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al-Suyuti

al-Suyuti

1445 CE–1505 CE · Cairo

Jalal al-Din Abd al-Rahman ibn Abi Bakr al-Suyuti (born 849 AH / 1445 CE in Cairo; died 911 AH / 1505 CE) was one of the most prolific scholars of the late Mamluk period. His family name "al-Suyuti" comes from Asyut in Upper Egypt, where his forebears had settled. His father, a Shafi'i jurist who taught in Cairo, died when al-Suyuti was a small child, and he was raised and educated in the city. He is traditionally said to have memorized the Qur'an by about age eight and later to have studied with a large number of teachers.

Al-Suyuti taught Shafi'i law (one of the four main Sunni legal schools) and the science of hadith — the critical study of reports about the Prophet Muhammad. He worked at several Cairene mosques and Sufi lodges, including, from 1486, the Khanqah of Baybars, a post he later lost amid disputes with rival scholars. He claimed to have attained the rank of mujtahid (an independent legal reasoner), a claim his contemporary al-Sakhawi sharply contested; the matter remains debated.

After a quarrel over the lodge's finances, he withdrew (around 1501) to a residence on Rawda island in the Nile, living in seclusion and writing until his death. His hundreds of works include the hadith manual Tadrib al-Rawi (expanding al-Nawawi's primer) and the collection al-Jami' al-Saghir, and he completed the Qur'an commentary Tafsir al-Jalalayn begun by al-Mahalli.

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Stop 1 of 41445Born / Raised / Educated

CairoקהירEgypt

What they did here

Al-Suyuti was born in Cairo in 849 AH / 1445 CE and orphaned of his father (a Cairene Shafi'i jurist) in early childhood. He was raised and educated in the city; sources report he memorized the Qur'an by about age eight and studied with many teachers there. The family nisba 'al-Suyuti' derives from Asyut in Upper Egypt, where his forebears had settled, but the sources place his own life in Cairo.

Cairo in this era

From 1517 Cairo was the capital of the Ottoman province of Egypt and remained a great centre of learning around al-Azhar, where scholars from West Africa to the Hijaz studied and taught. Napoleon's army occupied it from 1798 to 1801.

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

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In the same place & time

Sages whose lives overlapped with al-Suyuti’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 al-Suyuti’s — a glimpse of the wider world they lived in. Drawn purely from recorded birth and death years.

Works(132)

al-Muhadhdhab fima Waqaʿa fi al-Qurʾan min al-Muʿarrab

Mecca · 1505

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