al-Tabaqat al-Sunniya fi Tarajim al-Hanafiya
- Author died
- 1010 AH
- Editions
- Dār al-Rifā‘ī
al-Tabaqat al-Sunniya fi Tarajim al-Hanafiya (The Sublime Biographical Layers of the Hanafis) is a major biographical dictionary of the Hanafi legal school compiled by the Egyptian-Palestinian jurist and judge Taqi al-Din Ibn Abd al-Qadir al-Tamimi (d. 1005 AH or 1010 AH / 1596 CE or 1601 CE) .
Composition and Scope
Taqi al-Din al-Tamimi stated in his preface that his objective was to compose a comprehensive and dedicated work covering the biographies, virtues, merits, authored treatises, selected poetry, and rare reports of Hanafi scholars, selected from reliable and authoritative historical sources . The book spans figures of the Hanafi school from its beginnings up to the close of the tenth century AH / sixteenth century CE .
The author dedicated the work in the name of the Ottoman Sultan Murad III (Murad Khan ibn Salim) . According to a colophon at the end of the text, al-Tamimi completed its compilation in 989 AH while serving as a judge in the Egyptian town of Fuwwah .
Structure and Content
The work is organized systematically as follows:
- Introduction: A theoretical opening comprising chapters and sections dedicated to principles and historiographical insights considered essential for historians .
- Biographical Preliminaries: A concise overview of the biography of the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ, followed by an exposition of the virtues (manaqib) of Abu Hanifa, drawn from Abd al-Qadir al-Qurashi's biographical work al-Jawahir al-Mudiya .
- Main Dictionary: The biographies are arranged alphabetically according to given names (huruf al-mu'jam) . The author incorporated extensive poetic selections within the biographies to ensure the work possessed literary value alongside its biographical purpose .
- Supplementary Appendices: The conclusion contains dedicated supplementary sections classifying figures by agnomens (kunya), lineage and regional affiliations (ansab / nisba), titles (alqab), and familial lineage (abna') .
Reception and Standing
The work was received with significant praise among Ottoman and Arab scholars:
- Katip Celebi (Hajji Khalifa) evaluated it as among the most distinguished books composed on the biographies of Hanafi scholars, noting that al-Tamimi excelled in compiling it and successfully incorporated the scholars of Tashkuprizade's al-Shaqa'iq al-Nu'maniya as well as subsequent figures down to his era .
- Shihab al-Din al-Khafaji, who studied works under the author, praised it in verse and prose .
- Al-Amin al-Muhibbi described it as the finest of al-Tamimi's compositions, noting that he inspected a portion of it that gathered biographies of prominent Ottoman and Anatolian scholars and notables .
- Formal commendations (taqriz) were authored by several prominent Ottoman scholars of the period, including Sa'd al-Din (known as Khwajahzadah), Juwayzadah, Zakariyya, Abd al-Ghani, and Ahmad al-Ansari .
Manuscripts and Publication
A four-volume manuscript of the work was held in the personal collection of Hasan Husni Abd al-Wahhab in Tunis .
The work was critically edited by Abd al-Fattah Muhammad al-Hulw; the first volume was printed in Cairo in 1390 AH, and an edition comprising four volumes was subsequently published by Dar al-Rifa'i in Riyadh in 1403 AH / 1983 CE, though the published edition remained incomplete .
Answer updated