Egyptian Ḥanafī jurist, author of al-Ashbāh wa-l-naẓāʾir, who counted logic, as part of philosophy, among the forbidden sciences, a view his own commentators rejected.
Life
Zayn al-Dīn (also Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn) b. Ibrāhīm, called Ibn Nujaym after one of his ancestors, was born in Cairo in 926/1520. According to the TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi he studied with Sharaf al-Dīn al-Bulqīnī, Shihāb al-Dīn Aḥmad b. Yūnus (Ibn al-Shalabī) and other Cairene scholars and began early to teach and give fatwās. He became one of the leading Ḥanafī scholars of Egypt and joined a Sufi order through Shaykh Sulaymān al-Khuḍayrī; ʿAbd al-Wahhāb al-Shaʿrānī, his companion for ten years, with whom he made the pilgrimage in 953/1547, describes his large circle of students. He died in Cairo on 8 Rajab 970 (3 March 1563).
His two main works are al-Baḥr al-rāʾiq, a commentary on al-Nasafī’s Kanz al-daqāʾiq that he took as far as the chapter on invalid hire, and al-Ashbāh wa-l-naẓāʾir, the most important Ḥanafī book on legal maxims, which was later used in preparing the Ottoman Mecelle and drew many commentaries. His fatwās were collected as al-Fatāwā al-Zayniyya.
In the history of logic he stands for the minority that rejected it. Khaled El-Rouayheb, in his study of Sunni attitudes to logic between 1500 and 1800, cites him as proof that there was no consensus: Ibn Nujaym briefly stated that philosophy is among the religiously forbidden sciences and that logic is a part of philosophy. El-Rouayheb immediately adds that the later Ḥanafī commentators on his work disagreed. Aḥmad al-Ḥamawī (d. 1098/1687), in his commentary on al-Ashbāh wa-l-naẓāʾir, quotes two earlier commentators: one had found no prohibition of logic in the books of the Ḥanafī jurists and thought that it might be forbidden only as a precaution, because it wastes time or leads people to philosophy, ‘otherwise there is nothing in logic that contradicts the law’; the other held that Ibn Nujaym meant the logic of the philosophers, since Quṭb al-Dīn al-Rāzī, Ibn ʿArafa and Zakariyyā al-Anṣārī had all written on logic and al-Ghazālī had called it the standard of the sciences.
Uncertain or disputed
- Year of death: 8 Rajab 970 (3 March 1563) in the TDV, following his brother Sirāj al-Dīn (through al-Tamīmī), the preface of his collected treatises and al-Ḥamawī; 7 Rajab in al-Tamīmī; 969/1562 in al-Ghazzī; El-Rouayheb and the site’s article give 971/1563.
- The passage of al-Ashbāh wa-l-naẓāʾir in which he speaks of logic was not consulted directly; it is known here from El-Rouayheb’s account of al-Ḥamawī’s commentary.
Works
- al-Ashbāh wa-l-naẓāʾir الأَشْبَاهُ وَالنَّظَائِرُḤanafī legal maxims and distinctions; printed in Calcutta 1241 and Cairo 1290, 1298 and 1322, among others (TDV). The commentary of Aḥmad al-Ḥamawī, Ghamz ʿuyūn al-baṣāʾir (Cairo 1290/1873), records the discussion of his view of logic (El-Rouayheb).karya
- al-Baḥr al-rāʾiq sharḥ Kanz al-daqāʾiq البَحْرُ الرَّائِقُ شَرْحُ كَنْزِ الدَّقَائِقِUnfinished commentary on al-Nasafī’s Kanz al-daqāʾiq, completed by Muḥammad b. Ḥusayn al-Ṭūrī; printed with Ibn ʿĀbidīn’s gloss (TDV).syarah
- al-Fatāwā al-Zayniyya الفَتَاوَى الزَّيْنِيَّةُHis collected fatwās, arranged by his son Aḥmad (TDV).karya
Reception
Seventeenth-century Egyptian scholars, El-Rouayheb notes, seem to have shared the view of his commentators rather than his own: the Ḥanafī Aḥmad al-Junaymī and the Shāfiʿī Aḥmad al-Qalyūbī glossed Zakariyyā al-Anṣārī’s commentary on the , the Mālikī ʿAlī al-Ujhūrī commented on the Tahdhīb, and scholars elsewhere in the Ottoman Empire taught logic ‘without any concern’ for the views of al-Suyūṭī and Ibn Nujaym.
Sources (2)