Information and biographies of leaders and leaders are of public interest and are closely related to the nature of regimes and their policies
Today, we review a special color of this information and biographies, the main thing of which is the monitoring of the scientific dimension of many of the sultans who have known the march of rule throughout Islamic history, with an insight into patterns of details with a civilized role, and a follow-up of certain aspects of the historical image of our sultanistic regimes, and tourism in a rich and vast cultural heritage.
Through this article, we open a special angle from which we can envy the palaces of the caliphate and enter the fields of rule, to see how a number of Muslim caliphs, rulers, and sultans gathered between the seat of the world and the throne of the Sultan, between the pen and the scepter, and between the turban of jurisprudence and the crown of the emirate. This was a golden circle in the Islamic system of government, which is full of images of leaders who inherited their fatwas and the foundations of their narrations of hadiths and led huge scientific and cultural projects that are the first of their kind, such as the initiative to record the Prophet’s hadith, jurisprudence, and Arab literature, and projects to establish astronomical observatories and measure the circumference of the Earth, and to establish the largest university in centuries Central.
And in my hands is the review of the path of power in the Islamic civilization in its part connected to the class of the ulema princes who represented a special category in the successive chains of sultans of Islam; It is no secret that Islamic jurisprudence theorizing has continued – from early time – to make “the condition of knowledge” one of the determinants of eligibility for the mandate of government, which was summarized by Abdul Qaher Al-Baghdadi (d.429 AH / 1037 CE) – in his book ‘The Difference Between Difference’ – by saying that the scholars “Make it obligatory for him (= the caliph) to gain knowledge from the people of diligence in Islamic rulings.”
However, we realize that scientific concern is a path of life that requires dedication and attention from its family, just as judgment is a management practice that requires engaging in paths leading to mastery of governance affairs, and from here the gap between the two concerns in one personal endeavor may increase or converge in what constitutes a remarkable case, which is What we find in the “scholarly princes” category, which combined the two functions of science and governance, in what was sometimes creating competition – and even conflict – within the personality of “the world sultan”, thus exposing him to a very difficult test in terms of the values of knowledge and the requirements of governance!
In this illumination, we do not proceed from the beginning of the history of Islam, as the scholarly position of the successors of the Prophet, may God’s prayers and peace be upon him, is necessarily historically known, and we did not seek to comprehend because this unique phenomenon is difficult to enumerate and limit. But we chose to select twenty examples expressed from the famous sultans of the civilization of Islam, five of whom were the actual founders of its major central states in the first seven centuries of its history, and all of them represent par excellence – ethnically, sectarian, geographically and temporally – this great civilization, and that cultural phenomenon that raises many of our paradoxes. We recall the educational and cultural level of the majority of Muslim rulers today !!
Early coupling
The fountain of knowledge in the countries of Islam exploded early, so the children of their societies devoted themselves to the fields of narration and knowledge of the content of the revelations, mixed with that with the niche of Arab culture and the emancipation of poetry and literature. – From the time of the Companions to the sultans who achieved knowledge and gained judgment.
At the beginning of our wandering through the tiles of successive Islamic countries to the east and west; We begin our circumambulation in the court of the Umayyad Caliph Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan (d. 86 AH / 705 CE), who possessed a historical reputation that the levers of knowledge contributed to its construction and elevation of its level, as the books of translations and history agreed to indicate his scholarly stature which he attained from his discipleship among the leading scholars of the Companions. Ibn Katheer (d. T. 73 AH / 693 CE) … and a group narrated from him [it].
And if his term of office – for a period of 21 years – was marked by fierce armed revolutions, which took his attention to be extinguished; The cognitive distinction remained an important feature in his experience before and after taking office. This dimension is evident in the image of Abd al-Malik among his scholars. They used to regard him as a strong competitor in all kinds of knowledge, including what Ibn Katheer narrated on the authority of Imam al-Sha’bi (d. 103 AH / 724 CE) when he said: “I did not sit down with anyone but I found the credit for him except Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan, for I did not remember him in a hadeeth without adding to it and not Poetry but it increased me! ”
According to Al-Hafiz Ibn Asaker (d. 571 AH / 1175 AD) in the History of Damascus Nafi Mawla Ibn Omar (d. 117 AH / 736 CE) testified against him, saying: “I have seen the city in which a young man is more sunken and has no outlook, and I do not read the Book of God from Abd al-Malik bin Marwan.” Al-Asma’i (d.216 AH / 831 CE) was quoted as praising by Al-Hasan Al-Basri (D. 110 AH / 728 AD) with a sermon given by Abd al-Malik, about which he said: “If words were written with gold water, this speech would have been!” Perhaps one of the greatest indications of the superiority of his jurisprudential stature is that Imam Malik bin Anas (d. 179 AH / 796 CE) included – in al-Muwatta – a number of his jurisprudential views alongside the fatwas of the senior companions and followers.
Just as Abd al-Malik preserved the compatibility between scientific concern and governance affairs; His nephew, Caliph Umar bin Abdul Aziz (d. 101 AH / 720 AD) remained one of the lords of knowledge, despite the path of positions he had followed since his appointment as governor of Medina and Taif, then he worked as a minister and advisor in the caliph’s court, even if he reached the era of the caliphate, he combined knowledge with politics The fair gateway to the immortality of his name in the historical, as “the fifth of the Rightly Guided Caliphs” and “the teacher of scholars”.
