Abd al-Ghani's family descended from the Banu Jama'a, which traditionally provided qadis (chief judges) for the Shafi'ifiqh (school of Islamic law) of Sunni Islam for the Mamluk rulers of Syria and Egypt. The Banu Jama'a hailed from Hama before settling in Jerusalem in the 13th century. One of its principal branches remained in Jerusalem, providing the preachers for the al-Aqsa Mosque, while another principal branch relocated to Cairo, the Mamluk capital, under Badr al-Din Muhammad Ibn Jama'a in 1291 after being appointed by Sultan al-Ashraf Khalil as qadi al-qudat (head judge of the sultanate) and shaykh al-shuyukh (head of the Sufi brotherhoods). Badr al-Din died in 1333 and his direct descendants died out in the 15th century. Abd al-Ghani's family descended from Badr al-Din's younger brother Abd al-Rahman, who had remained in Jerusalem.[2] Shortly after the conquest of Mamluk Syria by the Ottoman Empire in 1516, part of Abd al-Rahman's family moved briefly to Nablus then permanently to Damascus, which attracted numerous people from Palestine in the 16th century. The family became known as "al-Nabulsi" after their short stay in Nablus.[3]
The great-grandfather of Abd al-Ghani, Ismai'il al-Nabulsi, was a Shafi'i jurist, the Shafi'i mufti of Damascus and a teacher of the fiqh at the Umayyad Mosque and four madrasas in the city. One of the madrasas, the Darwishiyya Madrasa, was built by the governor Darwish Pasha and endowed specifically for Isma'il and his descendants to teach the Shafi'i fiqh. Isma'il taught there Turkish, Persian and Arabic students, and was fluent in each of the languages. He grew wealthy, owning several villages and farms and gaining connections to the imperial government in Constantinople. He was the founder of the Nabulsi family's wealth and a mausoleum was built for him by Darwish Pasha in the Bab al-Saghir cemetery. Abd al-Ghani's grandfather and namesake inherited wealth from his mother Hanifa bint al-Shihabi Ahmad and owned shops and residences in the Salihiyya neighborhood. He was not known for his scholarship and is remembered by Abd al-Ghani as a generous man.[4]
Life
Abd al-Ghani was born in Damascus in 1641.[5] His father, Isma'il, was a jurist, and had switched to the Hanafi school of jurisprudence preferred by Ottoman rulers of Syria. Isma'il was a contributor to Arabic literature,[5] wrote on legal matters, taught at the Umayyad Mosque and Damascene madrasas (Islamic schools) and occupied the post of qadi in Sidon for a certain period. He supervised Abd al-Ghani's early education but died in 1653 when Abd al-Ghani was 12 years old.[6]
Even before the age of 20, Abd al-Ghani al-Nabulusi had started teaching and giving formal legal opinions (fatwa).[1] He joined both the mystical orders Qadiriyya and Naqshbandi[7] and spent seven years in isolation in his house studying the mystics on their expression of divine experiences.[1] He taught in the Umawi Mosque in Damascus and the Salihiyya Madrasa, becoming renowned throughout the region as an accomplished Islamic scholar. He travelled extensively, seeing Istanbul (1664), Lebanon (1688), Jerusalem (1689), Palestine (1689), Egypt (1693), Arabia (1693), and Tripoli (1700).[1] He produced hundreds of scholarly works and was identified by contemporaries and later scholars as a significant local authority.[8]
He died and was buried in Damascus in 1731 at 90 years of age. His was a large and public funeral, attended by the Ottoman governor and chief judge, and he was later entombed in the Salimiyya Mosque near the mausoleum of ibn al-'Arabi.[8]
He left over 200 written works.[1][8] Among al-Nablusi's contemporaries, his studies of 13th-century Sufi writer Ibn Arabi were his most famous works.[8]
His views on religious tolerance towards other religions were developed under the inspiration of the works of Ibn Arabi. He made two visits to Palestine, in 1690, and 1693–4, visiting Christian and Jewish sites, as well as sacred Muslim shrines, and he enjoyed there the hospitality of local Christian monks.[5]
This list is incomplete; you can help by adding missing items. (October 2022)
Idâh al-Maqsud min wahdat al-wujud ("Clarifying What is Meant by the Unity of Being")
Sharh Diwan Ibn Farid (Commentary on Ibn al-Farid's Poetry)
Jam'u al-Asrâr fi man'a al-Ashrâr 'an at-Ta'n fi as-Sufiyah al-Akhyar (Collection of the secrets to prevent the evils castigate the pious Sufis)
Shifa' al-Sadr fî Fada'il Laylat al-Nisf Min Sha'bân wa Layllat al-Qadr (Curing the heart on the Virtues of the night of Nisfu Sha'ban and The Night of Qadr)
Nafahat al-Azhar 'Ala Nasamat al-Ashar, a badī‘iyya in praise of the Prophet, 'no doubt' inspired by 'A'isha al-Ba'uniyya'sal-Fatḥ al-mubīn fī madḥ al-amīn (Clear Inspiration, on Praise of the Trusted One); both writers accompanied their respective badī‘iyyas with a commentary.[10]
al-Sulh bayn al-ikhwan fi hukm ibahat al-dukhan, an influential legal treatise advocating the lawfulness of smoking tobacco; ed. Ahmad Muhammad Dahman (Damascus, 1924).
