al-Busiri
- Died
- 840 AH
- Born in
- -
Ahmad ibn Abi Bakr al-Busiri (762–840 AH / 1360–1436 CE) was an Egyptian Shafi'i hadith scholar and copyist known for his works in the hadith supplement (zawa'id) genre, including Misbah al-Zujaja fi Zawa'id Ibn Majah and Ithaf al-Khayra al-Mahara bi-Zawaid al-Masanid al-Ashara.
Early Life and Education
Shihab al-Din Abu al-Abbas Ahmad ibn Abi Bakr ibn Ismail ibn Salim al-Kinani al-Busiri was born during the middle ten days of Muharram 762 AH (November 1360 CE) in Abu Sir, located in the Gharbiyya province of Egypt. He was raised there, memorized the Quran, and studied tajwid and timekeeping (al-miqat) under Umar ibn al-Shaykh Isa.
Upon his teacher's counsel and with his father's blessing, he moved to Cairo to pursue higher religious education. There, he studied Shafi'i jurisprudence under al-Nur al-Adami and Yusuf Ismail al-Inbabi, and grammar under al-Badr al-Qudsi al-Hanafi. He attended the lectures of Izz al-Din ibn Jama'ah in both rational and transmitted disciplines, and received hadith transmissions from prominent scholars of his day, including Taqi al-Din ibn Hatim, al-Tannukhi, Siraj al-Din al-Bulqini, and Nur al-Din al-Haythami. Later in life, he devoted himself intensively to hadith, closely accompanying Zayn al-Din al-Iraqi, his son Wali al-Din al-Iraqi, and Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani.
Scholarly Career and Standing
Al-Busiri specialized in compiling hadith supplements (zawa'id), dedicating major efforts to extracting and evaluating traditions absent from the core Sunni canonical collections. In Misbah al-Zujaja, he isolated the extra narrations found in the Sunan of Ibn Majah relative to the other five canonical books and commented on their chains of transmission. In Ithaf al-Khayra al-Mahara, he assembled supplementary narrations preserved across ten early musnad collections. He also authored Fawa'id al-Muntaqi li-Zawa'id al-Bayhaqi on the additions of al-Bayhaqi's collection.
In addition to composing works, al-Busiri earned his livelihood by copying manuscripts. Al-Sakhawi noted that while his handwriting was attractive, his transcriptions frequently contained errors in proper names and texts. Scholars transmitted from him, among them Najm al-Din Ibn Fahd.
Death
Al-Busiri died at midday on Sunday, 17 Muharram 840 AH (August 1436 CE) in Cairo. He was buried in Cairo at the mausoleum of Tashtamur al-Dawadar.
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List of Works
Ithaf al-Khayra al-Mahara bi-Zawaid al-Masanid al-Ashara (The Gift of the Skilled Elite Regarding the Surplus Narrations of the Ten Musnads) is a reference work of hadith literature. The compilation extracts and organizes the zawa'id—narrations absent from the standard Six Books of Hadith—from ten prominent early musnad collections.
Misbah al-Zujaja fi Zawaid Ibn Majah (The Lamp of the Glass on the Unique Hadiths of Ibn Majah) is a hadith work of the zawa'id (supplementary traditions) genre. It isolates, gathers, and evaluates the traditions found in the Sunan of Ibn Majah that are not recorded in the other five canonical Sunni collections.