Silk al-Durar fi Ayan al-Qarn al-Thani Ashar
- Author died
- 1206 AH
- Editions
- Dār al-Bashāʼir al-Islāmīyah
Silk al-Durar fi Ayan al-Qarn al-Thani Ashar (The String of Pearls Concerning the Notables of the Twelfth Century) is a four-volume biographical dictionary by the Damascene Hanafi jurist and historian Muhammad Khalil al-Muradi (1173–1206 AH / 1760–1791 CE) . It records the lives of prominent scholars, jurists, poets, state officials, and notables who lived or died during the twelfth Islamic century (18th century CE) .
Background and Purpose
In his introduction, al-Muradi observed that while earlier centuries had dedicated biographical compendia, no scholar had yet compiled a comprehensive biographical dictionary devoted to the notables of the twelfth century AH . Emphasizing the value of historical records as a source of moral and intellectual guidance, he undertook the collection of biographical notices of his contemporaries and predecessors throughout the Islamic lands . Upon completing the work, he noted that he titled it Akhbar al-Asar fi Akhyar al-Amsar (Reports of the Eras on the Best of the Lands), while stating that it was equally fitting to be named Silk al-Durar fi Ayan al-Qarn al-Thani Ashar .
Structure and Method
The work is organized alphabetically according to the Arabic letters of the given names (huruf al-mujam) . Each entry generally provides the subject's lineage, birth and upbringing, teachers, travels, appointments, scholarly contributions, samples of poetry or prose, and the date and place of death . The book encompasses notable figures from Syria, Egypt, Iraq, the Hijaz, and other regions across the Ottoman world .
Sources
To assemble the biographies, al-Muradi drew upon diverse contemporary and near-contemporary materials, supplemented by oral reports collected directly and written correspondence sent to cities he had not visited personally . Among the specific written sources he cited in his introduction are:
- The travelogue (Rihlah) of Abd al-Rahman ibn Muhammad al-Dhahabi .
- The travelogue of the historian of Mecca, Mustafa ibn Fath Allah al-Hamawi .
- Nafhat al-Rayhanah by al-Amin al-Muhibbi and its supplement (dhayl) by Muhammad al-Mahmudi .
- The authority catalogue (thabat) titled Lata'if al-Minnah and the literary notebook (tadhkirah) of Muhammad ibn Abd al-Rahman al-Ghazzi al-Amiri .
- The major and minor travelogues of Abd al-Ghani al-Nabulsi covering the Hijaz and Jerusalem .
For entries concerning scholars of Mosul, al-Muradi utilized an anonymous regional compilation on twelfth-century figures from that city, while for figures from Aleppo he relied on writings by Ibn Miru .
Publication History
The work was printed in four volumes across two locations: the first two volumes and a portion of the third were published in Istanbul (al-Astanah) in 1291 AH (1874 CE), while the remainder of the third volume and the fourth volume were printed at Bulaq in Cairo in 1301 AH (1883–1884 CE) .
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