Ta‘tir al-anam fi tafsir al-ahlam, ed. Taha 'Abd al-Ra’uf Sa‘d, 2 vols. (Damascus, n.d.)
al-Haqiqa wa al-majaz fi al-rihla ila bilad al-sham wa misr wa al-hijaz, edited by Ahmad 'Abd al-Majid al-Haridi (Cairo, 1986) is the longest rihla. This rihla also goes by the title al-Rihla al-kubra and covers over 500 folios in minuscule. The journey began on Muharram 1005/ September 1693 and ended with the Hajj 388 days later.[11]
al-Hadra al-Unsiyya fî al-Rihla al-Qudsiyya, also called al-Rihla al-wustd focuses on al-Nablusi's trip to Palestine, specifically Jerusalem and Hebron.[11]
Nihayat al-murad fi sharh hadiyyat Ibn al-'Imad, a treatise on the rites of prayer; ed. ‘'Abd al-Razzaq al-Halabi (Limmasol, 1994).
Hillat al-dhahab al-ibriz fi rihlat Ba'albak wa-al-Biqa' al-'aziz, often known as al-Rihla al-Sughrd, was the first of al-Nabulsi's rihla. It describes a 15-day journey to Lebanon in AH 1100/ AD 1688.[11]
al-Tuhfa al-Nabulusiyya ft 1-rihla al-Tarabulusiyya was his second rihla, describing a 40-day trip across Lebanon to Tripoli.[11]
Book of Dreams Kitab al Manam[12][13][14] (described as "arguably the most important text in the rich history of Islamic dream interpretation," translated into English in 2022 by Yasmine Seale[15][16])
^ abcAbdul Karim Rafeq, 'Abd al-Ghani al-Nabulsi:Religious Tolerance and 'Arabness' in Ottoman Damascus,' in Camille Mansour and Leila Fawaz (eds,),Transformed Landscapes: Essays on Palestine and the Middle East in Honor of Walid Khalidi,American University in Cairo Press, 2009 pp.1-17.
^ ab"The Book of Elegance in the Science of Agriculture". World Digital Library. 3 April 1854. Retrieved 16 July 2013.
^ abcdMasters, Bruce Alan. The Arabs of the Ottoman Empire, 1516-1918: A Social and Cultural History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013, 118–9.
^ ab"Commentary to 'Abd Al-Ghanī Al-Nābulusī's Kifāyat al-ghulām". World Digital Library. 1877. Retrieved 16 July 2013.
^W. A. S. Khalidi, 'AL-BĀ'ŪNĪ', in The Encyclopaedia of Islam, new edn by H. A. R. Gibb and others (Leiden: Brill, 1960-2009), I 1109-10 (p. 1109).
^Elizabeth Sirriyeh, 2005, Sufi Visionary of Ottoman Damascus: ʻAbd Al-Ghanī Al-Nābulusī, 1641-1731 0415341655 p. 67 "... Muslim tradition of dream interpretation'.67 The work attracted Western scholarly attention from early in the twentieth century. 68 Nabulusi's famous book of dreams was the fruit of a."
