient Greece, the symposium ( grc-gre, συμπόσιον ''symposion'' or ''symposio'', from συμπίνειν ''sympinein'', "to drink together") was a part of a banquet that took place after the meal, when drinking for pleasure was acc ...
, held the view that the soul of a person who had fallen in love was actually only half a soul. In this view, the bodies of two people in love were each given only half of the same soul by God. Later writers have mistaken this for being Ibn Dawud's own belief, though modern scholarship has shown that he was merely quoting the speech of philosophers in an almost derisive way rather than ascribing to the belief himself.[ Ibn Dawud's own beliefs regarding the soul were never actually stated, and were likely no different from those held by the rest of Islamic orthodoxy at the time.
]
Anathematisation of al-Hallaj
In 901, he declared the mystic Mansur Al-Hallaj
Al-Hallaj ( ar, ابو المغيث الحسين بن منصور الحلاج, Abū 'l-Muġīth Al-Ḥusayn bin Manṣūr al-Ḥallāj) or Mansour Hallaj ( fa, منصور حلاج, Mansūr-e Hallāj) ( 26 March 922) (Islamic calendar, Hijri ...
as a heretic
Heresy is any belief or theory that is strongly at variance with established beliefs or customs, in particular the accepted beliefs of a church or religious organization. The term is usually used in reference to violations of important religi ...
in a well-known verdict.[John Renard, ''The A to Z of Sufism'', pg. xxvi. Lanham: ]Rowman & Littlefield
Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group is an independent publishing house founded in 1949. Under several imprints, the company offers scholarly books for the academic market, as well as trade books. The company also owns the book distributing compa ...
, 2005. Initially, Ibn Dawud's appeal to the caliph
A caliphate or khilāfah ( ar, خِلَافَة, ) is an institution or public office under the leadership of an Islamic steward with the title of caliph (; ar, خَلِيفَة , ), a person considered a political-religious successor to th ...
Al-Mu'tadid
Abū al-ʿAbbās Aḥmad ibn Ṭalḥa al-Muwaffaq ( ar, أبو العباس أحمد بن طلحة الموفق), 853/4 or 860/1 – 5 April 902, better known by his regnal name al-Muʿtaḍid bi-llāh ( ar, المعتضد بالله, link=no, ...
was not heeded, and Hallaj was able to continue preaching his ideas for a time. It is likely, however, that Ibn Dawud's verdict was one contributing factor to the caliph Al-Muqtadir
Abu’l-Faḍl Jaʿfar ibn Ahmad al-Muʿtaḍid ( ar, أبو الفضل جعفر بن أحمد المعتضد) (895 – 31 October 932 AD), better known by his regnal name Al-Muqtadir bi-llāh ( ar, المقتدر بالله, "Mighty in God"), wa ...
's ordering of Hallaj's execution.
Reception
Historically, Shi'ite
Shīʿa Islam or Shīʿīsm is the second-largest branch of Islam. It holds that the Islamic prophet Muhammad designated ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib as his successor (''khalīfa'') and the Imam (spiritual and political leader) after him, most n ...
writers and especially Ismaili
Isma'ilism ( ar, الإسماعيلية, al-ʾIsmāʿīlīyah) is a branch or sub-sect of Shia Islam. The Isma'ili () get their name from their acceptance of Imam Isma'il ibn Jafar as the appointed spiritual successor (imām) to Ja'far al-Sa ...
Shi'ites have criticized Ibn Dawud for rejecting the usage of analogical reason and juristic preference in religious verdicts while affirming inference.[ ]Fatimid
The Fatimid Caliphate was an Ismaili Shi'a caliphate extant from the tenth to the twelfth centuries AD. Spanning a large area of North Africa, it ranged from the Atlantic Ocean in the west to the Red Sea in the east. The Fatimids, a dy ...
historian
A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the stu ...
Qadi al-Nu'man
Abū Ḥanīfa al-Nuʿmān ibn Muḥammad ibn Manṣūr ibn Aḥmad ibn Ḥayyūn al-Tamīmiyy ( ar, النعمان بن محمد بن منصور بن أحمد بن حيون التميمي, generally known as al-Qāḍī al-Nu‘mān () or as ibn ...
was particularly scathing, accusing Ibn Dawud and his father of contradicting themselves.