Al-Dhahabi (d. 748 AH / 1348 CE) – in “the biographies of the flags of the nobles” – called him “the scholar al-Hafiz… he was one of the imams of ijtihad… he was a good politician keen on justice in every possible way. Working adults and scholars! Ibn Katheer reported on the authority of Al-Taba’i Mujahid bin Jabr (d. 104 AH / 723 CE) as saying: “We came to Omar to teach him, and we did not leave him until we learned from him !!”
Imam Maymun bin Mahran (d. 117 AH / 735 CE) concluded that Caliph Umar bin Abdul Aziz was the “teacher of scholars”; According to Ibn Sa`d (d. 230 AH / 845 AD) in al-Tabaqat al-Kubra. This evaluation coincides with his high scholarly position, which results in Imam Malik’s income for dozens of his districts and his fatwas in al-Muwatta.
A remarkable balance, history turns the pages of the Umayyad Caliphate with its scholarly successors, but their counterparts from the rulers interested in science continued to appear in the Abbasid state that overthrew them. Here is its second successor, Al-Mansur (d. 136 AH / 775 CE), turning towards the fountains of knowledge of his time before assuming power. Ibn Katheer stated that Al-Mansur “in his youth sought knowledge from his attributes, hadith, and jurisprudence, and he obtained from this a good aspect and a righteous side,” and Al-Soli mentions ( T. 335 AH / 946 AD) – in the ‘History of the Caliphs’ – that Al-Mansur “was the most knowledgeable of the people of his time in hadith and genealogy”
As for Al-Dhahabi – in ‘Al-Sirah’ – he summarized for us precisely the characteristics of Al-Mansur that indicate his combination of knowledge and emirate He said that he was “mixed with the king’s pomp and the garb of hermits. And the darling of the Banu al-Abbas was prestige and courage, vision, firmness, cunning, and tyranny, and he was a keen collector of money. He was good at participating in jurisprudence, literature, and science. He exterminated a group of adults until the king strengthened him and the nations came to him. And he was the ruler of all the kingdoms of Islam except the island of Andalusia !!
The scientific image of the rulers formed a window of communication between the ruling authority and many groups and individuals within the state, and this communication left its impact on the public scene, official policies, and the scientific field. Judge Ayyad (d. He said to Malik [Bin Anas] Put a book for the people to carry them on, and Malik spoke to him about that, so (Al Mansour) said: Put it down, so no one is more knowledgeable than you! This was – in one of the novels – the reason for writing the book Al-Muwatta.
It seems that Al-Mansour wanted to be balanced in his educational policies, so he took an interest in owning science books and collecting translations, and he commissioned them to transfer them into Arabic. Thus, he was – as al-Dhahabi says in the History of Islam – “he was the first caliph for whom Syriac and foreign books were translated as“ Kalila and Dimna ”, Aristotle’s book (= Aristotle, the philosopher, 322 BC) on logic, Euclid (d.265 BC) and Greek books. People looked at it and clung to it, and when Muhammad bin Ishaq (the author of ‘The Prophet’s Biography’ ‘d. 151 AH / 768 CE) saw that, he compiled the stories and the biography. Al-Suyuti (d. 911 AH / 1506 CE) also tells us – in the History of the Caliphs – that Al-Mansur was “the first caliph who brought astrologers closer and acted according to the rulings of the stars.”
These translation efforts would not have continued with their great success without the establishment of an institutional scientific framework to nurture them and provide them with the reasons for growth and survival. Here we met the first seed of the “House of Wisdom” project A bright civilizational radiation that is based on the collection of travels of knowledge and cultures. The Abbasid Caliph Al-Mansur – by virtue of his scientific background – was interested in collecting the valuables of books and narrated sheets, and he had among his personal possessions notebooks and newspapers in which he recorded the scientific benefits. It has a lock that no one is safe to open and it is key !!
Founding estrangement and coinciding with the scholarly and royal presence of Caliph Al-Mansour
In Andalusia there was his rival, the Umayyad prince Abd al-Rahman al-Dakhil (d.172 AH / 788 CE), presenting an example among the list of educated princes who undertook the burden of establishing great states in the history of Islam, such as his grandfather Abd al-Malik bin Marwan and al-Mansur al-Abbasi.
The descendant of the Umayyad Caliphate – a Westernized, toiling day – was not just an aristocrat in which circumstances fluctuated, and the days reflected the back of the maddening for his family that was leading the leadership of the Islamic world; Rather, it was a literary exuberance mingled with the experience of alienation that he lived, which indicates his cultural affiliation, which he translated into a creative poetic form that is widespread in Arab literature. His poetry longs for his institutes in the Levant. “His saying: O rider, the dormer is my land.
However, the most important testimony of the academic status of the incoming prince was included in the books of translations. Al-Dhahabi said in Al-Seer: “Abd al-Rahman was one of the scholars,” while evoking his young age – when he was twenty-five – when he seized the reins of the rule of Andalusia as explained by his political rival, Mansour al-Abbasi when he reached his ownership of it. According to al-Dhahabi, he said: “That is the hawk of Quraish! He entered Morocco and his people were killed.
And if it is noticeable that the phenomenon of scholarly rulers has sometimes maintained the transition from kings to the guardians of their vows We found early examples of this in the first era of the Abbasid state, the first of which was the personality of the Abbasid Caliph Al-Mahdi (d.169 AH / 786 AD), who Al-Dhahabi says that “when [his promises] strengthened his father [Al-Mansur] the kingdom of Tabaristan and he read knowledge, was polite and distinguished!”
