Al-Khateeb al-Baghdadi And His "Tarikh Baghdad"
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Subject: Al-Khateeb al-Baghdadi And His "Tarikh Baghdad"
Al-Khateeb al-Baghdadi and His Work Tarikh Baghdad
By
Yasin T. al-Jibouri
Al-Khateeb al-Baghdadi is “Abu Bakr” Ahmed ibn Abdul-Majeed ibn Ali ibn Thabit, commonly known as al-Khateeb (or al-Khatib) al-Baghdadi. “Al-Khateeb” means lecturer, public speaker or orator. He was born in Hanikiyya, one of the villages of southwest Baghdad, but some sources place it in غزية Ghuzayya village of Hijaz, midway between Kufa and Mecca, on Sunday (some sources say Thursday), Jumada II 24, 392 A.H. which coincided, according to the Julian Christian calendar, with May 10 or, according to the Gregorian Christian calendar, with May 16, 1002 A.D., and he died in Baghdad on Monday, Thul-Hijja 7, 463 A.H., which coincided, according to the Julian Christian calendar, with September 5, or with the 11th, according to the Gregorian Christian calendar, 1071 A.D. He was buried next to Bishr al-Hafi (the barefoot), a Sufi Gnostic who lived from 150 – 236 A.H. (767 – c. 850 A.D.).
Al-Khateeb al-Baghdadi was the son of a Hanbali preacher of Darzidjan, and he began studying at an early age with his father and other mentors. He also studied other sciences, but his primary interest was hadith, traditions, which he studied in Baghdad, Basra, Damascus, Isfahan and Nishapur. In 1024 A.D., he set out on a journey to Nishapur in Khurasan, now northwest of Iran, and collected more hadith in Ray, south of today’s Tehran, and Isfahan, returning to
Al-Khateeb al-Baghdadi is “Abu Bakr” Ahmed ibn Abdul-Majeed ibn Ali ibn Thabit, commonly known as al-Khateeb (or al-Khatib) al-Baghdadi. “Al-Khateeb” means lecturer, public speaker or orator. He was born in Hanikiyya, one of the villages of southwest Baghdad, but some sources place it in غزية Ghuzayya village of Hijaz, midway between Kufa and Mecca, on Sunday (some sources say Thursday), Jumada II 24, 392 A.H. which coincided, according to the Julian Christian calendar, with May 10 or, according to the Gregorian Christian calendar, with May 16, 1002 A.D., and he died in Baghdad on Monday, Thul-Hijja 7, 463 A.H., which coincided, according to the Julian Christian calendar, with September 5, or with the 11th, according to the Gregorian Christian calendar, 1071 A.D. He was buried next to Bishr al-Hafi (the barefoot), a Sufi Gnostic who lived from 150 – 236 A.H. (767 – c. 850 A.D.).
Al-Khateeb al-Baghdadi was the son of a Hanbali preacher of Darzidjan, and he began studying at an early age with his father and other mentors. He also studied other sciences, but his primary interest was hadith, traditions, which he studied in Baghdad, Basra, Damascus, Isfahan and Nishapur. In 1024 A.D., he set out on a journey to Nishapur in Khurasan, now northwest of Iran, and collected more hadith in Ray, south of today’s Tehran, and Isfahan, returning to
Baghdad in 1028 A.D.
While he was an authority on hadith, it was his preaching that gave him fame. One biographer, namely al-Dhahbi الذهبي, says that teachers and preachers of tradition usually submitted what they had collected to al-Baghdadi before using them in their lectures or sermons. Ibn Hajar al-`Asqalani declared his works influential in the field of the science of hadith saying, "Seldom did he miss any science of hadith without writing a whole book about it." He then quoted Abu Bakr ibn Nuqtah, a Hanbali scholar, as saying, “Every objective person knows that the scholars of hadith who came after al-Khateeb are indebted to his works.”
