Indian teacher of the madrasa sciences, a student of Quṭb al-Dīn al-Sihālawī, with whom Muḥibb Allāh al-Bihārī read most of his books; he also taught Amān Allāh al-Banārasī and Qāḍī Mubārak.
Life
According to ʿAbd al-Ḥayy al-Ḥasanī’s Nuzhat al-khawāṭir, Quṭb al-Dīn al-Ḥusaynī came from Amethi, a market town near Lucknow, and settled at Shamsābād, where he taught all his life. He began his studies with the same teachers as Quṭb al-Dīn al-Sihālawī, as his fellow student; when al-Sihālawī finished first, al-Shamsābādī attached himself to him and read with him the books that remained. Al-Bilgrāmī, quoted in Nuzhat, describes his poverty: days passed without a fire being lit in his house and he suffered hunger, but he never showed his need and taught ‘with a cheerful face and tongue’. He died in 1121/1709 at the age of seventy.
His importance for lies in his students. Nuzhat names Muḥibb Allāh al-Bihārī, the author of Sullam al-ʿulūm, Amān Allāh al-Banārasī and Ṭufayl Muḥammad al-Atrawlawī, and elsewhere says that al-Bihārī read some of the madrasa books with al-Sihālawī and most of them with al-Shamsābādī. The early commentator Aḥmad ʿAbd al-Ḥaqq al-Sihālawī first calls al-Bihārī a student of Quṭb al-Dīn al-Sihālawī and then corrects himself: ‘rather, he was a student of his student’, whom Asad Q. Ahmed identifies as al-Shamsābādī. Ahmed also counts him among the teachers of Qāḍī Mubārak, directly and through his student Ṣifat Allāh al-Khayrābādī, so that two of the earliest and most influential readings of the Sullam came from his circle. No writings of his are recorded in the sources consulted.
Uncertain or disputed
- Qāḍī Mubārak’s study with him rests on Ahmed; Nuzhat’s entry on Mubārak names other teachers.
- Year of birth: not recorded; his age at death would place it around 1051/1641.
Reception
Ahmed places him with al-Sihālawī at the head of the line of teachers shared by al-Bihārī and his first commentators (see ‘Muḥibb Allāh al-Bihārī’).
Sources (2)