Among the results of the literary distinction of al-Mahdi is what was narrated by the Sheikh of historians al-Tabari (d. 310 AH / 922 CE) about the imam of al-Adab al-Mufaddal al-Dhabi (d. After 171 AH / 788 CE). From that, the Caliph Al-Mahdi told him: “Collect proverbs for me from what you heard from the Bedouins and what is true for you. He said: So I wrote proverbs and Arab wars for him.” This is in addition to the relationship between his book ‘The preferences’ and the Mahdi, which illuminates the literary dimension in the formation of this caliph, and highlights the relationship of some cultural figures and circles of government.
One of the titles of the cultural and scientific influence of the scholarly caliphs was the precedence over the field of writing books to respond to the violators, and it was also recorded by the Abbasid Mahdi. As Suyuti reported that “the first to order the classification of books in response to the violators [is] the Mahdi,” and with this procedure, this Abbasid caliph opened – in front of the authors – a broad path that is difficult to be free of apostates at the same time!
Isnaads bowl when the Caliph Harun al – Rashid (T reached 193 AH / 799 AD) to power, after it became important to science and described as Ibn al – At ‘Almentzm’- saying that good governance “received much note”; The cultural sector in the country witnessed further advancement, embodied in the well-known scientific project: “The House of Wisdom”, whose first seed dates back to the days of his grandfather Al-Mansour, as we have seen. However, when Al-Rasheed took over the reins of power, the level of interest in books increased, and they were collected in a treasury, and the project was placed on the runways, starting to horizons that continued to expand continuously until the reign of Caliph Al-Mutawakkil (d.247 AH / 861 AD).
According to Al-Nadim (d. 384 AH / 973 CE) – in ‘Al-Fihrist’ – it is understood that the “House of Wisdom” did not exist before Al-Rashid. The House of Wisdom for Al-Rasheed and Al-Mamun (d.218 AH / 833 AD) and Al-Baramkeh. Therefore, Muhammad Kurd Ali (d. 1373 AH / 1953 CE) – in “Plans of Levant” – says that “it was not known before the era of Rashid and al-Ma’mun that books were collected in a cupboard and was called the House of Wisdom or the House of Knowledge, and that house was like a university” that included among its flanks an avanine of arts and fruits Knowledge.
Al-Rasheed narrated the hadith on the authority of Malik bin Anas. Rather, Al-Suyuti says that he “left his two sons, the trustworthy (d. 198 AH / 813 CE) and al-Ma’mun to hear the Muwatta ‘Ali Malik .., and the origin of the Muwatta was by Sama al-Rasheed in the treasury of the Egyptians (= the Fatimid library)” in Cairo. And he used to narrate hadiths in his sermons by virtue of their chain of transmission to the Prophet, may God bless him and grant him peace, and the characteristic of the Caliph’s competition for scholars in knowledge and literature continued during his reign.
As al-Tabari reports that Abu Saeed bin Muslim (d. 200 AH / 815 CE) said, “The understanding of Rasheed was above the understanding of scholars” !! He was particularly well established in the field of literature and poetry. Al-Isfahani (d. 356 AH / 967 AD) – in his book “Al-Aghani” – narrated that Al-Rasheed “memorized the poetry of Dhul-Ramah (d. 117 AH / 735 AD), preserved youth (= firmly memorized), admires and influences it.”
Among the manifestations related to the role of the scientific component of the sultans, in the rise of some scientific names, and they are taking a prominent role in the state; What happened to Judge Abu Yusuf (d. 182 AH / 798 CE) with Al-Rasheed, when we read in it the testimony of al-Dhahabi regarding his knowledge and his position with him: “I said: Abu Yusuf from the leadership of knowledge reached no more than him, and Al-Rasheed exaggerated his reverence!” Therefore, he made him the first to assume the position of chief judge in the history of Islam.
Abu Yusef tells us – in his book “Al-Kharaj” – about the context of his authorship to become the beginning of this art book, which deals with a vital topic in the conduct of government, which is the state’s public finances, resources, and expenditures. He says: “The Commander of the Faithful [Harun] … asked me to write a comprehensive book for him to work on in the collection of tax, tithes, alms, and the traveling (= tax).”
Special and general upbringing
These were not the first projects closely related to the scientific conscience of this class of sultans. The beginning of this approach – marked by a reflection of the scientific background of the Sultan in the field of policies and institutions – dates back to an earlier time when the first project to transcribe the hadith of the Prophet. Ibn Shihab al-Zuhri (d. 124 AH / 743 CE) at the top of a hundred (= 100 AH / 719 CE) under the order of Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz, then there was a lot of codification and classification. ” According to al-Hafiz Ibn Hajar (d. 852 AH / 1448 CE) in Fath al-Bari.
