al-Muayyad al-Alawi
- Died
- 745 AH
- Born in
- Sanaa
al-Muayyad Yahya ibn Hamza al-Alawi (669–745 AH / 1270–1344 CE) was a Zaydi imam, jurist, theologian, and author based in Yemen .
Lineage, Early Life, and Imamate
He was Yahya ibn Hamza ibn Ali ibn Ibrahim ibn Muhammad ibn Idris ibn Ali ibn Ja'far, an Alid scholar tracing his descent to Ali ibn Abi Talib through al-Husayn . He was born in Sanaa on 27 Safar 669 AH . From his youth, he pursued religious and linguistic disciplines under prominent scholars in Yemen .
Following the death of al-Mahdi Muhammad ibn al-Mutahhar in 729 AH, Yahya proclaimed his call to the imamate and assumed the regnal title al-Muayyad bi-Llah (also recorded as al-Muayyad bi-Rabb al-Izzah) .
Scholarship and Standing
Al-Muayyad al-Alawi taught and authored extensively across theology, jurisprudence, legal theory, and Arabic rhetoric . Among his students was the jurist and grammarian al-Hasan ibn Nasr al-Ahnumi . In Arabic literature and rhetorical sciences, he composed al-Tiraz al-Mutadammin li-Asrar al-Balagha wa-Ulum Haqa'iq al-I'jaz (The Brocade Containing the Secrets of Rhetoric and the Sciences of the Realities of Inimitability), a three-volume work analyzing rhetoric and the miraculous eloquence of the Quran . He also addressed the theological debates surrounding the imamate in Tawq al-Hamama .
Biographers recognized him for his asceticism, scholarship, and conciliatory theological temperament . Muhammad ibn Ali al-Shawkani characterized him as an equitable and pious imam who abstained from charging ideological opponents with disbelief (takfir) or moral corruption (tafsiq) over interpretive differences, consistently defended the integrity of the Prophet's Companions, and combined learning with judicial rectitude .
Death
He died in 745 AH (1344 CE), though another report places his death in 747 AH (1346 CE), at the fortress of Harran north of Dhamar . His body was subsequently moved to Dhamar and buried in its madrasa .
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List of Works
This work is a comprehensive treatise on Arabic rhetoric and Quranic inimitability (i'jaz). Structured across three overarching parts, it examines rhetorical science, word order and semantics, figures of signification, tropes, and embellishments, culminating in an analysis of the supreme eloquence of the Quran and the proofs of its inimitability.
This theological treatise defends the soundness and integrity of the Prophet's Companions, focusing particularly on Abu Bakr and Umar ibn al-Khattab. It seeks to demonstrate that they were free from accusations of disbelief (kufr) and moral corruption (fisq), and that Ali ibn Abi Talib and prominent authorities of the Prophet's household never declared them to be outside the faith.