Al-Baghdadi was born Hanbali, but he switched to the Shafi'i School of Muslim Law, and some writers think that this change in opinion happened after a trip to Nahrawan in 1038 A.D. Another view is that he was once tutored by Abu Hamid al-Isfara’ili, a senior Shafi`i faqih (jurist), so he may have thus been influenced by the ijtihad of imam al-Shafi`i who once said,
وددتُ أنَّ الخلقَ تعلموا هذا العلم -
While he was an authority on hadith, it was his preaching that gave him fame. One biographer, namely al-Dhahbi الذهبي, says that teachers and preachers of tradition usually submitted what they had collected to al-Baghdadi before using them in their lectures or sermons. Ibn Hajar al-`Asqalani declared his works influential in the field of the science of hadith saying, "Seldom did he miss any science of hadith without writing a whole book about it." He then quoted Abu Bakr ibn Nuqtah, a Hanbali scholar, as saying, “Every objective person knows that the scholars of hadith who came after al-Khateeb are indebted to his works.”
Al-Baghdadi was born Hanbali, but he switched to the Shafi'i School of Muslim Law, and some writers think that this change in opinion happened after a trip to Nahrawan in 1038 A.D. Another view is that he was once tutored by Abu Hamid al-Isfara’ili, a senior Shafi`i faqih (jurist), so he may have thus been influenced by the ijtihad of imam al-Shafi`i who once said,
وددتُ أنَّ الخلقَ تعلموا هذا العلم -
يقصد علمه -
على أن لا يُنسَب اليَّ حرفٌ منه
“I wish people learned this science (meaning what he learned) provided not a single character of it is attributed to me.”
Notice the wisdom and sincere modesty of the great Shafi`i imam. Due to the freedom of expression in Baghdad at the time, al-Baghdadi started many lectures and held study circles on hadith at the Mansur Mosque.
Al-Khateeb al-Baghdadi is famous mostly for his work titled Tarikh Baghdad, a history of Baghdad, which contains 7,831 biographies of traditionists (narrators of hadith), senior scholars, dignitaries and men of society and state. In other words, it is a history of the elites, men of distinction due to scholarship or accomplishments.
In this book, the author includes the titles of the books which were written and then lost, thus we are indebted to al-Baghdadi for preserving their titles and the names of their authors, especially the books for which we find no reference other than Tarikh Baghdad. From the cultural standpoint, the significance of Tarikh Baghdad is clear from the way it discloses to us the methods of teaching, the curricula and criteria of the scholars of the time and their relationship with their students. It tells us about the schools which spread in the fourth and fifth Hijri centuries (tenth and eleventh centuries A.D.), the study circles and the assemblies of scholars at mosques where hadith was narrated and taught.
Tarikh Baghdad also reflects for us the activity of the scholars and the extent of the spread of the intellectual movement among various Islamic cities. It does so when it narrates for us the trips which some scholars undertook in pursuit of knowledge. There is no doubt, however, that the greatest significance of Tarikh Baghdad lies in the field of hadith: Al-Baghdadi narrates to us the biographies of about five thousand narrators of hadith from a total of 7,831 biographies which the book details alphabetically in fourteen volumes. In Paris, France, Orientalist G. Salomon wrote an Introduction to Tarikh Baghdad in 300 pages.
The author uses isnad (tracking the chain of narrators) with precision when he narrates, whether for men who were narrators of hadith or those who made history or recorded literature, thus helping us identify his sources. Since most books from which he quoted are now lost, some of which we never knew they existed at all, his quotations through their isnad are of an immense significance in identifying lost works especially those written in hadith and history. This is extremely significant when you study the “history of history” or that of hadith.
We have to also point out that the significance of Tarikh Baghdad lies in mentioning the names of many books, a total of 446 which were all written during the third, fourth and fifth Islamic centuries in various subjects: sciences of the Qur’an and methods of recitation, exegesis, hadith, fiqh, tenets, sects, Sufism, etc. If you compare this figure with what is recorded in Ibn Nadeem’s famous Fihrist, you will see that al-Khateeb al-Baghdadi mentioned 298 books which Ibn Nadeem did not. The year of birth of “Abul-Faraj” Muhammed ibn Ishaq ibn Nadeem is not unknown, but he died in around the year 385 A.H./995 A.D., and his Kitab al-Fihrist, in his own words, is “an Index of the books of all nations, Arabs and non-Arabs alike, which are extant in the Arabic language and script, on every branch of knowledge, comprising information as to their compilers and the classes of their authors, together with the genealogies of those persons, the dates of their birth, the length of their lives, the times of their death, the places to which they belonged, their merits and faults, since the beginning, on every science that has been invented, down to the present period, namely the Hijri year 377 (987 A.D.).”