Al-Rasheed, then, represented the knowledge and gave him permission in his policies when he assumed the leadership with support and attention. One of the manifestations of that is what Ibn Qutaybah al-Dainawari (d. In a thousand [dinars] of the bid (= the salary), and whoever collects the Qur’an and accepts to seek knowledge, the age of the councils of knowledge and the purposes of literature, write it in two thousand dinars of giving, and whoever collects the Qur’an and narrates the hadith and understands it in knowledge and considers it so write it in four thousand dinars (= today 700 thousand Almost dollars) from the bid. ”
In the midst of the data that clearly reveal the scientific formation of the learned caliphs, the discussion of the mechanism behind their cognitive stardom is a matter of the heart of the context. Their fathers were caliphs, where the linguists – such as the imams of the language: Al-Kasai (d.189 AH / 805 AD), Al-Mufaddal Al-Dhabi, Qotrab (d. 206 AH / 821 AD) – and Al-Fara (d. 207 AH / 823 AD) – had the greatest role in making and supplementing the scientific side of a number of caliphs and sultans.
Mustafa Al-Rafi’i (d.1356 AH / 1937 CE) – in the “History of Arab Manners” – mentioned that the Temple of Ibn Khalid Al-Juhani (d. 80 AH / 699 AD) and Imam Al-Shaabi taught the children of Abd al-Malik bin Marwan, and added: “They are the oldest teachers of what we have stood on.” As for their primacy in the Islamic West, Al-Fayrouzabadi (d. 817 AH / 1416 CE) – in his book “Bulgah” – tells us that “Judi bin Othman al-Nahawi (al-Abbasi d. 198 AH / 814 CE) … [is] the first to write the children of the princes of Andalusia.”
And we remain in the second century AH / eighth century AD; Let us find that in parallel with the efforts of the Umayyad interior to consolidate the authority of his kingdom in Andalusia; The region of the Islamic West – on the southern bank – was witnessing the throes of the emergence of the first state-based on Ibadhi political jurisprudence, which makes scientific qualification a condition for candidates to lead the state.
This was achieved by the young prince Abd al-Rahman bin Rustam al-Farsi (d. 171 AH / 888 CE), the actual founder of the Rustamiyya state in the year 141 AH / 759 CE. The Ibadi historian Abu al-Abbas al-Shamakhi al-Yafrani (d. 928 AH / 1522 CE) – in the ‘Biographical Book’ – tells us
Pioneering projects and in the third/ninth century AD
The preoccupation with knowledge and the scientific concern of rulers barely equaled its track in Islamic civilization until it collided with ideological and intellectual pitfalls during the reign of the Abbasid Caliph al-Ma’mun. And culture, this caliph preoccupied and imbibed it and wanted to impose it on his subjects. This resulted in an issue that occupied a great position in the Islamic mentality and was known historically as “the Mihna”.
The official preoccupation with philosophy and its access to the scientific and cultural field reflected the characteristic of the encyclopedic scientific state of al-Ma’mun, who mentioned Ibn Katheer as “memorizing the Holy Qur’an” and “narrating hadith” about scholars, and al-Dhahabi intensifies his description of his epistemological formation by saying that he “read science, literature, news, mentalities, and sciences. The first (= philosophies), and he ordered the Arabization of their books and an adult …, and he … revered the people of speech and debated in his council. ” With this recent tendency, the “ordeal” crisis exploded.
However, the negative aspects of this incident should not obscure from us the importance of Al-Mamun’s pioneering role in developing the library of the “House of Wisdom” library of the natural sciences and engineering works, and its founding projects for astronomical observations and measurement of the circumference of the Earth. The astronomer historian Ibn al-Dawadari (died after 736 AH / 1335 CE) – in ‘Treasures of Gharar’ – reported that in the year 214 AH / 229 CE “Al-Ma’mun ordered [the astronomers] to take over the observations in the city of Shamasiyah from the country of Damascus, and they stood on the time of the observational sun’s year and its inclination. And the exit of its center and the subject of its climax, and with that, they knew some of the conditions of the planets from the car and the stationary .., so they restricted what they ended up and called it ‘safe observation’, so these observations were the first in the Kingdom of Islam !!
And in Andalusia in the middle of the fourth/tenth century AD; The experience of her successor, Hakim al-Andalus, included what could be a model of the positive aspects of the experience of al-Ma’mun al-Abbasi in the East that combines the depth of knowledge and the merit of administration. The helm of judgment ably. The historian of Andalusian culture Al-Maqri (d. 1041 AH / 1632 AD) – in ‘Nafh al-Tayyib’ – introduces us to the lofty scholarly position of the Caliph Al-Mustansir at the moment when he seized the levers of power in Andalusia; He said that he “expanded his knowledge, sharpened his gaze, and gathered his benefits.”
And it was accepted by centuries. Ibn Al-Abbar Al-Qudai (d. 658 AH / 1206 AD) – in ‘Al-Tikmilah’ – spoke about the enormity of Al-Mustansir’s library, which was a cognitive aid for Andalusians, so he said in his translation of “Taleed al-Fata” al-Saqlabi (died after 400 AH / 1010 CE) that he is “the master of al-Hakam al-Mustansir Billah and the owner of his treasury. Scientific, Abu Muhammad Ibn Hazm (d. 456 AH / 1065 CE) said: The young boy told me .. and he was in the treasury of science in the Banu Marwan Palace (= the Umayyads) that several indexes – in which the names of books are named – are forty-four, in each index, there are twenty papers, not Where only the mention of the collections (= the literature) only !! ”
Al-Qudai listed the names of about ten of my paperwork and copies of this library, then praised the capacity of al-Mustansir’s knowledge, saying that “we hardly ever find a book for him or a book from his treasury (= his library) unless he had reading and consideration in it, from whatever art he used to read and write in his handwriting – either at its beginning or At the end of it or in its doubling – the author attributed his birth and death and defined him, and mentions the genealogies of the narrators to him, and from that comes with oddities that are hardly present except with him because of his frequent reading and attention in this regard!
