al-Durr al-Thamin fi Asma al-Musannifin
- Author died
- 674 AH
- Editions
- Dār al-Gharb al-Islāmī
Al-Durr al-Thamin fi Asma al-Musannifin (The Precious Pearl on the Names of Authors) is a biographical dictionary and bibliography by the Baghdadi historian and librarian Ibn al-Sa'i (d. 674 AH / 1276 CE), documenting Muslim authors and their written works from the early Islamic era through the seventh century AH .
Purpose and Content
The work was designed primarily as a bio-bibliography rather than a conventional biographical chronicle, aiming to highlight the breadth and richness of Arabic-Islamic literary production . Ibn al-Sa'i defined this focus in his entry on Ibn Sina, remarking that the book was not intended to provide extensive biographical narratives of authors, but rather to give brief biographical sketches alongside an enumeration of their writings .
In compiling the dictionary, Ibn al-Sa'i drew upon earlier written sources, oral reports from his teachers, and direct examinations of manuscripts made possible by his position as keeper of books (khazin al-kutub) at both the al-Nizamiyya and al-Mustansiriyya madrasas in Baghdad . Alongside bibliographic surveys, the text preserves historical notices on madrasas and hospices (ribats), records their opening dates and instructors, and documents sixteen of Ibn al-Sa'i's own lost writings that are unmentioned in other sources .
Structure and Arrangement
Al-Durr al-Thamin was originally composed as a large, multi-volume reference work, recorded by Hajji Khalifa as spanning six volumes under the title Akhbar al-Musannifin . Ibn al-Sa'i structured the entries alphabetically by given name (ism), following an arrangement common in early biographical dictionaries such as the al-Tarikh al-Kabir of al-Bukhari, opening with authors named Muhammad, followed by those named Ibrahim, and proceeding through the alphabet .
The entries begin with an extensive biography of al-Shafi'i, whom the author identified as the first scholar to compose and codify a work in jurisprudence (fiqh) . The depth of the biographical entries varies considerably: some entries provide detailed records of lineage, teachers, students, authored titles, dates and burial sites, while others are condensed into a single sentence listing the subject's name, death date, and selected works .
Reception and Attribution
Later scholars cited the work under varying titles:
- Ibn al-Tiqtaqa (d. 709 AH / 1309–1310 CE) quoted from it using its full title, al-Durr al-Thamin fi Asma al-Musannifin, in al-Asili fi Ansab al-Talibiyyin .
- Al-Dhahabi (d. 748 AH / 1348 CE) cited it in Siyar A'lam al-Nubala' under the title Asma' al-Musannifin .
- Hajji Khalifa in Kashf al-Zunun, followed by Ismail Pasha al-Baghdadi in Hadiyyat al-'Arifin and Khayr al-Din al-Zirikli in al-A'lam, referenced it as Akhbar al-Musannifin . Hajji Khalifa and Ismail Pasha also listed al-Durr al-Thamin fi Asma al-Musannifin under the entries for Jamal al-Din al-Qifti (d. 646 AH / 1248 CE), an attribution modern scholars consider a scribal conflation with al-Qifti's al-Durr al-Thamin fi Akhbar al-Mutayyamīn or his lost Akhbar al-Musannifin wa-ma Sannafuh .
Manuscript and Publication
The work was long believed to be entirely lost until a unique manuscript of its first volume was discovered in Tunis in 1340 AH (1921–1922 CE) by the Moroccan traditionist Muhammad 'Abd al-Hayy al-Kattani, who cited it in his Tarikh al-Maktabat al-Islamiyya and al-Taratib al-Idariyya . The manuscript was subsequently located in the Royal Palace Library (al-Khizana al-Hasaniyya) in Marrakesh via the catalog compiled by Muhammad al-Manuni .
This surviving portion contains 418 biographies of authors and lists of their works, including twenty-one seventh-century AH scholars contemporary with the author . It was edited by Ahmad Shawqi Binebine and Muhammad Sa'id Hanchi and published in a single volume by Dar al-Gharb al-Islami in Tunis (1430 AH / 2009 CE) .
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