MAPPING THE WORLD OF A SCHOLAR IN SIXTH/TWELFTH CENTURY BUKHARA: REGIONAL TRADITION IN MEDIEVAL ISLAMIC SCHOLARSHIP AS REFLECTED IN A BIBLIOGRAPHY.

• Author: AHMED, SHAHAB

This article maps the world of a medieval Muslim scholar. In 597H./1200C.E., Mahm[bar{u}]d al-F[bar{a}]ry[bar{a}]b[bar{i}], a Hanaf[bar{i}] scholar in Bukh[bar{a}]ra, compiled a book on morality and piety entitled Kit[bar{a}]b kh[bar{a}]lisat al-[haq[bar{a}].sup.[contains]] iq, for which he provided a bibliography of the works on which he drew. [1] A study of that bibliography helps to reconstruct the scholarly tradition of its author. By identifying the names, dates, geographical origins, extent of scholarly travels, and doctrinal affiliations of the scholars on his list, it becomes possible to place them on a kind of intellectual map. Thus plotted on the map, the distribution of scholars illustrates the geographical space occupied by al-F[bar{a}]ry[bar{a}]b[bar{i}]'s bibliography. The great majority of scholars therein referenced are found to be from or to have worked in Khur[bar{a}]s[bar{a}]n and Transoxania. The chronological distribution enables us to gain an idea of the period in which this regional traditio n formed and the distribution amongst the madhhabs allows us to gauge its relative catholicity or exclusivity.

INTRODUCTION

THE BIBLIOGRAPHY OF ANY BOOK is a document that reflects the intellectual tradition that informed its author's scholarly production. Unfortunately, for students of Islamic intellectual history, in medieval Islamic literature, bibliographies are few and far between. Although some bibliographical works were produced by medieval Muslim scholars--the most famous being the great Fihrist of Ibn al-Nad[bar{i}]m (d. 380/990)--in general, when writing individual works, writers rarely provided bibliographies of the sources they had used. [2] To the best of my knowledge, of those that might exist, only a handful have been published and none studied. [3]

In 597/1200, [Im[bar{a}]d.sup.[subset]] al-D[bar{i}]n Ab[bar{u}] al-Mah[bar{a}]mid Mahmt[bar{u}]d b. Ahmad b. Ab[bar{i}] al-Husayn al-F[bar{a}]ry[bar{a}]b[bar{i}] finished compiling a book on piety, ethics, and moral conduct which he entitled Kit[bar{a}]b kh[bar{a}]lisat al-[haq[bar{a}].sup.[contains]]q wa nis[bar{a}]b [gh[bar{a}].sup.[contains]]isat al-[daq[bar{a}].sup.[contains]]iq (The Book of Refinement of Truths and the Source for Diving after Particulars). He then took the unusual step of appending a bibliography of the seventy-eight sources from which he had culled the materials for his book. The present article is an annotated study of that same bibliography aimed at broadly reconstructing and mapping the scholarly tradition from which and within which al-F[bar{a}]ry[bar{a}]b[bar{i}] operated.

The two types of bibliographical documents that have been utilized most often as sources for the history of the transmission of knowledge in medieval Islam are the ij[bar{a}]zah (license to transmit a particular work or works) and the mashyakhah (list of teachers from whom an individual obtained such licenses, along with the titles of the relevant books). [4] These have been supplemented by the occasional list of contents of medieval libraries. [5] But, while ij[bar{a}]zahs are without doubt an invaluable source of historical knowledge, there are certain basic limitations to the information they can provide. For example, while an individual ij[bar{a}]zah or mashyakhah undoubtedly tells us which books a scholar obtained permission to transmit, it is not necessarily the case that the scholar in question in fact fulfilled the ideal of studying all the books for which he obtained certification. As is well known, the accumulation of licenses eventually became a scholarly status-symbol and they were often obtained in a pro forma manner or by correspondence. [6] Thus an ij[bar{a}]zah does not necessarily enable us to identify the books a scholar considered important enough to have actually studied, as distinct from those for which he obtained certification merely to pad his curriculum vitae or to fulfill social and professional obligations towards teachers and colleagues.

A bibliography, by contrast, presumably consisted of works that an author actually utilized in his own scholarly production. While it would be naive to assume that a bibliography is immune from the inclusion of titles not used by the author, such an act would be a gesture of considerable professional dishonesty, equivalent to a scholar's claiming to have obtained an ij[bar{a}]zah for a work in regard to which he had not actually been certified--a reprehensible practice. What makes this particularly unlikely in the present instance is the fact that the bibliography of the Kh[bar{a}]lisat al-[haq[bar{a}].sup.[contains]]iq (hereafter, KH) omits some obvious titles that might easily have been included for purposes of padding, such as the canonical Had[bar{i}]th collections. [7] There seems no reason to suspect that, at least in this case, the texts cited in the bibliography were not, in fact, used by the author. As the KH is essentially a compilation of materials sifted from earlier books, the sources from which the book was assembled must have been regarded by Mahm[bar{u}]d al-F[bar{a}]ry[bar{a}]b[bar{i}] as the most authoritative and valuable works on the subject that had been transmitted within his intellectual tradition. Also, as the KH is a work on piety, ethics, and morals, its bibliography provides us with a list of important books in a field that has been distinctly underrepresented in the ij[bar{a}]zahs that have been studied so far.