A generalization of education then presenting Al-Qudai’s case for Al-Mustansir’s scientific credibility with the scholars of Andalusia. He says that “he was trusted and safe on him [until] everything that he wrote became a hijjah with the Andalusian sheiks and imams, transferring it from his handwriting and presenting it to him .. Part of what was found in the al-Hakam line met for me, and I found that it includes many benefits in various types !!” And according to your knowledge of this authority that Imam Ibn Hazm attributes to him and relies on him, and he says in several places in his book ‘Al-Jumhurah’: “I wrote it from the line of al-Hakam al-Mustansir”!
This scientific preoccupation was reflected in the educational policies of Al-Mustansir, and he sought to provide free education to the poor classes. Ibn Athari al-Marrakchi (d. After 712 AH / 1312 CE) states – in the Western statement “- that“ one of the good deeds and good deeds of his deeds is that he takes the disciplined people to teach the children of the weak and the needy the Qur’an around the mosque and every level (= one side) from the lands of Cordoba; To them in diligence and advice, seeking the face of God Almighty. The number of these offices is twenty-seven, of which about the mosque is three.
And in Fatimid Egypt; The other side of the Mediterranean was not devoid of manifestations evidenced by the scientific impact of some of its leaders who combined government and science, as thinking about the daily spending of government was not all that preoccupied them, but the scientific concern was also present, and important efforts resulted in some of them have made a head start in their field, such as The idea of the “pen storing ink” that the Fatimid Sultan al-Muizz reached to the Religion of God (d. 365 AH / 975 AD), thus winning the first “ink pen” before our modern era knew this invention by about a thousand years !!
And informs us about the story of the invention of the Fatimid “pen of al-Muizz”, its judge, Abu Hanifa al-Nu’man al-Tamimi (d. 363 AH / 974 CE), in his book “Majalis and Al-Masarat”; He says that one day the goat mentioned the pen, so he said: “We want to do a seldom with which it is written without drawing from a dowel, and its outflow is from within it: when a person wants it he writes with it and he supplies it and writes with that what he wants, and whenever he wants to leave it, the ink rises and the pen is dry from it, the writer makes it in his sleeve. Or wherever he wants, it does not affect it, and nothing from the flow is filtered from it, and that is only when it is desired and intended to write with it, so it becomes a wonderful instrument that we did not know that I was preceded by, and evidence of great wisdom for those who contemplated it and knew the meaning of it !!
Al-Nu’man adds, recording his astonishment at this strange ambition: “So I said: And this will be, O our Lord …? He said, It will be, God willing! What went by but a few days after that until the maker – who described to him the workmanship – came with it made of gold, and he deposited it with the ink and wrote with it. So he wrote .., I saw a wonderful workmanship that I did not think I would see like it !! Al-Muizz would not have been attached to such a suggestion if it were not for the fact that working in knowledge and belonging to it was a given at the heart of his life. That is why Ibn al-Atheer (d. 630 AH / 1233 CE) described him – in al-Kamil – and said: “Al-Muizz was a virtuous scientist.” Then he recorded his fondness for astronomy and mentioned that he was “seduced by the stars and works with the sayings of astrologers.”
And a symbiosis between the political and scientific concerns Some critical situations called Al-Muizz Al-Fatimid to learn a number of languages, and he mastered them according to an interesting narration that Al-Maqrizi (d. The peoples of Eastern Europe) became a stray from them .., and his soul stopped asking about its meaning, so he began to memorize languages [to know its meaning for himself]. An ugly curse! He ordered the killing of that employee because of her !!
The modernized king
The geographical circles of the Islamic region remained intertwined at the level of the emergence of embodied models of those with rule and knowledge, and a region like Sijistan – which today includes the territory of the state of Iran – was not immune to this remarkable phenomenon. The levers of power in it were acquired by the modern imam Khalaf bin Ahmad al-Sijistani (d. 399 AH / 1009 CE) who cites Imam al-Samani (d. 562 AH / 1167 CE) – in his book “The Genealogy” – a dense sentence expressing an indication of his high scientific and political standing. He declared that he “was among the people of virtue, knowledge, politics, and the king, and he had heard the hadith and it happened, and he heard about Khurasan .. and Iraq .. and the Hijaz .. and happened in Iraq and Khurasan !!” Al-Dhahabi defines him as “the modernized king .. the jurist, from the majesty of kings, who has much preference over the scholars.”
Al-Sijistani was not satisfied that he was among those who read to him the great hadith imams such as al-Darqutani (d. 385 AH / 996 CE) and al-Hakim al-Nisaburi (d. 405 AH / 1015 CE). Rather, he undertook the first known attempt at our collective and encyclopedic compositions in the Arab-Islamic culture, when he wanted to classify the broadest interpretation of the Noble Qur’an. In a week they received twenty thousand dinars (= today almost 3.3 million dollars) “; According to al-Dhahabi, who said that a copy of this encyclopedia was seen, “Bnisapur takes [it’s writing] the lifetime of the copyist” to be so big !! Yaqut al-Hamwi (d. 626 AH / 1229 CE) – in the ‘Dictionary of the Writers’ – estimates the size of this encyclopedia at about “one hundred and twenty volumes” !!
