Barnamaj al-Majari
- Author died
- 862 AH
- Editions
- Dār al-Gharb al-Islāmī
Barnamaj al-Majari (برنامج المجاري) is a bio-bibliographical record of scholarly transmissions (barnamaj) compiled by the Andalusian scholar Abu Abd Allah al-Majari (d. 862 AH / 1458 CE) . The work documents the author's teachers, the books he read or heard, their chains of transmission (isnads), and the scholarly licenses (ijazas) he obtained across al-Andalus and during his travels to the East .
Purpose and Scope
In his introduction, al-Majari states that he compiled the text to enumerate the prominent scholars from whom he received knowledge . The work records the texts he studied across various disciplines—including Quranic recitations, hadith, Maliki jurisprudence, legal theory, Arabic grammar, and literature—alongside the direct transmission lines linking him to their original authors .
Structure and Teachers
The work is organized around entries for al-Majari's teachers, beginning with those he studied under in the capital of Granada (al-hadra) and extending to scholars he encountered on his travels .
Among his Andalusian teachers recorded in the text are:
- Abu Muhammad Abd Allah ibn Muhammad ibn Juzayy al-Kalbi (731–810 AH), through whom al-Majari received the works of his father Abu al-Qasim ibn Juzayy and the transmissions of Ahmad ibn al-Zubayr .
- Abu Abd Allah Muhammad ibn Muhammad al-Kinani al-Qijati, with whom he studied the Quran across the eight canonical readings and sixteen transmissions according to the method of Abu Amr al-Dani .
- Abu Ishaq al-Shatibi, under whom he studied Arabic grammar and theology, and whose writings—including al-I'tisam—are documented in the work .
- Abu Sa'id Faraj ibn Qasim ibn Lubb, the mufti of al-Andalus .
- Abu al-Hasan Ali ibn Abd al-Haqq al-Burji (d. 806 AH), with whom he read grammar texts such as al-Zajjaji's al-Jumal .
During his travels to the East, al-Majari met scholars in Cairo, notably Siraj al-Din al-Bulqini, who granted him a general ijaza and referred him to his own barnamaj .
Transmission and Modern Editions
Al-Majari granted a formal license to transmit the work in late Rajab 858 AH (July 1454 CE) to his student Abu al-Hasan Ali ibn Abi al-Qasim al-Bayyadi, as well as to al-Bayyadi's father and brother, after the student read and verified the text against the author's copy . The work continued to circulate among scholars in the Maghrib; in early Rajab 866 AH, Abu Ishaq Ibrahim ibn Muhammad al-Barshani granted permission to transmit al-Majari's narrations based on his copy of the Barnamaj .
The text was edited by Muhammad Abu al-Ajfan and published in a single volume by Dar al-Gharb al-Islami in Beirut in 1402 AH / 1982 CE .
Answer updated