Works
Jurisprudence
Ibn Dawud composed a book on the topic of the principles
A principle is a proposition or value that is a guide for behavior or evaluation. In law, it is a rule that has to be or usually is to be followed. It can be desirably followed, or it can be an inevitable consequence of something, such as the la ...
of Muslim jurisprudence titled ''The Path to Knowledge of Jurisprudence''. It was one of the earliest works on the subject after Shafi'i
The Shafii ( ar, شَافِعِي, translit=Shāfiʿī, also spelled Shafei) school, also known as Madhhab al-Shāfiʿī, is one of the four major traditional schools of religious law (madhhab) in the Sunnī branch of Islam. It was founded by ...
's Risala, and the primary basis for Nu'man's ''Differences Among the Schools of Law'', despite Nu'man's criticisms of Ibn Dawud.[Stewart, pg. 100.] Yaqut al-Hamawi
Yāqūt Shihāb al-Dīn ibn-ʿAbdullāh al-Rūmī al-Ḥamawī (1179–1229) ( ar, ياقوت الحموي الرومي) was a Muslim scholar of Byzantine Greek ancestry active during the late Abbasid period (12th-13th centuries). He is known fo ...
mentions that in a chapter of the book regarding juristic consensus, Ibn Dawud criticizes his former companion Tabari as having contradictory views on the subject.[ Like Ibn Dawud's other works, ''The Path'' has not survived on complete form to the modern era; however, large tracts of it are quoted in other works and modern scholarship suggests that al-Nu'man's ''Differences'' was derived from Ibn Dawud's book.][ Despite their differences in opinion, Tabari's own work on the principles of jurisprudence, ''The Clarification of the Principles of Verdicts'', was strongly resemblant of ''The Path'' of Ibn Dawud and the works of Dawud's father, rather than Shafi'is work or even post-9th century works on the topic. This not only contradicts the common theme within the genre, but also implies similarities between the extant yet non-mainstream Zahirite school of law, and the extinct ]Jariri
Jariri is the name given to a short-lived Sunni school of fiqh that was derived from the work of al-Tabari, the 9th and 10th-century Persian Muslim scholar in Baghdad. Although it eventually became extinct, al-Tabari's madhhab flourished among Su ...
school.
In addition to ''The Path'', Masudi and Ibn al-Nadim
Abū al-Faraj Muḥammad ibn Isḥāq al-Nadīm ( ar, ابو الفرج محمد بن إسحاق النديم), also ibn Abī Ya'qūb Isḥāq ibn Muḥammad ibn Isḥāq al-Warrāq, and commonly known by the ''nasab'' (patronymic) Ibn al-Nadīm ...
both attribute three other works to Ibn Dawud within the field of Muslim jurisprudence: the Book of Admonishment, the Book of Excuse and the Book of Refutation.Al-Masudi
Al-Mas'udi ( ar, أَبُو ٱلْحَسَن عَلِيّ ٱبْن ٱلْحُسَيْن ٱبْن عَلِيّ ٱلْمَسْعُودِيّ, '; –956) was an Arab historian, geographer and traveler. He is sometimes referred to as the "Herodotus ...
's ''The Meadows of Gold
''Meadows of Gold and Mines of Gems'' ( ar, مُرُوج ٱلذَّهَب وَمَعَادِن ٱلْجَوْهَر, ') is a book of history in Arabic of the beginning of the world starting with Adam and Eve up to and through the late Abbasid Cal ...
'', translated by Aloys Sprenger
Aloys Sprenger (born 3 September 1813, in Nassereith, Tyrol; died 19 December 1893 in Heidelberg) was an Austrian Oritentalist.
Sprenger studied medicine, natural sciences as well as oriental languages at the University of Vienna. In 1836 he ...
. Vol. 4, pg. 272. Printed for the Oriental Translation Fund of Great Britain and Ireland. Sold by W.H. Allen and Co. (now Virgin Books
Virgin Books is a British book publisher 90% owned by the publishing group Random House, and 10% owned by Virgin Group, the company originally set up by Richard Branson as a record company.
History
Virgin established its book publishing arm ...
), Leadenhall Street, and B. Duprat, Paris. Bibliotheca Regia Monacensis. London
London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
: Garrison and Co. Printers, St Martin's Lane
St Martin's Lane is a street in the City of Westminster, which runs from the church of St Martin-in-the-Fields, after which it is named, near Trafalgar Square northwards to Long Acre. At its northern end, it becomes Monmouth Street. St Martin ...
. The latter book includes another critique of the views Tabari.