^Iain R. Edgar The Dream in Islam: From Qur'anic Tradition to Jihadist ...2011 0857452363 - Page 58 "However, in Islamic countries, al-Nabulusi's dream encyclopedia still is a popular dream interpretation book."
^Yehia Gouda - Dreams and Their Meanings in the Old Arab Tradition 1419654020 2006- Page 419 According to Al-Nabulsi, in his alphabetical book of dreams the toilet represents the relief, welfare, and largesse of the household or, on the contrary, the hardships, poverty, and stinginess. It also alludes to the wife whom the dreamer takes ...
^mlynxqualey (15 September 2021). "Yasmine Seale Wins 2022 PEN Grant to Translate al-Nabulsi". ARABLIT & ARABLIT QUARTERLY. Retrieved 3 October 2022.
^"Announcing the 2022 PEN America Literary Grant Winners". PEN America. 15 September 2021. Retrieved 3 October 2022.
Bibliography
Sirriyeh, Elizabeth (2005). Sufi Visionary of Ottoman Damascus: 'Abd al-Ghani al-Nabulusi, 1641–1731. Abingdon, Oxon: RoutledgeCurzon. ISBN0-415-34165-5.
External links
Barbara von Schlegell, "Sufism in the Ottoman Arab World: Shaykh ‘'Abd al-Ghani al-Nabulsi" (PhD diss., University of Pennsylvania, 1997.
Smoking and "Early Modern" Sociability: The Great Tobacco Debate in the Ottoman Middle East (Seventeenth to Eighteenth Centuries) 27 July 2019 at the Wayback Machine
March 27, 2023
ghani, nabulsi, shaykh, ghani, isma, nabulsi, nabalusi, march, 1641, march, 1731, eminent, sunni, muslim, scholar, poet, author, works, about, sufism, ethnography, agriculture, bornعبدالغنی, بن, اسماعیل, النابلسی, 1641, march, 1641damascus, ottoman, empire, sy. Shaykh Abd al Ghani ibn Isma il al Nabulsi an Nabalusi 1 19 March 1641 5 March 1731 was an eminent Sunni Muslim scholar poet and author on works about Sufism ethnography and agriculture Abd al Ghani al NabulsiBornعبدالغنی بن اسماعیل النابلسی Abd al Ghani al Nabulsi 1641 03 19 19 March 1641Damascus Ottoman Empire now SyriaDied5 March 1731 1731 03 05 aged 89 Damascus Ottoman Empire now SyriaKnown forMuslim scholar Sufi Contents 1 Family origins 2 Life 3 His works 3 1 Select works 4 References 5 Bibliography 6 External linksFamily origins EditAbd al Ghani s family descended from the Banu Jama a which traditionally provided qadis chief judges for the Shafi i fiqh school of Islamic law of Sunni Islam for the Mamluk rulers of Syria and Egypt The Banu Jama a hailed from Hama before settling in Jerusalem in the 13th century One of its principal branches remained in Jerusalem providing the preachers for the al Aqsa Mosque while another principal branch relocated to Cairo the Mamluk capital under Badr al Din Muhammad Ibn Jama a in 1291 after being appointed by Sultan al Ashraf Khalil as qadi al qudat head judge of the sultanate and shaykh al shuyukh head of the Sufi brotherhoods Badr al Din died in 1333 and his direct descendants died out in the 15th century Abd al Ghani s family descended from Badr al Din s younger brother Abd al Rahman who had remained in Jerusalem 2 Shortly after the conquest of Mamluk Syria by the Ottoman Empire in 1516 part of Abd al Rahman s family moved briefly to Nablus then permanently to Damascus which attracted numerous people from Palestine in the 16th century The family became known as al Nabulsi after their short stay in Nablus 3 The great grandfather of Abd al Ghani Ismai il al Nabulsi was a Shafi i jurist the Shafi i mufti of Damascus and a teacher of the fiqh at the Umayyad Mosque and four madrasas in the city One of the madrasas the Darwishiyya Madrasa was built by the governor Darwish Pasha and endowed specifically for Isma il and his descendants to teach the Shafi i fiqh Isma il taught there Turkish Persian and Arabic students and was fluent in each of the languages He grew wealthy owning several villages and farms and gaining connections to the imperial government in Constantinople He was the founder of the Nabulsi family