Shaykh al-Islām Zakariyyā al-Anṣārī

Leading Shāfiʿī jurist of late Mamluk Cairo, whose commentary al-Maṭlaʿ was printed many times in Egypt and attracted glosses by Egyptian scholars.

Life

Zakariyyā al-Anṣārī was born in Sunayka, between Bilbays and al-ʿAbbāsa in eastern Egypt; his contemporaries Ibn Iyās and Ibn al-Ḥimṣī give 824/1421 as the year. After his father’s death his mother sent him to Cairo (841/1437), where he studied at al-Azhar. In his own list of teachers he names well over a hundred scholars, among them Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī, Kamāl al-Dīn Ibn al-Humām, Muḥyī al-Dīn al-Kāfiyajī and Jalāl al-Dīn al-Maḥallī, and he studied not only law and the religious sciences but also language, astronomy, arithmetic, algebra and medicine.

He taught in several Cairo madrasas and Sufi lodges, and his students included Ibn Ḥajar al-Haytamī, al-Khaṭīb al-Shirbīnī and ʿAbd al-Wahhāb al-Shaʿrānī. After refusing several times, he accepted the office of chief Shāfiʿī judge from Sultan Qāytbāy on 6 Rajab 886 (31 August 1481) and held it, with interruptions, under several sultans until he was dismissed in 906/1501. Ibn Iyās, who attended his funeral, dates his death to Wednesday 3 Dhū l-Ḥijja 926 (14 November 1520) in Cairo; he was buried in the Qarāfa cemetery near the tomb of al-Shāfiʿī.

His legal works became authorities for later Shāfiʿīs and attracted many abridgements, and glosses. His short commentary on the sits among a handful of works he wrote on and the classification of the sciences.

Uncertain or disputed

Death date: TDV, following the eyewitness Ibn Iyās, gives 3 Dhū l-Ḥijja 926 (14 November 1520) and rejects other dates; Ḥājjī Khalīfa’s Kashf al-ẓunūn and the modern editor of al-Kātī give 910, and al-ʿAydarūsī 925.
Birth year: 824/1421 (Ibn Iyās, Ibn al-Ḥimṣī), 823/1420 (al-Ghazzī) or 826/1423 (al-Sakhāwī).
The vowels of the title are read differently: library catalogues give al-Maṭlaʿ, while TDV writes el-Muṭṭalaʿ (al-Muṭṭalaʿ).

Works

al-Maṭlaʿ (Sharḥ Īsāghūjī) المَطْلَع — on ĪsāghūjīOpens al-ḥamdu li-llāhi alladhī manaḥa aḥibbatahu bi-l-luṭfi wa-l-tawfīq (Ḥājjī Khalīfa). Printed with Yūsuf b. Sālim al-Ḥifnī’s gloss at Būlāq (1282, 1283) and in Cairo (1328, 1329, 1332–33, 1345 AH), according to TDV.commentary
Sharḥ Ḍābiṭat al-ashkāl al-arbaʿa شَرْحُ ضَابِطَةِ الأَشْكَالِ الأَرْبَعَةA commentary on al-Taftāzānī’s short logic text on the four figures of the syllogism.commentary
al-Luʾluʾ al-naẓīm fī rawm al-taʿallum wa-l-taʿlīm اللُّؤْلُؤُ النَّظِيمDefinitions and uses of thirty-eight sciences.work

Reception

TDV names al-Maṭlaʿ, with al-Fanārī’s , as the most famous of the commentaries.

In Egypt it gathered glosses of its own: by Yūsuf b. Sālim al-Ḥifnī (d. 1762 or 1763; printed with the ), by Shihāb al-Dīn al-Qalyūbī (d. 1069/1659; manuscript) and by Ḥasan al-ʿAṭṭār (d. 1250/1834; printed Cairo 1321).

The modern editor of al-Kātī lists it among the still worth reading, next to those of al-Fanārī, al-Maghnīsāwī and al-Kalanbawī.

Sources (7)