al-Damiri
{{short description|13th-century Islamic scholar}}
{{Infobox religious biography
| religion = Islam
| occupation = Zoologist, Jurist, Scholar, Muhaddith, Theologian
| era = Late Middle Ages
(Mamluk era)
| image =
| caption =
| name = Al-Damiri
| title = Kamal al-Din
Al-Ḥāfiẓ
| birth_date = 1341 CE
| birth_place = Cairo, Mamluk dynasty
| death_date = {{death year and age|1405|1341}}
| death_place = Cairo, Mamluk Sultanate
| ethnicity =
| region = Egypt
| alma_mater = Al-Azhar University
| denomination = Sunni
| jurisprudence = Shafi'i
|creed = Ash'ari{{cite web|url=http://www.darulihsanabuhasan.com/|title=The Notables of the Shafi'i-Ash'ari school|language=Arabic|website=almostaneer.com|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170928123705/http://www.darulihsanabuhasan.com/2014/05/blog-post_24.html|archive-date=28 September 2017}}
| main_interests = Kalam (Islamic theology) Fiqh, Hadith, Arabic, Zoology
| notable_ideas = Elaborate systematically Arabic zoological knowledge
| works = Life of Animals (Ḥayāt al-ḥayawān al-kubrā, c.1371)
| influences = Al-Shafi'i
Abu al-Hasan al-Ash'ari
Jamal al-Din al-Isnawi
Ibn Aqil
Taj al-Din al-Subki
Siraj al-Din al-Bulqini
Zain al-Din al-Iraqi
Ibn al-Mulaqqin
| influenced = Taqi al-Din al-Fasi
al-Maqrizi
}}
Al-Damiri (1341–1405), the common name of Kamal al-Din Muhammad ibn Musa al-Damiri ({{langx|ar|كمال الدين محمد بن موسى الدميري}}), was a Shafi'i Sunni scholar, jurist, traditionist, theologian, and expert in Arabic from late medieval Cairo.{{cite book|title=Encyclopaedia Britannica|publisher=Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.|date=1973|volume=7|pages=103}} He was best known for his writing on Muslim jurisprudence and natural history.{{EB1911|inline=1 |wstitle=Damiri |volume=7 |page=788 |first=Griffithes Wheeler |last=Thatcher}} He wrote the first known systematic work on zoological knowledge in Arabic, the Ḥayāt al-ḥayawān al-kubrā, {{circa}}1371.{{cite book|last=Egerton|first=Frank N.|title=Roots of Ecology: Antiquity to Haeckel|year=2012|publisher=University of California Press|isbn=978-0520953635|page=21}}
Life
Al-Damiri was born in 1341 (742 AH) in Cairo, where he lived, learned, graduated, and died. His family’s origins go back to the countryside of Lower Egypt, from the village of Damira, close to Samannud on the eastern or Damietta branch of the Nile in the Delta. Since his youth, he worked with his father in a sewing shop, and his love for animals continued to grow with him, along with his passion for science and other knowledge, which prompted his father to direct him to complete his religious studies at Al-Azhar University.{{cite web|url=https://doc.aljazeera.net/portrait/2022/4/3/كمال-الدين-الدميري-عبقري-مصر-الذي-أضاء|title=Kamal al-Din al-Damiri...the Egyptian genius who created "The Great Animal Life"|website=doc.aljazeera.net}}
He mastered the sciences of theology, jurisprudence, hadith, Arabic, etc at al-Azhar under the leading scholars of his day, most notably Jamal al-Din al-Isnawi, Bahaā' al-Din al-Subki, Burhan al-Din al-Qirati, Abd Allah ibn Abd al-Rahman ibn Aqil, including the three marvels of his era, Siraj al-Din al-Bulqini, Zain al-Din al-Iraqi, and Ibn al-Mulaqqin.
His brilliance and distinction enabled him to become a professor; at Al-Azhar, he taught lessons on Saturdays; at Rukniyya, where he became the professor of tradition and lectured on hadith studies; at the ibn al-Baqri School in Bab al-Nasr, where he preached to people on Jumu'ah; and at Mosque of al-Zahir Baybars in the al-Husseiniyah neighborhood, where he used to give his lessons after Jumu'ah. He was a mystic, or Ṣūfī, who was renowned for his fasting, prayer, and asceticism. He made Hajj more than six times.{{cite web|url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/ad-Damiri|title=ad-Damīrī - Muslim theologian|website=britannica.com}}
Among those who mentioned that they studied under Kamal al-Din al-Dumiri was the hadith scholar and historian, Taqi al-Din al-Fasi, the Shafi’i jurist, Ibn Imad al-Aqfahsi and the scholar and historian al-Maqrizi
Works
Al-Damiri was a prolific writer and excelled in jurisprudence in which he wrote a commentary on the Minhāj al-Ṭalibīn of al-Nawawi. He excelled in the sciences of hadith, Arabic, and theology. However, he was best known in the history of literature for his Life of Animals{{cite web |url=https://www.nlm.nih.gov/hmd/arabic/b_d.html#damiri |title=Islamic Medical Manuscripts § Al-Damiri |publisher=U.S. National Library of Medicine |accessdate=2018-01-12}} (Ḥayāt al-ḥayawān al-kubrā, {{circa}}1371), which treats in alphabetic order of 931 animals mentioned in the Quran, the traditions and the poetic and proverbial literature of the Arabs. The work is a compilation from over 500 prose writers and nearly 200 poets. The correct spelling of the names of the animals is given with an explanation of their meanings. The use of the animals in medicine, their lawfulness or unlawfulness as food, and their position in folklore are the main subjects treated. Occasionally, long, irrelevant sections on political history are introduced.
The work exists in three forms. The fullest has been published several times in Egypt; a mediate and a short recension exist in manuscript format. Several editions have been made at various times of extracts, among them the poetical one by al-Suyuti, which was translated into Latin by Abraham Ecchelensis (Paris, 1667). Bochartus in his Hierozoicon (1663) used al-Damiri's work. There is a translation of the whole into English by Lieutenant-Colonel Jayakar (Bombay, 1906–1908).
Al-Damiri included in his Life of Animals an account of giraffes, which reflected heightened interest in this creature during the Mamluk era.{{Cite book |last=Behrens-Abouseif |first=Doris |title=Practising diplomacy in the Mamluk Sultanate: gifts and material culture in the medieval islamic world |publisher=I. B. Tauris |year=2016 |isbn=978-1-78453-703-6 |edition= |location=London |pages=42}}
Notes
{{reflist}}
External links
- {{cite encyclopedia | last = Vernet | first = Juan | title=Al-Damīrī, Muhammed Ibn Musa | url=http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G2-2830901067.html | encyclopedia = Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography | publisher = Encyclopedia.com | orig-year=1970-80 | year = 2008 }}
- [https://sites.dlib.nyu.edu/viewer/books/columbia_aco003397/1 Ḥayāt al-ḥayawān al-kubrā] (1893 reprint)
- [https://wellcomecollection.org/works/rs3tq2j4/items Copy in Wellcome Library]
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Category:Sunni Muslim scholars of Islam
Category:14th-century Muslim theologians