Mujam Shuyukh Ibn al-Arabi
- Author died
- 340 AH
- Editions
- Dar al-Ilmiyya · T Ibn al-Jawzi
Mu‘jam Shuyūkh Ibn al-A‘rābī (The Dictionary of Ibn al-A‘rābī’s Teachers) is a biographical hadith compilation composed by the Basran-born traditionist and ascetic Abū Sa‘īd Ibn al-A‘rābī (246–340 AH / 860–951 CE; also reported d. 341 AH / 952 CE) . The work serves as a record of his teachers and the prophetic traditions and reports he transmitted through them during his extensive scholarly travels .
Structure and Content
Following the standard format of hadith teacher dictionaries (kutub al-ma‘ājim), the work arranges the author's teachers in alphabetical order according to their names . Under each shaykh, Ibn al-A‘rābī records narrations and hadiths heard directly from him, accompanied by their full chains of transmission (asānīd) .
The biographical entries document authorities whom Ibn al-A‘rābī met across major intellectual centers of the Islamic world, including Basra, Baghdad, Kufa, al-Raqqah, Damascus, al-Ramla, Antioch, Ayla, Egypt, and Mecca . Among the prominent teachers whose transmissions appear in the text are al-Hasan ibn Muhammad ibn al-Sabbah al-Za‘farani, Ahmad ibn Mansur al-Ramadi, Ibrahim ibn Duhaym, and Ahmad ibn Shu‘ayb al-Nasa'i . The text was originally arranged into twelve parts (ajzā’) .
Transmission and Manuscript Tradition
The dictionary was transmitted from Ibn al-A‘rābī primarily through his prominent student in Egypt, Abū Muhammad ‘Abd al-Rahmān ibn ‘Umar ibn al-Nahhās . From Ibn al-Nahhās, the work entered widespread circulation in the Mediterranean and Levant through transmitters such as Abū al-Hasan ‘Alī ibn al-Hasan al-Khala‘ī and ‘Abd Allāh ibn Rifā‘ah al-Sa‘dī, eventually being recorded and taught by later Syrian scholars such as Ibn Tulun and al-Suyuti .
A surviving manuscript of the work consists of 249 double-sided folios written in Maghrebi script, featuring 18 lines per page and between 13 and 18 words per line . The manuscript exhibits thorough vocalization (shakl) and diacritics, along with marginal subject headings and corrections collation notes added by the scribe .
Publication History
An initial partial edition of parts 1 through 6 was published in Riyadh by Maktabat al-Kawthar . The full text has since been edited and published in modern scholarly editions:
- Edited by ‘Abd al-Muhsin ibn Ibrāhīm ibn Ahmad al-Husaynī, published in three volumes by Dār Ibn al-Jawzī (1418 AH / 1997 CE) .
- Edited by Mahmūd Nassār and al-Sayyid Yūsuf Ahmad, completed in Cairo (1417 AH / 1996 CE) .
Answer updated