One can notice that al-Khateeb al-Baghdadi ignored the biographies of mathematicians, astrologers and philosophers, and his voluminous work did not bother about politicians, men of administration, wars, letters, poets or singers. Actually, he focused on recent centuries only; therefore, Ibn al-Najjar and others retracted and volunteered to fill the gap.
Perhaps what sets Tarikh Baghdad apart is also its citation of chronicles of the period with which he dealt. Among the authors who quoted him extensively are: Ali ibn Hibatullah ibn Makula in his work Al-Ikmal and Abu Saeed Abdul-Kareem ibn Muhammed al-Sam`ani in his work Al-Ansab.
Below is a short list of some of al-Baghdadi's works, and below it is a longer list in Arabic. Various writers put the number of the books which al-Khateeb al-Baghdadi had written between 56 and 80.
· Ta'rikh Baghdad: The History of Baghdad
· al-Kifaya fi ma'rifat usul 'ilm al-riwaya: an early work dealing with Hadith terminology, which Ibn Hajar praised as influential in the field;
· Sharaf ashab al-hadith: Centers around the significance of traditionalists;
· al-Sabik wa 'l-lahik: dealing with hadith narrators of a particular type;
· al-Mu'tanif fi takmilat al-Mu'talif wa 'l-mukhtalif: Correct spelling and pronunciation of names
· al-Muttafik wa 'l-muftarik
· Talkhis al-mutashabih fi 'l-rasm wa-himayat ma ashkala minhu min nawadir al-tashif wa 'l-wahm
· al-Asma' al-mubhama fi 'l-anba' al-muhkama: identifying unnamed individuals mentioned in hadith
· al-Rihla fi talab al-hadith
· Iktida' al-'ilm al-'amal
Here is a list of thirty of his works in Arabic for you:
References
1. Encyclopedia of Islam, Second Edition. Sellheim, R. Brill online. 2009.
2. Controversy and Its Effects in the Biographical Tradition of Al-Khateeb Al-Baghdadi. Douglas, Fedwa Malti. Studia Islamica 46. 1977.
3. Ibn Hajar, Nuzhah Al-Nathr, pp. 45–51, published with Al-Nukat of Ali ibn Hassan, Dar Ibn al-Jawzi, Dammam, Saudi Arabia.
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“I wish people learned this science (meaning what he learned) provided not a single character of it is attributed to me.”
Notice the wisdom and sincere modesty of the great Shafi`i imam. Due to the freedom of expression in Baghdad at the time, al-Baghdadi started many lectures and held study circles on hadith at the Mansur Mosque.
Al-Khateeb al-Baghdadi is famous mostly for his work titled Tarikh Baghdad, a history of Baghdad, which contains 7,831 biographies of traditionists (narrators of hadith), senior scholars, dignitaries and men of society and state. In other words, it is a history of the elites, men of distinction due to scholarship or accomplishments.
In this book, the author includes the titles of the books which were written and then lost, thus we are indebted to al-Baghdadi for preserving their titles and the names of their authors, especially the books for which we find no reference other than Tarikh Baghdad. From the cultural standpoint, the significance of Tarikh Baghdad is clear from the way it discloses to us the methods of teaching, the curricula and criteria of the scholars of the time and their relationship with their students. It tells us about the schools which spread in the fourth and fifth Hijri centuries (tenth and eleventh centuries A.D.), the study circles and the assemblies of scholars at mosques where hadith was narrated and taught.
Tarikh Baghdad also reflects for us the activity of the scholars and the extent of the spread of the intellectual movement among various Islamic cities. It does so when it narrates for us the trips which some scholars undertook in pursuit of knowledge. There is no doubt, however, that the greatest significance of Tarikh Baghdad lies in the field of hadith: Al-Baghdadi narrates to us the biographies of about five thousand narrators of hadith from a total of 7,831 biographies which the book details alphabetically in fourteen volumes. In Paris, France, Orientalist G. Salomon wrote an Introduction to Tarikh Baghdad in 300 pages.
The author uses isnad (tracking the chain of narrators) with precision when he narrates, whether for men who were narrators of hadith or those who made history or recorded literature, thus helping us identify his sources. Since most books from which he quoted are now lost, some of which we never knew they existed at all, his quotations through their isnad are of an immense significance in identifying lost works especially those written in hadith and history. This is extremely significant when you study the “history of history” or that of hadith.