Divine Love
In the late 9th century, Ibn Dawud composed his book ''Kitab al-Zahrah'' while in his native city of Baghdad. His work is considered to be one of the first Arabic language works on the theory of love,[ though only the first half is concerned with this: the second half is an anthology of poetry. ]Ibn Duraid
Abū Bakr Muhammad ibn al-Ḥasan ibn Duraid al-Azdī al-Baṣrī ad-Dawsī Al-Zahrani (), or Ibn Duraid () (c. 837-933 CE), a leading grammarian of Baṣrah, was described as "the most accomplished scholar, ablest philologer and first poet of t ...
, who authored the second ever comprehensive dictionary of the language, ranked this book along with the treatises on love by Ibn Abi Tahir Tayfur and Ibn Qutaybah
Abū Muḥammad ʿAbd Allāh ibn Muslim ibn Qutayba al-Dīnawarī al-Marwazī better known simply as Ibn Qutaybah ( ar-at, ابن قتيبة, Ibn Qutaybah; c. 828 – 13 November 889 CE / 213 – 15 Rajab 276 AH) was an Islamic scholar of Persian ...
as the three most important works for one who wanted to become eloquent in speaking and writing. The book is organized as an anthology, with each chapter headed by an appropriate aphorism and being devoted to various phenomena relating to the true meaning of love.[Giffen, pg. 424.] Although he wrote from more of a humanistic perspective than a theological one, Ibn Dawud's piety was apparent, as chastity was a common theme. Chapter eight of the book, "A refined person will be chaste," is opened with an alleged quote from the prophet
In religion, a prophet or prophetess is an individual who is regarded as being in contact with a divine being and is said to speak on behalf of that being, serving as an intermediary with humanity by delivering messages or teachings from the s ...
Muhammad
Muhammad ( ar, مُحَمَّد; 570 – 8 June 632 Common Era, CE) was an Arab religious, social, and political leader and the founder of Islam. According to Muhammad in Islam, Islamic doctrine, he was a prophet Divine inspiration, di ...
in praise of admirers who keep their affections secret.[ Similarly, the opening chapter is titled "he whose glances are many, his sorrows are prolonged," indicating a belief that pursuing multiple objects of affection will yield negative results. The martyrdom of chastity is a repeated theme, as is Ibn Dawud's denial of the possibility of divine-human mutual love.][
Incomplete portions of the book are still extant today, though not widely available.
]
Editions
* Ibn Dāwūd al-Iṣfahānī, Abū Bakr Muḥammad b. Abī Sulaymān '' ic!',
Kitab al-Zahrah, The Book of the Flower, first half
'. Eds. A.R. Nykl and Ibrāhīm Tūqān. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1932. (A critical edition of chapters 1–50.)
* Abū Bakr Muḥammad ibn Dāwūd al-Isfahānī, ''An-niṣf al-ṯānī min Kitāb az-Zahra'', ed. by Ibrāhīm al-Sāmarrāʾī and Nūrī al-Qaysī, Baghdād 1975. (Chapters 50–100.)
* Abū Bakr Muḥammad ibn Dawud al-Iṣbahānī,
al-Zahrah
', ed. by Ibrāhīm al-Samarrā’ī and Nūrī Ḥamūdī al-Qaysī, 2 vols (al-Zarqā’, Jordan: Maktabat al-Manār, 1985). (Chapters 1–100.)
* ''Kitāb az-Zahra. Parte seconda (Capitoli LI–LV)'', ed. Michele Vallaro (Naples 1985). (Critical edition of chapters 51–55.)
Bibliography
* Giffen, Lois Anita. ''Theory of Profane Love Among the Arabs: The Development of the Genre''. New York
New York most commonly refers to:
* New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York
* New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States
New York may also refer to:
Film and television
* '' ...
: 1971.
* W. Raven, Ibn Dâwûd al-Isbahânî and his Kitâb al-Zahra (Diss. Leiden), Amsterdam 1989.
* W. Raven, „The manuscripts and editions of Muḥammad ibn Dāwūd’s Kitāb al-Zahra,“ in ''Manucripts of the Middle East'' 4 (1989), 133–37.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Muhammad bin Dawud al-Zahiri
860s births
909 deaths
Year of birth uncertain
People from Baghdad
Sunni Muslim scholars
Sunni fiqh scholars
Sunni imams
Zahiris
9th-century Muslim scholars of Islam
9th-century jurists
10th-century jurists