And once again there is the dilemma of overlapping the sectarian bias of the ruler with the requirements of the supposed neutrality of the authority towards its subjects and the opinions they espouse. The emirate of Khalaf al-Sijistani – whom the literary historian Abu Mansour al-Tha’alabi (d.429 AH / 1038 CE) calls the “Sheikh of the Kings”! That is because – according to al-Hamwi – “he was at the beginning of the matter according to the doctrine of the people of opinion, and the people of his doctrine were luring him to kill those who violated his doctrine, so he killed many thousands according to that opinion .. Then he returned from the doctrine of the people of opinion to the doctrine of the people of hadith and killed many creatures” of their opponents’ People of opinion !!
The phenomenon of scholarly powerhouses contributed to maintaining the scholarly affiliation of a number of rulers in the Islamic West and Andalusia, just as the first generation of Abbasids had previously observed. So the Judge of Seville, Abu Al-Qasim Muhammad bin Ismail bin Ubad Al-Lakhmi (d. He said that “he was a scholar and man, with full knowledge of state management, and he was still an independent king until he died.”
And the Andalusian historian Ibn Bashkawal (d. 578 AH / 1182 CE) stated that this Ibn Abbad “was one of the people of caring for knowledge,” as al-Dhahabi translated for him – in the “biography” – and said that he “excelled in knowledge .. and took over the district of Seville.” One of the strengths of the scientific queen of this prince was that he grew up in the care of his father, about whom Judge Ayyad said in the ‘Arrangement of Perceptions’: “He was a man in the West of Andalusia at his time, and good knowledge was cut off from great knowledge.
Literary tiles and when the Umayyad dynasty system fell in Andalusia at the beginning of the fifth/eleventh century AD
The region of Seville was first subjected to the rule of the Alawite Banu Hammoud, then the speech of its notables met in 414 AH / 1024 AD on the assumption of its judge, Ibn Abbad. This is the rule of this region. As golden says.
Thus, that was the actual beginning of the establishment of the state of Bani Abbad Lakhmiyyin, which later extended until it included the capital, Cordoba, “and [a] most of the cities were annexed to him,” in Al-Dhahabi’s expression, and its kings became – according to Ayyad- “the most honorable kings in Andalusia” and the greatest of them are tiles, especially the last of them the scholar-prince and the poet al-Mu’tamid ibn Ubad (d. 488 AH / 1059 AD), who established their state for about two decades, “He was a courageous knight, a scholar, a clever, poet, a philanthropist, a praiseworthy, high-ranking horse…, and his writers were eighteen” !! According to the golden.
And in Ifriqiya / Tunisia; Prince poet Tamim bin Al-Muizz bin Badis Al-Senhaji (d. 501 AH / 1008 AD) embodied one of these models with distinction; He was – as Al-Dhahabi tells us – “one of the children of kings,” and he ruled Tunisia in the year 454 AH / 1063 CE, remaining for 47 years during which he was known as a “brave, majestic, wielding hero, a scholar who poet and a praiseworthy horse”. Among the various paths of knowledge: Literature was his most famous gateway to the cultural world, as al-Tayyib in Makhrama al-Hajrani (d. 947 AH / 1541 CE) described him – in “The Necklace of Sacrifice” – that he was a “skillful poet”!
And since the celebration of scholars has remained a common denominator that distinguishes the models of those with knowledge and governance; This prince Al-Senhaji did not forget his fortune in that, as Ibn Khallakan tells us by saying about him: “The king of Ifriqiya and her guardian, he was … a lover of scholars, most of the masters of virtues !!” Known for “Prince Tamim, ” the historians, including praise by the municipality poet Ibn Agile Cyrene (T 456 AH / 1065 AD) was quoted as saying in the “Manan modern” generous: the healthiest and highest what we heard in the dew ** of news irrigated since ancient: conversations tell torrents about Hia * On the sea from Emir Tamim’s cessation !!
And in the Ayyubid Egypt and the Levant; Judgment and science had a special convergence for a figure with a prominent presence in the Islamic memory, namely, Sultan Salah al-Din al-Ayyubi (d. It was narrated by Yunus al-Farqi (d. 628 AH / 1231 CE) and Judge General [al-Isfahani] al-Katib (d.597 AH / 1200 CE).
Thus, Saladin records among a few of the modernists of his time who included in the narration of the Prophet’s hadith preserving literature and chanting poetry, for he “used to preserve the ‘enthusiasm’ (= a book of poetry) and thought that every jurist preserved it !!” And with his scientific interest demonstrating diversity; On the political and military level, his fame “flew out of the world and the kings feared him” !!
The Council of Saladin had the character of councils of scholars and jurists and was not without scholarly participation made in its discussed scientific issues Al-Dhahabi explains this by saying: “Al-Muwaffaq Abd Al-Latif (Al-Baghdadi d. 629 AH / 1232 CE) said: I found his council a party of scholars who study, and he is good at listening and participating.”
Encouragement rewards, in addition to the Hadith sciences, which had a number of schools at that time in the Ayyubid state
The fortunes of the jurisprudence schools in this country – which were divided into several emirates after the death of Saladin – continued between ending one doctrine and empowering another; Thus, the Ayyubid family knew the arrival of one of its sons, the jurists, to power in the Emirate of Damascus, the great Sultan Issa Ibn al-Adel (d.624 AH / 1227 CE), but he preferred not to take the same doctrinal version that the sons of his Ayyubid family belonged to, but rather chose to be a Hanafi scholar of his doctrine. Until qualified to fatwa ” According to Al Dhahabi.
