Pupil of Quṭb al-Dīn al-Rāzī and teacher of al-Sayyid al-Sharīf al-Jurjānī in Cairo, whose commentaries on al-Kātibī’s Ḥikmat al-ʿayn and al-Abharī’s Hidāyat al-ḥikma became school texts.
Life
Little is certain about his life. His nickname Mīrak (‘little lord’) suggests, according to the TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, a family of standing, and his nisbas al-Bukhārī, al-Harawī and al-Manṭiqī that he came from Bukhara, lived long in Herat and was known above all as a logician. He studied with Quṭb al-Dīn al-Rāzī al-Taḥtānī, the author of the most read commentary on the Shamsiyya, while Quṭb al-Dīn was at Rayy. Taşköprüzâde tells that Quṭb al-Dīn, wishing to measure his rival Ṣadr al-Sharīʿa, sent the young Ibn Mubārakshāh to Herat to attend his lessons; seeing that Ṣadr al-Sharīʿa taught Ibn Sīnā’s Ishārāt without the commentaries, Ibn Mubārakshāh wrote to his master that he was ‘a burning fire’, and Quṭb al-Dīn gave up the idea of a debate.
He later taught in Cairo, where his students included members of the ruling family and several men who became central to Ottoman and Persian learning: al-Sayyid al-Sharīf al-Jurjānī, the poet Aḥmadī, the physician Ḥājjī Pāshā, Badr al-Dīn of Simāv and Molla Fenârî. The TDV, in its articles on Quṭb al-Dīn al-Rāzī, al-Jurjānī and Ibn Mubārakshāh himself, relates how al-Jurjānī, who had read Quṭb al-Dīn’s commentary on the Maṭāliʿ sixteen times without understanding it, went to its author, and how the aged Quṭb al-Dīn, no longer able to teach, sent him to his pupil Mubārakshāh in Egypt. Ibn Mubārakshāh at first let him only listen to the lessons he gave the son of a notable, without questions; when he overheard al-Jurjānī explaining to fellow students ‘the commentator says this, the master says that, and I understand it thus’, he admitted him to all his lessons. The chain al-Jurjānī – Ibn Mubārakshāh – Quṭb al-Dīn al-Rāzī appears in almost all the licences (ijāzas) in the rational sciences given to Ottoman scholars.
His dates are uncertain. The only firm date is in his own hand: he finished his gloss on al-Kharaqī’s astronomical Tabṣira at the beginning of Rabīʿ I 733 (November 1332). Dates of death between about 1340 and 1413 are found in the literature; Brockelmann, Sarton and Sezgin give 740/1339–40. The TDV, from the chronology of his teacher and his students, argues that he was still alive after Quṭb al-Dīn’s death in 766/1365 and, because Badr al-Dīn of Simāv is said to have made the pilgrimage with him and then studied with al-Bābartī in the reign of Sultan Barqūq, that he died after 784/1382.
His fame rests on two commentaries. His mixed commentary on al-Kātibī’s Ḥikmat al-ʿayn, on physics and metaphysics, which also incorporates the glosses of Quṭb al-Dīn al-Shīrāzī on that book (Kashf al-ẓunūn), is in the TDV’s judgement his most important work; it was read in Ottoman and Iranian madrasas and glossed by al-Jurjānī, Ghiyāth al-Dīn Manṣūr al-Dashtakī, Mīrzā Jān Ḥabīb Allāh and many others. His commentary on al-Abharī’s Hidāyat al-ḥikma was, with al-Jurjānī’s gloss on it, also widely read.
Uncertain or disputed
- Date of death: the TDV records dates ranging from 1340 to 1413 and argues for a date after 784/1382; Brockelmann and others give 740/1339–40; PIPDI gives ‘ca. 840/1440’ under the Hidāyat al-ḥikma and ‘8th/14th century’ under Ḥikmat al-ʿayn.
- Identity: the ‘Mubārak Shāh’ in Egypt with whom al-Jurjānī studied (TDV article on al-Jurjānī) is the same man; the TDV article on Ibn Mubārakshāh states this explicitly.
- Several further works are attributed to him in catalogues (a commentary on al-Nasafī’s Manār, on al-Samarqandī’s Ashkāl al-taʾsīs, astronomical tables, a commentary on Ṣafī al-Dīn al-Urmawī’s Kitāb al-Adwār); the TDV accepts some only with reservation and rejects others, among them a commentary on al-Urmawī’s Maṭāliʿ.
Works
- Sharḥ Ḥikmat al-ʿayn شَرْحُ حِكْمَةِ العَيْنِ — بر al-KātibīMixed commentary on al-Kātibī’s Ḥikmat al-ʿayn; printed with al-Jurjānī’s gloss in Calcutta (1845) and Kazan (1319, 1324), with al-Jurjānī’s and Mīrzā Jān’s glosses in Delhi (1289) and Kazan (1311), and in Tehran (1352) (TDV).شرح
- Sharḥ Hidāyat al-ḥikma شَرْحُ هِدَايَةِ الحِكْمَةِ — بر ابهریOne of the most read commentaries on al-Abharī’s handbook of philosophy, with a well-known gloss by al-Jurjānī (TDV).شرح
- Ḥāshiyat al-Tabṣira fī al-hayʾaGloss on al-Kharaqī’s astronomy, finished in Rabīʿ I 733/November 1332; autograph in the Süleymaniye Library, Ayasofya 2582 (TDV).حاشیه
Reception
As al-Jurjānī’s teacher in the rational sciences he stands in the chain of transmission through which the Ottoman madrasas traced their logic back to Quṭb al-Dīn al-Rāzī and the Shamsiyya.
His commentary on Ḥikmat al-ʿayn remained a school book in Ottoman and Iranian madrasas and, through its printings, in India and the Volga region.
Sources (6)
- H. Bekir Karlığa, ‘Muhammed b. Mübârekşah’, TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi 30, 556–557
- Hüseyin Sarıoğlu, ‘Râzî, Kutbüddin’, TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi 34 (2007), 485–487
- Sadreddin Gümüş, ‘Cürcânî, Seyyid Şerîf’, TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi 8 (1993), 134–136
- Yusuf Şevki Yavuz, ‘Kâtibî, Ali b. Ömer’, TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi 25, 41–42
- Ḥājjī Khalīfa, Kashf al-ẓunūn, entries ‘Ḥikmat al-ʿayn’ and ‘Hidāyat al-ḥikma’ (Shamela HTML export on archive.org)
- The Philosophical Works of Islamic Authors (PIPDI), commentaries on al-Abharī and al-Kātibī