Nur al-Din al-Haythami
1335 CE–1405 CE · Cairo
Nur al-Din Ali ibn Abi Bakr al-Haythami (735-807 AH / c. 1335-1405 CE) was a hadith scholar of Mamluk-era Cairo, remembered above all for the work of gathering and grading Prophetic traditions. He belonged to the Shafi'i madhhab (one of the four Sunni schools of law) and, by the report of later biographers, held the Ash'ari theological creed; both labels are how the tradition classifies him rather than claims he made about himself.
As a young man he attached himself to the renowned traditionist Zayn al-Din al-Iraqi, who was only about a decade his senior. Biographers report that the bond became both scholarly and familial: al-Iraqi gave him his daughter in marriage, and al-Haythami accompanied him on his teaching travels across Egypt and the wider region. He is described as a modest man content to work in his teacher's shadow.
His enduring contribution is the science of zawa'id, the "additions": tracing hadith that appear in major collections such as the Musnad of Ahmad ibn Hanbal and the works of al-Tabarani but not in the six canonical books, and assessing their reliability. His best-known compilation, Majma' al-Zawa'id wa-Manba' al-Fawa'id, organises thousands of such reports by legal topic with notes on their soundness. Among his students was the great hadith master Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani. He is traditionally reported to have died in Cairo on 19 Ramadan 807 AH (1405 CE).
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CairoקהירEgypt
What they did here
Born in Cairo in the month of Rajab 735 AH (1334/1335 CE), in Mamluk Egypt. Biographers report his father kept a shop on a desert road. Cairo remained his home base throughout his life.
Cairo in this era
Under the Mamluk sultans (1250-1517) Cairo was the largest city of the Islamic world west of Persia and, after the fall of Baghdad in 1258, the seat of a line of Abbasid caliphs in name. Its many madrasas, mosques and Sufi lodges drew scholars of hadith, law and mysticism, among them Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani and Ibn Ata Allah.
About Cairo
Cairo, at the head of the Nile delta, grew from two foundations: Fustat, the garrison town built by the Arab conquerors in 641, and al-Qahira ('the Victorious'), the walled city founded by the Fatimid dynasty in 969, where the mosque of al-Azhar opened in 970-72 and became a great centre of learning. Under the Ayyubids (from 1171) and the Mamluks (1250-1517) it was one of the largest cities of the Islamic world. Fustat's Jewish community, home to Maimonides in the 12th century, left the Cairo Geniza, a vast store of medieval documents. Later ruled by the Ottomans and, from 1882, under British occupation, Cairo is the capital of modern Egypt.
Across the traditions, in Cairo at the same time
In the same place & time
Sages whose lives overlapped with Nur al-Din al-Haythami’s in the same cities, drawn from their recorded journeys.
Across the traditions
The world in their lifetime
Thinkers and teachers of other traditions whose lives overlapped with Nur al-Din al-Haythami’s — a glimpse of the wider world they lived in. Drawn purely from recorded birth and death years.
Works
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