Nonetheless, the idea of providing a bibliography of sources may go back to the practice by which some Had[bar{i}]th scholars would append their mashyakhah to a Had[bar{i}]th collection they had compiled. [8] It may be significant that the bibliographies of both al-[Tha.sup.[subset]]lab[bar{i}]i's al-Kashf wa al-bay[bar{a}]n and Ibn al-Shahr[bar{a}]sh[bar{u}]b's Man[bar{a}]qib cite the full isn[bar{a}]ds for their respective sources, very much in the manner of a mashyakhah. In the bibliography to the KH, however, no isn[bar{a}]ds are given, making it the earliest known bibliography not to follow a mashyakhah format. The respective bibliographies to the later [Ta.sup.[contains]]r[bar{i}]ikh al-isl[bar{a}]m of al-Dhahab[bar{i}], al-W[bar{a}]f[bar{i}] bi'l-wafay[bar{a}]t of al-Saf[bar{a}]d[bar{i}], and al-S[bar{i}]rat al-mustaq[bar{i}]m of al-Bay[bar{a}]d[bar{i}] also do not give isn[bar{a}]ds. One wonders if this change is not an expression of the development of a research tradition that was increasingly book- based, as distinct from the teacher-based traditions of instruction in, and the transmission of, texts. The growth of such a book-based research tradition may well have been linked to the progressive stabilization of transmitted texts and their increasing availability in libraries.

The biographical sources tell us little about Mahm[bar{u}]d al-F[bar{a}]ry[bar{a}]b[bar{i}] beyond that he was from F[bar{a}]ry[bar{a}]b in J[bar{u}]zj[bar{a}]n in central Khaur[bar{a}]s[bar{a}]n, [9] that he migrated to Bukh[bar{a}]ra where he taught, that he was a hanaf[bar{i}], and that he wrote at least ten works, several of which were on morals and mysticism. He was not an especially celebrated scholar and is not mentioned outside the Hanaf[bar{i}] tabaq[bar{a}]t. Even these sources do not tell us who his teachers were, or whether and where he traveled in pursuit of knowledge. He is recognized there solely on the basis of two achievements: first, that he was a teacher of the prominent Hanafi jurist, Shams al-A [immah.sup.[contains]] Muhammad b. [Abd.sup.[subset]] al-Satt[bar{a}]r al-Kardar[bar{i}] (d. 642/1244); and second, his authorship of the Kh[bar{a}]lisat al-[haq[bar{a}].sup.[contains]]iq, in regard to which the biographers unfailingly mention that it was compiled from over seventy works in the y ear 597/1200. [10] Significantly, it is the only one of al-F[bar{a}]ry[bar{a}]b[bar{i}]'s works to have survived. [11]

The KH is a substantial book comprising fifty chapters in which "over 20,000 subtleties," excerpted from the seventy-eight sources, are arranged thematically. [12] From the chapter headings, it is clear that it treats fundamental religious concepts regarding basic questions of faith, piety, ethics, moral conduct, and devotional exercise. [13] Each chapter is divided into sections (fus[bar{u}]l), and each section follows a tripartite arrangement, consisting of definitions of the subject (hud[bar{u}]d), sayings of the Prophet and Companions (akhb[bar{a}]r, [bar{a}]th[bar{a}]r) followed by illustrative moral anecdotes ([maw[bar{a}].sup.[subset]]iz, nukat, ish[bar{a}]r[bar{a}]t, hik[bar{a}]y[bar{a}]t). In its subject matter and organization, the KH would have functioned admirably as a homiletic or paraenetic compendium: a sort of advanced primer for public preachers ([wu.sup.[subset][subset]][bar{a}]z, mudhakkir[bar{u}]n, [khutab[bar{a}].sup.[contains]]), who might conveniently use the book to prepare the khutba h to be given at Friday congregational prayer, or to compose sermons and lectures on topics of immediate relevance to the members of a halqah. Several of the titles in al-F[bar{a}]ry[bar{a}]b[bar{i}]'s bibliography are of the same genre. [14]

The KH seems to have been highly regarded and Ibn Qutlubugh[bar{a}] (d. 879/1474), who read it, said that "the eye of the age has not beheld its like." [15] That it was still being studied two hundred and fifty years after the author's death is indicated by the fact that a summary of it, entitled Akhlas al-kh[bar{a}]lisah or Khul[bar{a}]sat al-kh[bar{a}]lisah, was prepared as a study aid by a certain [Al[bar{i}].sup.[subset]] b. Mahm[bar{u}]d b. Muhammad al-[R[bar{a}].sup.[contains]]id al-Badakhsh[bar{a}]n[bar{i}] (fl. 854/1450). [16]

In studying the bibliographical section of the KH, I have utilized six manuscripts. [17] As will become apparent, there are numerous discrepancies between them. [18] Some of these are clarified by the entries in the Kashf al-zun[bar{u}]n (hereafter, KZ) of...