We have to also point out that the significance of Tarikh Baghdad lies in mentioning the names of many books, a total of 446 which were all written during the third, fourth and fifth Islamic centuries in various subjects: sciences of the Qur’an and methods of recitation, exegesis, hadith, fiqh, tenets, sects, Sufism, etc. If you compare this figure with what is recorded in Ibn Nadeem’s famous Fihrist, you will see that al-Khateeb al-Baghdadi mentioned 298 books which Ibn Nadeem did not. The year of birth of “Abul-Faraj” Muhammed ibn Ishaq ibn Nadeem is not unknown, but he died in around the year 385 A.H./995 A.D., and his Kitab al-Fihrist, in his own words, is “an Index of the books of all nations, Arabs and non-Arabs alike, which are extant in the Arabic language and script, on every branch of knowledge, comprising information as to their compilers and the classes of their authors, together with the genealogies of those persons, the dates of their birth, the length of their lives, the times of their death, the places to which they belonged, their merits and faults, since the beginning, on every science that has been invented, down to the present period, namely the Hijri year 377 (987 A.D.).”
One can notice that al-Khateeb al-Baghdadi ignored the biographies of mathematicians, astrologers and philosophers, and his voluminous work did not bother about politicians, men of administration, wars, letters, poets or singers. Actually, he focused on recent centuries only; therefore, Ibn al-Najjar and others retracted and volunteered to fill the gap.
Perhaps what sets Tarikh Baghdad apart is also its citation of chronicles of the period with which he dealt. Among the authors who quoted him extensively are: Ali ibn Hibatullah ibn Makula in his work Al-Ikmal and Abu Saeed Abdul-Kareem ibn Muhammed al-Sam`ani in his work Al-Ansab.
Below is a short list of some of al-Baghdadi's works, and below it is a longer list in Arabic. Various writers put the number of the books which al-Khateeb al-Baghdadi had written between 56 and 80.
· Ta'rikh Baghdad: The History of Baghdad
· al-Kifaya fi ma'rifat usul 'ilm al-riwaya: an early work dealing with Hadith terminology, which Ibn Hajar praised as influential in the field;
·
al-Djami' li-akhlak al-rawi wa-adab al-sami
·
Takyid al-'ilm: Questions whether putting traditions into writing is forbidden· Sharaf ashab al-hadith: Centers around the significance of traditionalists;
· al-Sabik wa 'l-lahik: dealing with hadith narrators of a particular type;
· al-Mu'tanif fi takmilat al-Mu'talif wa 'l-mukhtalif: Correct spelling and pronunciation of names
· al-Muttafik wa 'l-muftarik
· Talkhis al-mutashabih fi 'l-rasm wa-himayat ma ashkala minhu min nawadir al-tashif wa 'l-wahm
· al-Asma' al-mubhama fi 'l-anba' al-muhkama: identifying unnamed individuals mentioned in hadith
· al-Rihla fi talab al-hadith
· Iktida' al-'ilm al-'amal
Here is a list of thirty of his works in Arabic for you:
References
1. Encyclopedia of Islam, Second Edition. Sellheim, R. Brill online. 2009.
2. Controversy and Its Effects in the Biographical Tradition of Al-Khateeb Al-Baghdadi. Douglas, Fedwa Malti. Studia Islamica 46. 1977.
3. Ibn Hajar, Nuzhah Al-Nathr, pp. 45–51, published with Al-Nukat of Ali ibn Hassan, Dar Ibn al-Jawzi, Dammam, Saudi Arabia.
https://www.amazon.com.tr/s?k=Yasin+al-Jibouri&i=stripbooks&__mk_tr_TR=%C3%85M%C3%85%C5%BD%C3%95%C3%91&ref=nb_sb_noss_2
Visit my Amazon page via this Link: https://www.amazon.com/Yasin-T.-al-Jibouri/e/B005MYLIJ6%3Fref=dbs_a_mng_rwt_scns_share
Amazon (www.amazon.com) lists and markets most of our books which, Masha-Allah, are now available in all continents of the world. Our books have reached both North and South Poles, and if you need proofs, we got them!
Visit my Academia.edu web page: https://cau.academia.edu/YasinAlJibouri and enjoy reading and downloading, free of charge and without any obligation,
Click on the Link below and take a look at some of my essays and full-length books:
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