He was also loyal to his doctrine to the point of “fanaticism” for him and allocating financial rewards for those who memorize the mothers of his jurisprudence books; Al-Dhahabi says that the magnificent Sultan “was intolerant of his [Hanafi] doctrine, and he made for those who offered (= saved) .. ‘The Great Mosque’ [by Imam Muhammad bin Al-Hassan Al-Shaibani (d.189 AH / 805 AD)] two hundred dinars” as a reward. Then he mentions a variety of the most important compilations of knowledge that al-Mu’ammar studied among his elders, and even memorized some of them. These include “Kitab Sibawayh” and “Kitab al-Hujjah” in the readings, and “al-enthusiasm” [in literature] … and Musnad Ahmad. ”
Ibn al-Atheer summarizes for us the prominent scholarly position of this Sultan – whom al-Dhahabi described as “cunning and firmness” – and said that he “was a scholar of several sciences … [distinguished] in them, including Jurisprudence on the doctrine of Abu Hanifa (d.150 AH / 767 AD) .., including The science of grammar has also worked with it in excess .., as well as language and other things .., and the knowledge (= Raj) was spent in its market, and the scholars intended it from the horizons. Due to knowledge and patience! ”
The great Ayyubid is renewed with the idea of a tendency to compose scientific encyclopedias, of which we have seen an example of the “modernized king”, the successor to al-Sijistani; Ibn al-Atheer tells us that al-Muzzam “ordered that a book in the language be compiled for him by a large collector: in it is the book“ al-Sahih ”by al-Jawhari (d. That ‘the Musnad of Ahmad ibn Hanbal’ is arranged on the chapters, and every hadith is returned to the section that its meaning requires … so it becomes a comprehensive book!
It seems that allocating prizes for keeping science books was an educational policy followed by this Sultan. Ibn Khallakan informs us that it is “a condition for everyone who memorizes al-Mussafshal for al-Zamakhshari (d.539 AH / 1144 CE) a hundred dinars (= today approximately 18 thousand US dollars) and a khulaa (= precious clothing), so, for this reason, a group of jurists preserved it! While Ibn Qutlubugha (d. 879 AH / 1474 CE) – in ‘Taj al-Tarajum’ – attributes to him that “for those who memorize [the book] ‘al-clarification’) in the grammar of Abu Ali al-Farsi d.
The Ayyubids were keen on the scientific upbringing of those who belonged to their tree to the point of deepening the knowledge, which preserved the sultans who represent distinctive models of simplicity in science and governance. Among these, the name of the king of Hama, Abi al-Fida ‘al-Ayyubi (d.732 AH / 1331 CE), who provided the Islamic library with authorizations in which applied sciences such as medicine and astronomy were present in it, shines clearly. And medicine, and so on, and he has many compilations, including a rich history in two large volumes, and he has organized ‘the container’ [in jurisprudence] .., and he loved scholars and shared with them many arts. ”
Ibn Shakir Al-Ketbi (d. 764 AH / 1363 AD) – which he describes in “Fawat al-Wawiyat” as “the virtuous, scholarly imam, the Sultan al-Malik” – defines for us the field of specialization in which al-Muayyad emerged: He says, “The science of the Authority was the best he knew because he had perfected it, even though he had participated in all other sciences well.” Among his books printed today are his ‘Brief History of the News of Humans’, ‘Al-Kanash in the Arts of Grammar and Morphology’, and ‘Country Calendar’ in the Field of Country Geography.
Classification and classification and in Yemen
The Turkmen Apostolic State was also part of the phenomenon of families that combined science and rule, in which we encounter a model among its sultans that embodied a different situation in the pattern of scientific interest that was not restricted to him in the field of Sharia sciences only. ) Who was known historically as the greatest ruler of the Apostolic State, which ruled for 47 years.
Ibn Whas al-Khazraji al-Zubaidi (d. 812 AH / 1415 CE) – in “Pearly Contracts” – said that “he had a long hand in medicine, and when he inaugurated the city of Dhofar … he mentioned in his book to al-Malik al-Zahir Baybars (d. 676 AH / 1279 CE). The owner of Egypt – he needs a doctor for the city of Dhofar because it is an environment, and he said: He does not think that I want a doctor for ourselves, for we know, with the grace of God, medicine that no one else knows, and we have worked in it from the days of the youth. ) From the scholars of medicine, and he has [in it] the book ‘Al-Jaami’, no one likes it! Al-Muzaffar has a printed book on medicine entitled ‘The Approved in Single Medicines’.
As for the victorious position in the other sciences
Al-Khazraji also explained it by saying that the books of hadith were “all set in his handwriting, so that whoever saw them say he had no work for his entire life [except copying], with his much work in science in various arts”, and despite his preoccupation with the affairs of power in a country that often plagued him Conflicts of thrones and armies!
And after the departure of the Apostolic state
We find that the fingerprints and traces of those with rule and knowledge continued in Yemen during the later ages, and to see a part of that we travel to the Zaydi Imam al-Mutawakkil Yahya Sharaf al-Din al-Alawi (d.965 AH / 1558 CE), that sultan who formed the trinity of jurisprudence, poetry and authority the main elements in the building of his life and his career. It is no wonder if we recall that most of the Zaydi sultans – especially Yemen – were scholars because their Imami doctrine and political thought required the attribute of knowledge is the one who would rule.
