al-Kawakib al-Saira bi-Ayan al-Mia al-Ashira
- Author died
- 1061 AH
- Editions
- Dar al-Kutub al-'Ilmiyyah
al-Kawakib al-Saira bi-Ayan al-Mia al-Ashira (The Wandering Stars Concerning the Notables of the Tenth Century) is a major biographical dictionary by the Damascene historian and Shafi'i scholar Najm al-Din al-Ghazzi (977–1061 AH / 1570–1651 CE), documenting the prominent figures who died during the tenth century of the Islamic calendar .
Composition and Sources
Al-Ghazzi stated in his preface that he long desired to compile a work devoted to the scholars and notables of the tenth century AH, finding that no earlier author had treated the entire century comprehensively . While Ibn Tulun had recorded figures bridging the ninth and tenth centuries in al-Tamattu' bi-l-Aqran and included obituaries in his chronicle Mufakahat al-Ikhwan, he did not provide comprehensive biographies of tenth-century figures . Al-Ghazzi was further prompted to write the work after reviewing an abridged portion of Shihab al-Din Ahmad al-Himsi's chronicle, from which he extracted substantial biographical material .
To assemble the dictionary, al-Ghazzi drew upon a range of written sources and oral accounts:
- Portions of the historical work of Badr al-Din al-Alai al-Hanafi on events in Cairo covering 917 to 934 AH .
- Obituary records and biographical notes penned by Yunus al-Ithawi on his teachers and contemporaries .
- Abd al-Qadir ibn al-Nu'aymi's al-Unwan fi Dabt Mawalid wa-Wafayat Ahl al-Zaman, together with the supplement (dhayl) written by his son Muhyi al-Din .
- Abd al-Wahhab al-Sha'rani's Tabaqat al-Awliya al-Kubra and al-Wusta for entries on righteous figures and Sufis .
- Sharaf al-Din al-Kinawi's commentary on his poem listing well-known saints .
- A biographical tract compiled by his father, Badr al-Din al-Ghazzi, recording his students and close companions .
- Autograph notes of scholars, reliable written records, and oral transmissions collected from learned contemporaries .
Structure and Scope
Geographically, the work covers scholars and notable figures from Damascus, Aleppo, the wider Levant (Bilad al-Sham), Cairo, and the Two Holy Sanctuaries (Mecca and Medina), as well as officials, judges, and luminaries connected to the Ottoman imperial court (al-takht al-Uthmani) .
The book is structured into three chronological generations or tiers (tabaqat) spanning the tenth century AH . Within each tier, the biographies are arranged in alphabetical order according to the subject's given name, preceded in each tier by those named Muhammad out of honor for the Prophet ﷺ . Al-Ghazzi steered a middle course in style between excessive brevity and undue elaboration, documenting the subjects' lineages, teachers, students, offices, scholarly outputs, and, for Sufi masters, accounts of their spiritual states and miracles (karamat) .
Supplement and Reception
Al-Ghazzi later authored a biographical continuation to this book titled Lutf al-Samar wa-Qatf al-Thamar min Tarajim A'yan al-Tabaqa al-Ula min al-Qarn al-Hadi Ashar, covering the first tier of eleventh-century notables up to the year 1033 AH .
The seventeenth-century biographer Muhammad Amin al-Muhibbi praised al-Kawakib al-Saira and its supplement in Khulasat al-Athar, noting that Lutf al-Samar served as one of his primary source texts . Al-Muhibbi affirmed that al-Ghazzi demonstrated great skill in compiling the biographies, though he observed that both works contain uneven material (ghathth), duplicate entries, some errors in death dates, and traces of personal bias, which al-Muhibbi sought to rectify in his own biographical dictionary .
Editions
al-Kawakib al-Saira was edited by Jibra'il Sulayman Jabbur and published in three volumes in Beirut, first by Muhammad Amin Damaj in 1945 and subsequently by Dar al-Afaq al-Jadida in 1979 . Another edition, annotated by Khalil al-Mansur, was published by Dar al-Kutub al-Ilmiyya in Beirut in 1418 AH / 1997 CE .
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