al-Suhayli
- Died
- 581 AH
- Born in
- Malaga
Abu al-Qasim al-Suhayli (508–581 AH / 1114–1185 CE) was an Andalusian grammarian, philologist, and hadith scholar from Malaga, best known for his commentary on the prophetic biography, al-Rawd al-Unuf .
Lineage and Early Life
He was Abd al-Rahman ibn Abd Allah ibn Ahmad ibn Asbagh ibn al-Husayn ibn Sa'dun ibn Ridwan ibn Futuh al-Khath'ami al-Suhayli, bearing the kunyas Abu al-Qasim, Abu Zayd, and Abu al-Hasan . His ancestor Futuh was the first of his lineage to enter al-Andalus . His nisba derives from Suhayl, a locality in the district of Malaga named after the star Canopus (Suhayl), which was reportedly not visible anywhere in al-Andalus except from a mountain overlooking that village .
He was born in 508 AH (1114 CE), with alternative reports giving 507 AH or 509 AH, and an isolated note recording his birth in Seville . At approximately seventeen years of age, he lost his eyesight due to an eye affliction .
Education and Teachers
Despite his blindness, he pursued extensive studies across Andalusia in Quranic recitation, Arabic linguistics, hadith, and jurisprudence . He studied the variant Quranic readings under Abu Dawud Sulayman ibn Yahya and Mansur ibn al-Khayr . In Arabic grammar and literature, he debated and studied Kitab Sibawayh alongside extensive philological treatises under Ali ibn al-Husayn ibn al-Tarawah . He heard hadith and transmitted from scholars such as Abu Bakr ibn al-Arabi, Abu Abd Allah al-Ma'mar, Abu Abd Allah ibn Makki, Abu Abd Allah ibn Najah al-Dhahabi, and Shurayh ibn Muhammad, and received written authorization (ijazah) from Ibn Ukht Ghanim .
Scholarly Career and Students
He established himself in Malaga as a teacher of Quranic recitation, hadith, and Arabic grammar, living frugally and in modest circumstances . In Malaga, he dictated al-Rawd al-Unuf (The Unflowered Garden), an extensive commentary on the prophetic biography of Ibn Hisham, which he compiled from more than one hundred and twenty textual sources . He also authored al-Ta'rif wa-l-I'lam to identify the unnamed figures mentioned in the Quran, and composed Nata'ij al-Fikr on grammatical theory and linguistic causes .
Numerous scholars studied under him and transmitted his works, including Abu al-Hajjaj ibn al-Shaykh, Abu Muhammad al-Qurtubi, Abu Ali al-Rundi, the brothers Abu Muhammad and Abu Sulayman (the sons of Ibn Hawt Allah), Abu al-Husayn ibn al-Sarraj, and Abu al-Khattab ibn Dihyah, while Abu al-Khattab ibn Khalil was the last surviving student to narrate directly from him .
Relocation to Marrakesh and Death
Word of his learning reached the Almohad Caliphate authorities in Marrakesh, whose ruler summoned him to the capital, bestowed financial patronage upon him, and appointed him to the chief judgeship (qada al-jama'ah) . He resided in Marrakesh for roughly three years, teaching and conducting his judicial duties until his death .
He died in Marrakesh on Thursday, 26 Sha'ban 581 AH (November 1185 CE), and was buried at noon; another report places his death on 25 Sha'ban . He was seventy-two years old .
Scholarly Standing
Scholars praised him for combining narrative transmission (riwayah) with analytical comprehension (dirayah) across multiple disciplines, particularly Arabic linguistics, Quranic exegesis, hadith criticism, and genealogy . Abu Ja'far ibn al-Zubayr described him as vast in knowledge, advanced in grammar and lexicography, skilled in hadith methodology, biographical evaluation, and legal theory, and gifted with original deductions . He was also an accomplished poet, well known for a six-verse supplication poem beginning with the line:
يا من يرى ما في الضمير ويسمع ... أنت المعد لكل ما يتوقع "O You who sees what is in the conscience and hears, You are prepared for all that is anticipated" .
Answer updated
List of Works
Nataij al-Fikr fi al-Nahw (Results of Thought in Grammar) is a treatise on Arabic grammatical theory, underlying linguistic causes (ilal al-nahw), and rhetorical subtleties. Organized following Abu al-Qasim al-Zajjaji's Kitab al-Jumal, the work investigates the underlying rationales governing grammatical behaviour, morphological forms, and syntactic structures, incorporating reflections on Quranic rhetoric, semantic distinctions, and exegetical subtleties alongside technical grammatical analysis.
al-Rawd al-Unuf is an extensive commentary on the prophetic biography (al-Sirah al-Nabawiyyah). Serving as an explanatory gloss and scholarly analysis of the Sirah of Ibn Hisham, the work aims to clarify rare vocabulary, ambiguous grammatical analysis, convoluted expressions, intricate genealogies, juristic implications, and incomplete historical reports by integrating disciplines such as lexicography, grammar, exegesis, hadith, jurisprudence, and genealogy.
al-Faraid wa Sharh Ayat al-Wasiyya (The Law of Inheritances and Explanation of the Verses of Bequest) is a legal and exegetical treatise on Islamic inheritance law (ilm al-faraid). The work combines Qur'anic exegesis, Arabic linguistics, legal theory, and jurisprudential computation to elucidate the rulings and underlying wisdom of inheritance in Islam, focusing on the legal, linguistic, and theological dimensions of the inheritance verses in Surah al-Nisa'.