Jalaluddin Al-Suyuti

 Jalaluddin Al-Suyuti

Jalaluddin Al-Suyuti was an Islamic jurist,  sufi of Shadili order, scholar, Egyptian polymath, historian.  He was described as one of the most productive scholars of the Middle Age. His biographical dictionary "Bughyat al-wuah fi ṭabaqat al-lughawiyin wa-al-nuḥah" contains valuable accounts of prominent figures in the early development of Arabic philology. In 1486, he was designated to a seat in the mosque of Baybars in Cairo, and was an authority of the Shafi school of thought.

Jalaluddin Al-Suyuti was born on 3rd October 1445 AD in Asyut Cairo, Egypt. He hailed from a Persian family on his paternal side while his monther belongs to Circassian. According to al-Suyuti his ancestors came from al-Khudayriyya in Baghdad.His family moved to Asyut in Mamluk Egypt, hence the nisba "Al-Suyuti". His father taught Shafii law at the Mosque and "Khanqah of Shaykhu" in Cairo, but died when al-Suyuti was  6 years old.

Jalaluddin Al-Suyuti's research included: Shafi'i and Hanafi jurisprudence, hadith, tafsir, theology, history, rhetoric, philosophy, philology, arithmetic, timekeeping (miqat) and medicine. At 18 years old, he began started teaching Shafii law, at similar mosque as his dad did. In  year 1486, Sultan Qaitbay appointed him shaykh at the "Khanqah of Baybars II", a Sufi lodge. He was a Sufi of the Shadhili order of Sunni Islam founded by Abul Hasan Ali ash-Shadhili of Morocco.

He was mujaddid of the ninth century AH and he professed to be a mujtahid (an authority on source interpretation who gives legal statements on  hadith, jurisprudence  and Arabic language). This has led to friction with other researchers and government officials, and after a criticism over the finances of the Sufi lodge, he retreated to the island of Rawda in 1501. Al-Suyuti died on 18 October 1505.

The Dalil makhtutat al-Suyuti "Directory of al-Suyuti's manuscripts" state that al-Suyuti has written books on over 700 subjects, but latest survey conducted in 1995 that put the figure between 500 and 981 inlcuding short pamphlets, and legal opinions.

He composed his first book, Sharh Al-Istiaadha wal-Basmalah, in 866 AH, at seventeen years old.

Ibn al-Imad said that most of his works become world famous in his lifetime. A well known prolific writer and also his student Dawudi said: "I was with the Shaykh Suyuti once, and observed that  he wrote three volumes in a single day. He could dictate annotations on hadith, and answer my objections at the same time.  In his time he was the preeminent researcher of the hadith and related sciences, of the narrators including the uncommon ones, the hadith text, Chain of narrators, the derivation of hadith rulings. He has himself told me, that he had he had remembered One Hundred Thousand hadith"

His works, on subject from religion to medicine, Ḥusn al-muḥaḍarah al-Suyuti lists 283.Abul-Faraj ibn al-Jawzi referenced in his therapeutic works, he writes almost exclusively on prophetic medicine, rather than the Islamic-Greek synthesis of healing traditions found in the writings of Al-Dahabi.

He focused on traditional diet and natural remedies for simple and complex diseases. 

Read Books of Suyuti