s wealth and a mausoleum was built for him by Darwish Pasha in the Bab al Saghir cemetery Abd al Ghani s grandfather and namesake inherited wealth from his mother Hanifa bint al Shihabi Ahmad and owned shops and residences in the Salihiyya neighborhood He was not known for his scholarship and is remembered by Abd al Ghani as a generous man 4 Life EditAbd al Ghani was born in Damascus in 1641 5 His father Isma il was a jurist and had switched to the Hanafi school of jurisprudence preferred by Ottoman rulers of Syria Isma il was a contributor to Arabic literature 5 wrote on legal matters taught at the Umayyad Mosque and Damascene madrasas Islamic schools and occupied the post of qadi in Sidon for a certain period He supervised Abd al Ghani s early education but died in 1653 when Abd al Ghani was 12 years old 6 Even before the age of 20 Abd al Ghani al Nabulusi had started teaching and giving formal legal opinions fatwa 1 He joined both the mystical orders Qadiriyya and Naqshbandi 7 and spent seven years in isolation in his house studying the mystics on their expression of divine experiences 1 He taught in the Umawi Mosque in Damascus and the Salihiyya Madrasa becoming renowned throughout the region as an accomplished Islamic scholar He travelled extensively seeing Istanbul 1664 Lebanon 1688 Jerusalem 1689 Palestine 1689 Egypt 1693 Arabia 1693 and Tripoli 1700 1 He produced hundreds of scholarly works and was identified by contemporaries and later scholars as a significant local authority 8 He died and was buried in Damascus in 1731 at 90 years of age His was a large and public funeral attended by the Ottoman governor and chief judge and he was later entombed in the Salimiyya Mosque near the mausoleum of ibn al Arabi 8 His works Edit Umayyad Mosque Damascus where Nabulsi taught regularly from 1661 He left over 200 written works 1 8 Among al Nablusi s contemporaries his studies of 13th century Sufi writer Ibn Arabi were his most famous works 8 His views on religious tolerance towards other religions were developed under the inspiration of the works of Ibn Arabi He made two visits to Palestine in 1690 and 1693 4 visiting Christian and Jewish sites as well as sacred Muslim shrines and he enjoyed there the hospitality of local Christian monks 5 Subjects he wrote about include Sufism Rihla agriculture and poetry 7 He also wrote ethnographic works based on his travels to Tripoli Egypt Jerusalem Lebanon and other areas of the Middle East 1 9 Select works Edit This list is incomplete you can help by adding missing items October 2022 Idah al Maqsud min wahdat al wujud Clarifying What is Meant by the Unity of Being Sharh Diwan Ibn Farid Commentary on Ibn al Farid s Poetry Jam u al Asrar fi man a al Ashrar an at Ta n fi as Sufiyah al Akhyar Collection of the secrets to prevent the evils castigate the pious Sufis Shifa al Sadr fi Fada il Laylat al Nisf Min Sha ban wa Layllat al Qadr Curing the heart on the Virtues of the night of Nisfu Sha ban and The Night of Qadr Nafahat al Azhar Ala Nasamat al Ashar a badi iyya in praise of the Prophet no doubt inspired by A isha al Ba uniyya s al Fatḥ al mubin fi madḥ al amin Clear Inspiration on Praise of the Trusted One both writers accompanied their respective badi iyyas with a commentary 10 al Sulh bayn al ikhwan fi hukm ibahat al dukhan an influential legal treatise advocating the lawfulness of smoking tobacco ed Ahmad Muhammad Dahman Damascus 1924 Ta tir al anam fi tafsir al ahlam ed Taha Abd al Ra uf Sa d 2 vols Damascus n d al Haqiqa wa al majaz fi al rihla ila bilad al sham wa misr wa al hijaz edited by Ahmad Abd al Majid al Haridi Cairo 1986 is the longest rihla This rihla also goes by the title al Rihla al kubra and covers over 500 folios in minuscule The journey began on Muharram 1005 September 1693 and ended with the Hajj 388 days later 11 al Hadra al Unsiyya fi