Abu al-Fath al-Abbasi
- Died
- 963 AH
- Born in
- Cairo
Abu al-Fath al-Abbasi (867–963 AH / 1463–1556 CE) was an Egyptian Shafi'i scholar of Arabic literature, rhetoric, and hadith, best known for his commentary on rhetorical poetic citations, Ma'ahid al-tansis 'ala shawahid al-Talkhis ("The Sites of Textual Evidence on the Poetic Citations of the Talkhis") .
Origin and Education
His full name was 'Abd al-Rahim ibn 'Abd al-Rahman ibn Ahmad ibn Hasan ibn Dawud ibn Salim al-'Abbasi . Known by the honorifics Zayn al-Din and Badr al-Din, his family traced its origin to Hama . He was born in Cairo in the month of Ramadan in 867 AH (1463 CE), though other accounts record his birth in 866 AH or 868 AH .
Raised in Egypt, al-Abbasi studied Arabic philology, Shafi'i jurisprudence, Quranic exegesis, and hadith under local scholars . He received high chains of transmission (isnad) from notable authorities including Jalal al-Din al-Suyuti, Muhyi al-Din al-Kafiyaji, al-Amin, and al-Aqsarayi, eventually studying under more than seventy teachers .
Career and Settlement in Constantinople
Al-Abbasi served for a period as the confidential secretary (kitabat al-sirr) in Damascus . During the late Mamluk period, he travelled to Constantinople in the retinue of an envoy sent by the Mamluk Sultan Qansuh al-Ghawri to Ottoman Sultan Bayezid II . Sultan Bayezid offered him a post teaching hadith in the Ottoman capital, but al-Abbasi declined at the time and returned to Cairo .
After the fall of the Mamluk sultanate, al-Abbasi relocated permanently to Constantinople . He settled in the quarter of Qarah Bash (Kara Baş), so named because he wore a black turban . In the capital, he was accorded high honor and was tasked with the ceremonial role of girding the sword upon Ottoman sultans during their accession ceremonies . He also had an interest in alchemy, spending substantial sums of money on it .
Earlier in Cairo, in 934 AH (1528 CE), he completed his four-volume work Ma'ahid al-tansis 'ala shawahid al-Talkhis, which provides exhaustive explanations of the poetic evidential verses in al-Khatib al-Qazwini's rhetorical manual Talkhis al-Miftah, detailing their linguistic meanings, meters, and poet biographies alongside literary parallels . He also authored Fayd al-Bari bi-sharh gharib Sahih al-Bukhari, a concise commentary explaining difficult vocabulary in Sahih al-Bukhari .
Death
Al-Abbasi died in Constantinople in 963 AH (1556 CE), having lived for more than ninety years .
Answer updated
List of Works
Ma‘ahid al-Tansis ‘ala Shawahid al-Talkhis is a four-volume Arabic rhetorical and literary reference work that explains and documents the poetic evidential verses (shawahid) found in Talkhis al-Miftah. It provides an exhaustive elucidation of these poetic citations, detailing their metres, linguistic and rhetorical meanings, poet attributions and biographies, and comparable literary parallels.