al-Daris fi Tarikh al-Madaris
- Author died
- 927 AH
- Editions
- Dar al-Kutub al-Ilmiyyah
al-Daris fi Tarikh al-Madaris (The Obliterated Remains in the History of Colleges) is a topographical and biographical work on the colleges, religious endowments, and educational institutions of Damascus by the historian and traditionist al-Nu'aymi (845–927 AH / 1441–1521 CE).
Title and Scope
The author's full name is Muhyi al-Din Abu al-Mafakhir 'Abd al-Qadir ibn Muhammad ibn 'Umar ibn Muhammad ibn Yusuf ibn 'Abd Allah ibn Nu'aym al-Nu'aymi al-Dimashqi al-Shafi'i. The work is also known by the fuller titles Tanbih al-Talib wa-Irshad al-Daris fi-ma bi-Dimashq min al-Jawami' wa-l-Madaris (Alerting the Student and Guiding the Scholar to the Mosques and Colleges of Damascus) and Tanbih al-Talib wa-Irshad al-Daris li-Ahwal Mawadi' al-Fa'ida bi-Dimashq.
The book is an extensive survey of the religious, intellectual, and charitable landscape of Damascus, chronicling its educational establishments, their locations, the patrons who founded them, the terms of their endowments (waqf), and the lineages of scholars and professors (mudarrisun) who held teaching appointments in them over the centuries.
Structure and Contents
The work is organized into dedicated thematic sections based on the specialization of each institution:
- Institutions for Quranic Recitation (Dur al-Qur'an): Houses dedicated to the teaching and recitation of the Quran, their founders, and their endowed stipends.
- Institutions for Hadith (Dur al-Hadith): Colleges founded for the study and transmission of prophetic traditions.
- Combined Quran and Hadith Institutions (Dur al-Qur'an wa-l-Hadith Ma'an): Dual-purpose colleges, such as the Tankiziyya.
- Legal Colleges (Madaris al-Fiqh): Institutions organized by the four Sunni schools of jurisprudence. Al-Nu'aymi records approximately 63 Shafi'i colleges, 52 Hanafi colleges, 4 Maliki colleges, and 11 Hanbali colleges.
- Medical Colleges (Madaris al-Tibb): Institutions established for instruction in the medical arts, such as the Dakhwariyya and the Dunaysariyya.
For each institution, al-Nu'aymi documents its architectural location inside or outside Damascus, the identity and biography of its founder, the date of its construction, and verbatim excerpts of its endowment deeds specifying the conditions for instructors and students. He then provides biographical notices of the scholars who occupied the professorships and leadership posts of each school in succession.
Abridgments and Reception
The Damascene preacher 'Abd al-Basit ibn Musa al-'Ilmawi (d. 981 AH) abridged al-Nu'aymi's work under the title Mukhtasar Tanbih al-Talib wa-Irshad al-Daris (also known as Mukhtasar al-Daris fi Tarikh al-Madaris), arranging it into eleven chapters and an epilogue (khatima), while appending further historical observations. Al-Nu'aymi's work served as a primary source for later Damascene topographical and historical studies, including Ibn Badran's Munadamat al-Atlal and Muhammad Kurd 'Ali's Khitat al-Sham.
Publication History
Portions of the text were published in Paris between 1894 and 1896. The complete work was edited by Ja'far al-Hasani and published in Damascus in two volumes at Matba'at al-Taraqqi between 1367 and 1370 AH (1948–1951 CE), and later reproduced in Cairo in 1988. An edition with indexes prepared by Ibrahim Shams al-Din was published in Beirut by Dar al-Kutub al-'Ilmiyya in 1410 AH (1990 CE). The section on Quranic schools (Dur al-Qur'an fi Dimashq) was also edited and published independently by Salah al-Din al-Munajjid in Damascus in 1946 and in Beirut in 1973.
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