Egyptian scholar and Shaykh al-Azhar whose gloss on Zakariyyā al-Anṣārī’s Īsāghūjī commentary is one of the Egyptian contributions to the tradition after the eighteenth century.
Life
Ḥasan al-ʿAṭṭār was born in Cairo in 1180/1766 to a family of Maghribī origin; his father, a perfume seller (ʿaṭṭār), let him study at al-Azhar instead of joining the shop. Besides the religious sciences he studied astronomy, engineering, geography and medicine. During the French occupation of Egypt (1798) he first fled to Asyut, then returned to Cairo, met the French scholars, learned French and modern sciences from them and taught them Arabic.
He then travelled for years through Syria, the Hijaz, Anatolia and the Balkans, married and settled for a time in Shkodër in Albania, and returned to Egypt in 1813, where he became a teacher at al-Azhar. Under Muḥammad ʿAlī Pasha he became chief editor of the official gazette al-Waqāʾiʿ al-Miṣriyya (founded 1828), and in 1830 he was appointed Shaykh al-Azhar, an office he held until his death.
TDV stresses his role as a reformer of teaching: he urged his students to go back to the main sources, to write clearly, and recommended that modern sciences be taught in the schools; his student Rifāʿa al-Ṭahṭāwī founded the school of languages with his encouragement.
Uncertain or disputed
- TDV gives his death as 1250/1834; F. de Jong’s article on his travels gives his dates as 1766–1835 (the hijri year 1250 spans 1834–35).
Works
- Ḥāshiya ʿalā Sharḥ Shaykh al-Islām Zakariyyā al-Anṣārī ʿalā matn Īsāghūjī حَاشِيَةٌ عَلَى شَرْحِ زَكَرِيَّا الأَنْصَارِيِّ عَلَى إِيسَاغُوجِي — on Shaykh al-Islām Zakariyyā al-AnṣārīA gloss on al-Anṣārī’s al-Maṭlaʿ, printed in Cairo in 1321 AH (TDV).gloss
- al-Ḥāshiya al-kubrā ʿalā Sharḥ Maqūlāt al-Sujāʿī الحَاشِيَةُ الكُبْرَى عَلَى مَقُولَاتِ السُّجَاعِيّOn a text about the ten categories; printed with his smaller gloss on the same work (Cairo 1282, 1303, 1328).gloss
- Ḥāshiya ʿalā Sharḥ al-Tahdhīb حَاشِيَةٌ عَلَى شَرْحِ التَّهْذِيبOn ʿUbayd Allāh al-Khabīṣī’s commentary on al-Taftāzānī’s Tahdhīb al-manṭiq (Būlāq 1296; Cairo 1318).gloss
Reception
TDV’s article on the singles out al-ʿAṭṭār’s work as the most noteworthy of the written in Egypt after the eighteenth century.
Sources (2)