al-Damiri
- Died
- 808 AH
- Born in
- Cairo
Kamal al-Din al-Damiri (742–808 AH / 1341–1405 CE) was an Egyptian Shafi'i jurist, hadith scholar, and author, best known for his zoological and encyclopedic compendium Hayat al-Hayawan al-Kubra (The Major Life of Animals) and his legal commentary al-Najm al-Wahhaj fi Sharh al-Minhaj.
Early life and education
His full name was Muhammad ibn Musa ibn Isa ibn Ali, with the kunya Abu al-Baqa' and the honorific Kamal al-Din. He was originally named simply "Kamal" without the genitive construct, a name he originally wrote in his own hand in his books before erasing it and taking the name Muhammad. He was born in Cairo in early 742 AH (1341 CE), though other accounts place his birth around 745 or 750 AH. His nisba derives from Damirah, a village in Lower Egypt.
Al-Damiri earned his living as a tailor in his early life before dedicating himself to Islamic scholarship. He studied Shafi'i jurisprudence under Baha' al-Din Ahmad al-Subki and Jamal al-Din al-Isnavi, who praised him warmly after al-Damiri composed verses lauding al-Isnavi's work al-Tamhid. He also studied under the Maliki judge Kamal al-Din al-Nuwayri, who granted him authorization to issue legal opinions and teach, and he studied Arabic literature under Burhan al-Din al-Qirati. In hadith, he heard Jami` al-Tirmidhi under Muzaffar al-Din Ibn al-Attar al-Misri and Ali ibn Ahmad al-Fardi al-Dimashqi (al-Urdi), heard the Musnad of Ahmad ibn Hanbal with minimal omissions, and studied under Muhammad ibn Ali al-Harawi in Cairo.
Career and spiritual life
Al-Damiri taught hadith at the Rukniyya Dome (Qubbat Baybars) near Bab al-Nasr in Cairo, held a dedicated teaching circle at al-Azhar Mosque, and delivered public sermons at the Mosque of al-Zahir Baybars in al-Husayniyya. He performed the pilgrimage to Mecca several times and resided for extended periods of spiritual devotion in both Mecca and Medina. He was noted for rigorous personal devotion, continuous recitation of the Quran, fasting, and night vigils, and was respected by state authorities for his asceticism. Various miraculous gifts and foresights were reported of him, which he concealed by attributing them to dreams or other scholars.
In jurisprudence, he authored al-Najm al-Wahhaj fi Sharh al-Minhaj, a commentary on al-Nawawi's Minhaj al-Talibin that summarized earlier commentaries by al-Subki and al-Isnavi with added supplementary legal notes. He also composed al-Dibaja, an extensive commentary on Sunan Ibn Majah, though he died before producing its final fair copy.
Reception and death
Al-Damiri achieved wide recognition across Islamic jurisprudence, hadith, exegesis, and literature. His encyclopedic work Hayat al-Hayawan al-Kubra drew from hundreds of sources to treat the animal kingdom lexically, juridically, and folklorically, earning broad circulation while drawing critique from later bibliographers who noted that his primary aim was lexical and juridical clarification rather than natural history in the manner of al-Jahiz. The scholar Shihab al-Din Ahmad ibn al-IImad al-Aqfahsi authored a treatise pointing out errors in al-Damiri's rulings, entitled al-Bayan al-Taqriri fi Takhti'at al-Kamal al-Damiri, to which Burhan al-Din ibn Khidr appended a rebuttal arguing that al-Damiri was correct and his critic mistaken.
Al-Damiri died in Cairo in 808 AH (1405 CE).
Answer updated
List of Works
Sharh Lamiyat al-Ajam, also known as Mukhtasar al-Ghayth al-Musajjam, is a literary commentary and abridgment summarizing Salah al-Din al-Safadi's extensive commentary on the poem Lamiyat al-Ajam by al-Tughra'i. It provides a line-by-line exposition of the poem, condensing al-Safadi's philological explanations, grammatical parsing, rhetorical analyses, and historical citations to make the core literary benefits accessible to students without the original work's lengthy digressions.
al-Najm al-Wahhaj fi Sharh al-Minhaj (The Blazing Star in Commentary on al-Minhaj) is an extensive commentary on al-Nawawi's foundational legal manual Minhaj al-Talibin. Conceived as a moderate-length Shafi'i legal work, it clarifies al-Nawawi's phrasing, resolves textual ambiguities, and addresses scholarly objections while integrating rulings from major earlier commentaries, collections of fatwas, and legal maxims.
Hayat al-Hayawan al-Kubra (The Major Life of Animals) is an Arabic zoological and encyclopedic compendium completed in its initial draft in Rajab 773 AH (1372 CE). Arranged alphabetically, it serves as a lexical, legal, biological, and folkloric dictionary covering the animal kingdom and living beings broadly conceived, detailing their linguistic names, physical traits and behaviors, Islamic jurisprudence regarding them, medicinal properties, and dream interpretation.