Abu Bakr al-Maliki
Abū Bakr ʿAbdallāh ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿAbdallāh al-Qurashī al-Qayrawānī al-Mālikī (fl. 1036–1057) was an Ifrīqiyan historian, Mālikī jurist and Ashʿarī theologian and traditionist. He played a major role in spreading Mālikism and Ashʿarism in Ifrīqiya.[1]
Al-Mālikī was born in Kairouan. His father, Muḥammad, was trained in sharīʿa (law) and ḥadīth (tradition) and wrote a biography of the jurist Abu 'l-Ḥasan al-Qābiṣī. Al-Mālikī studied in Kairouan under Abū Bakr ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān and Muḥammad ibn ʿAbbās al-Anṣārī, who died in 1036. After studying for a time in the emirate of Sicily, he taught in Kairouan, where al-Māzarī was one of his students.[2] According al-Dabbāgh, writing over two centuries later, al-Mālikī remained in Kairouan after the Hilālī sack of 1057, when most other scholars decamped to Mahdia.[1][2] He died sometime after this date,[1] perhaps in 1081 or 1097.[2]
Only one work by al-Mālikī has survived, Riyāḍ al-nufūs ("Gardens of the Souls"[1] or "Meadow of Souls").[2] It is a biographical dictionary of the Mālikīs of Ifrīqiya.[1] It contains 275 biographies and is a valuable historical source. Later Muslim scholars who used it include al-Qāḍī ʿIyāḍ and al-Ṭurṭūshī. Al-Mālikī was probably inspired to write by the twin devastations of the Hilālī invasion and the Norman conquest of Sicily.[2]
Notes
[edit]Bibliography
[edit]- Hentati, Nejmeddine (2017). "al-Mālikī, Abū Bakr". In Fleet, Kate; Krämer, Gudrun; Matringe, Denis; Nawas, John; Rowson, Everett (eds.). Encyclopaedia of Islam (3rd ed.). Brill Online. doi:10.1163/1573-3912_ei3_COM_33118. ISSN 1873-9830.
- Hopley, Russell (2012). "Abu Bakr al-Maliki". In Emmanuel K. Akyeampong; Henry Louis Gates, Jr. (eds.). Dictionary of African Biography. Oxford University Press.