Dhayl al-Murshidi ala al-Ibar
- Author died
- 833 AH
- Editions
- Dār al-Dhakhā’ir
Dhayl al-Murshidi ala al-Ibar (The Continuation by al-Murshidi to al-Ibar), also titled Tadhyil al-Dhayl, is a biographical and historical continuation composed by Nasim al-Din al-Murshidi (d. 833 AH / 1429–1430 CE) . It serves as an annalistic supplement recording obituaries of scholars and notables for the period following the historical chronicle of Zayn al-Din al-Iraqi .
Scope and Structure
The work forms part of a multi-tiered sequence of continuations originating with Shams al-Din al-Dhahabi's al-Ibar fi Khabar man Ghabar, which originally documented history up to the year 700 AH before al-Dhahabi himself supplemented it up to 740 AH . Zayn al-Din al-Iraqi (d. 806 AH) then wrote a continuation covering the years 741 to 763 AH .
Al-Murshidi composed his book to build upon Zayn al-Din al-Iraqi's continuation, beginning in 764 AH and extending through the surviving text to 778 AH . In its temporal coverage, it runs parallel to the continuation compiled by Zayn al-Din al-Iraqi's son, Wali al-Din Abu Zur'ah al-Iraqi (d. 826 AH) . Within the text, the year 775 AH lacks a dedicated heading; instead, the death of Muhiyy al-Din al-Qurashi al-Hanafi is mentioned at the conclusion of 774 AH with explicit doubt as to whether he died in that year or the year that followed .
Content and Features
The surviving text contains 220 biographical entries . Entries are arranged chronologically under annual headings, surveying prominent figures across various Islamic regions—including Mecca, Medina, Cairo, and Damascus—such as jurists, hadith traditionalists, judges, and literary figures . Each profile typically records the subject's lineage, scholarly transmission, notable teachers, works, and the month or age of death .
Despite being shorter than Wali al-Din al-Iraqi's continuation, al-Murshidi's work includes 27 unique biographical entries not found in Wali al-Din's compilation, representing nearly 8% new material for the period .
Manuscript and Publication
The work was long overlooked by classical bibliographical dictionaries, being absent from Katip Celebi's Kashf al-Zunun and Sullam al-Wusul, as well as Ismail Pasha al-Baghdadi's Idah al-Maknun and Hadiyyat al-Arifin .
It was preserved in a single manuscript held in the Yemeni System Library (MS 23160), where it occupies folios 194b through 196b, immediately following al-Dhahabi's al-Ibar and Zayn al-Din al-Iraqi's Dhayl . The manuscript was transcribed around 825 AH when al-Murshidi was roughly 21 years old, around the time he had been accompanying Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani .
The work was edited by Ahmad Abd al-Sattar and published for the first time alongside Zayn al-Din al-Iraqi's continuation by Dar al-Dhakha'ir in Cairo (1440 AH / 2019 CE) .
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