al Rihla al Qudsiyya also called al Rihla al wustd focuses on al Nablusi s trip to Palestine specifically Jerusalem and Hebron 11 Nihayat al murad fi sharh hadiyyat Ibn al Imad a treatise on the rites of prayer ed Abd al Razzaq al Halabi Limmasol 1994 al Hadiqa al nadiyya Sharh al tariqa al muhammadiyya 2 vols Lailbur 1977 Hillat al dhahab al ibriz fi rihlat Ba albak wa al Biqa al aziz often known as al Rihla al Sughrd was the first of al Nabulsi s rihla It describes a 15 day journey to Lebanon in AH 1100 AD 1688 11 al Tuhfa al Nabulusiyya ft 1 rihla al Tarabulusiyya was his second rihla describing a 40 day trip across Lebanon to Tripoli 11 Kitab ilm al malahah fi ilm al falahah 9 Book of Dreams Kitab al Manam 12 13 14 described as arguably the most important text in the rich history of Islamic dream interpretation translated into English in 2022 by Yasmine Seale 15 16 References Edit a b c d e f Abd al Ghani Encyclopaedia Britannica Vol I A Ak Bayes 15th ed Chicago Illinois Encyclopaedia Britannica Inc 2010 pp 14 ISBN 978 1 59339 837 8 Sirriyeh 2005 p 3 Sirriyeh 2005 pp 3 4 Sirriyeh 2005 p 4 a b c Abdul Karim Rafeq Abd al Ghani al Nabulsi Religious Tolerance and Arabness in Ottoman Damascus in Camille Mansour and Leila Fawaz eds Transformed Landscapes Essays on Palestine and the Middle East in Honor of Walid Khalidi American University in Cairo Press 2009 pp 1 17 Sirriyeh 2005 p 5 a b The Book of Elegance in the Science of Agriculture World Digital Library 3 April 1854 Retrieved 16 July 2013 a b c d Masters Bruce Alan The Arabs of the Ottoman Empire 1516 1918 A Social and Cultural History Cambridge Cambridge University Press 2013 118 9 a b Commentary to Abd Al Ghani Al Nabulusi s Kifayat al ghulam World Digital Library 1877 Retrieved 16 July 2013 W A S Khalidi AL BA uNi in The Encyclopaedia of Islam new edn by H A R Gibb and others Leiden Brill 1960 2009 I 1109 10 p 1109 a b c d Sirriya Elizabeth 1979 Ziyarat of Syria in a Riḥla of Abd al Ghani al Nabulusi 1050 1641 1143 1731 Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland Cambridge University Press 111 2 109 122 doi 10 1017 S0035869X00135543 JSTOR 25211052 S2CID 163434595 Elizabeth Sirriyeh 2005 Sufi Visionary of Ottoman Damascus ʻAbd Al Ghani Al Nabulusi 1641 1731 0415341655 p 67 Muslim tradition of dream interpretation 67 The work attracted Western scholarly attention from early in the twentieth century 68 Nabulusi s famous book of dreams was the fruit of a Iain R Edgar The Dream in Islam From Qur anic Tradition to Jihadist 2011 0857452363 Page 58 However in Islamic countries al Nabulusi s dream encyclopedia still is a popular dream interpretation book Yehia Gouda Dreams and Their Meanings in the Old Arab Tradition 1419654020 2006 Page 419 According to Al Nabulsi in his alphabetical book of dreams the toilet represents the relief welfare and largesse of the household or on the contrary the hardships poverty and stinginess It also alludes to the wife whom the dreamer takes mlynxqualey 15 September 2021 Yasmine Seale Wins 2022 PEN Grant to Translate al Nabulsi ARABLIT amp ARABLIT QUARTERLY Retrieved 3 October 2022 Announcing the 2022 PEN America Literary Grant Winners PEN America 15 September 2021 Retrieved 3 October 2022 Bibliography EditSirriyeh Elizabeth 2005 Sufi Visionary of Ottoman Damascus Abd al Ghani al Nabulusi 1641 1731 Abingdon Oxon RoutledgeCurzon ISBN 0 415 34165 5 External links EditBarbara von Schlegell Sufism in the Ottoman Arab World Shaykh Abd al Ghani al Nabulsi PhD diss University of Pennsylvania 1997 Smoking and Early Modern Sociability The Great Tobacco Debate in the Ottoman Middle East Seventeenth to Eighteenth Centuries Archived 27 July 2019 at the Wayback Machine Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Abd al Ghani al Nabulsi amp oldid 1141457386, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,