And between knowledge, learning, and al-Mutawakkil al-Zaidi, this ancient lineage illustrated by Imam al-Shawkani (d. 1250 AH / 1834 CE) – in “Al-Badr Al-Tala’a” – and he says: “He read to his father Shams al-Din [book] al-Dhahriya” and explained it to Ibn Hutil (al-Najri d. ‘Al-Kafiyyah’ and its explanation and the first half of ‘Al-Mussafal’, then he left for Sana’a and he completed the reading of ‘Al-Mussafal’! He talked about his reading of central works in grammatical studies, adding that he “read in many arts and excelled in mental and translational sciences.”
Moreover, al-Mutawakkil was not satisfied with the collection until he associated it with the authorship, which he did not distract from the experience of political problems. He – like his predecessors who ruled in some Islamic regions after the fifth century AH – was abundant in scientific production, and among the classifications with which he supplied the Arab library: “The Book of Fruits [in which] the ‘Flowers’ was abbreviated,” and “Rulings in the Fundamentals of the Doctrine” Zaidi.
And unlike the position of the general Islamic caliphate; The thrones of the country states – with the limited societal nature of their principalities – provided a valuable opportunity for the emergence of the phenomenon of apprenticeships to scholarly princes. Thus it was stated in ‘Tabaqat al-Zaydiyyah al-Kubra’ by Ibn al-Qasim al-Shahari (d.1152 AH / 1740 CE) that al-Mutawakkil “took knowledge from several students”, and that he was sitting to teach; This reminds us of the model of al-Sultan al-Modaris that we saw in the two personalities of Khalaf al-Sijistani and Salah al-Din al-Ayyubi.
Legislative leadership, and if we left happy Yemen and turned to the east towards Islamic India, the days of the sultans of the Great Mughals;
We will be in sight of another experience of a great ruler with a well-known scientific background, namely Sultan Alamir Aurangzeb (d. 1118 AH 1707 CE), who ruled India for 50 years, during which he was described by Abu al-Fadl al-Muradi (d.1206 AH / 1791 CE) in “Silik al-Durar”: “The World The Allama, the Sufi Who Knows God, the King in Support of Religion.
Then Al-Mouradi adds, indicating to us how this scholarly sultan managed his time in the conflict between matters of government and the arts of science: “And he was a distribution of his times: a time for worship, a time for teaching, a time for the interests of the military, a time for charity, and a time for reading books and news reported to him every day and night from his kingdom, no Confuse something with something! ”
With regard to the effects resulting from the scientific component on the personalities of rulers The Sultan Alamajir undertook a pioneering scholarly and jurisprudential project that was the first nucleus of contemporary “codification of jurisprudence” codes, starting with the “Journal of Judicial Rulings” of the Ottoman Empire in the year 1293 AH / 1876 CE, as if he was comparing with him the idea of collective authorship that had previously been applied by his counterpart in the Hanafi school of jurisprudence: al-Malik Khalaf al-Sijistani And the glorious Sultan, the Ayyubid, blew its ashes, and it returned glowing with his sponsorship of codifying Islamic jurisprudence rulings.
Al-Mouradi explained that by saying that a scholar of the Hanafi country: “He ordered the scholars of his Hanafi country to compile fatwas in his name that gathered the bulk of their doctrine, which is needed from the legal rulings. And the benefit of it and became a reference for muftis “in these countries.
From the west of the Islamic world we conclude this historical procession that we started from its east; In the Al-Aqsa Maghreb, the star of a prince who is versed in Islamic knowledge and sciences is Sultan Sidi Muhammad bin Abdullah Al-Alawi (d.1204 AH / 1790 CE). Bint Bakkar Al-Mughafriya (d. 1155 AH / 1142 AD), who was caring for him and teaching him sciences while he was soft on the oud, for she was “a scholarly scholar.” According to its translation by Al-Nasiri Al-Salawi (d. 1315 AH / 1898 AD) in his book, Al-Istiqsa.
Al-Salawi also quoted the historian of the Alawite state in Morocco, Allamah Acansos (d. 1296 AH / 1877 AD), describing to the grandmother of this prince as “the mother of the sultans, and she was Salih Abidah, a scholar who acquired sciences,” he said. Hajar Al-Asqalani. Thus, we realize the distinction of the atmosphere of educational attainment by the Sultan, the jurist Sidi Muhammad, about which Ibn al-Tayyib al-Qadri (d. Scholars without him! In ‘Silwat al-Nafas’ by al-Kattani (d.
And we see a bit of the information indicating this, as the Sultan mentioned himself in the conclusion of his book ‘Al-Jami’ Al-Sahih Al-Sahih Al-Isnaad extracted from Six Musanids. As it was stated: “One of the greatest blessings of God upon me and His blessings of mine is that he has enabled me to work in knowledge, search for it, and study for his family.
What distinguished this prince from the rest of the sultans of the Islamic West – after the era of the monotheist state – was that he used to describe himself in his books as “the Commander of the Faithful … Al-Maliki, of the Hanbali school of thought.” It seems that this Hanbali nodal choice – in an environment that has long been decided by its doctrinal choice in favor of the Ash’ari school – was behind some of this Sultan’s decisions related to the field of education. He was – according to Al-Selawi- “forbids reading books of monotheism that are based on the verbal rules liberated on the Ash’ari doctrine” !!