Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya
1292 CE–1350 CE · Cairo
Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya (full name Shams al-Din Muhammad ibn Abi Bakr; commonly Ibn al-Qayyim) was a jurist, theologian, and writer on the inner life who worked in Damascus under Mamluk rule. He took his name from the Jawziyya madrasa (religious college), where his father served as qayyim, or superintendent. He belonged to the Hanbali school, one of the four Sunni schools of law (madhhabs).
He is best remembered as the closest student of the controversial reformer Ibn Taymiyya, whom he joined around 712 AH/1312 CE and followed until Ibn Taymiyya's death in 728/1328. In 726/1326 he was imprisoned with his teacher in the Citadel of Damascus; according to the historian al-Maqrizi this followed a sermon he gave in Jerusalem criticizing the visitation of graves, and his support for Ibn Taymiyya's contested view on divorce. He remained jailed until Ibn Taymiyya died, then resumed teaching, eventually leading the Jawziyya school.
He wrote prolifically across law, Qur'anic interpretation, hadith, theology, and spiritual purification; well-known works include I'lam al-Muwaqqi'in on legal reasoning and Madarij al-Salikin on the stations of the spiritual path. His positions are admired by some later movements and disputed by others; the site presents these as contested matters, not settled truths. He died in Damascus in 751/1350 and was buried beside his father at the Bab al-Saghir cemetery.
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DamascusדמשקSyria
What they did here
Ibn al-Qayyim's lifelong base. Biographical sources give his birth as 691 AH/1292 CE; most reference works (EI2, Britannica, Wikipedia) treat him as a Damascene, while his nisba al-Zur'i points to family origins in the village of Azra'/al-Zur' in southern Syria (the Hawran), and one biographical tradition places his actual birth there. He was raised in Damascus, where his father ran the Jawziyya madrasa. He studied under Ibn Taymiyya from c. 712/1312, taught (reported at the al-Sadriyya school and later as imam of the Jawziyya), was imprisoned in the Citadel of Damascus 726-728/1326-1328, and died and was buried at the Bab al-Saghir cemetery in 751/1350 (a competing tradition places his burial at the foot of Mount Qasiyoun).
About Damascus
Major Sephardi center; where Chaim Vital lived from 1594 and wrote much of the Shaar collection.
In Damascus at the same time
Sa'di of Shiraz, al-Mizzi, Ibn Taymiyya, al-Dhahabi, al-Khazin, Taqi al-Din al-Subki
Works
No works attributed in the corpus yet.