al-Anbābī

Azhar scholar and twice Shaykh al-Azhar whose taqrīr on al-Bājūrī’s gloss on al-Akhḍarī’s Sullam is a textbook example of a fourth layer of commentary, and whose fatwa of 1888 set conditions for teaching logic and other rational sciences at al-Azhar.

Life

Al-Anbābī was born in Cairo in 1240/1825 to a family of merchants from the village of Inbāba (today Imbāba) near the city. He entered al-Azhar in 1837 and studied with Ibrāhīm al-Bājūrī, Muḥammad ʿIlīsh, Muṣṭafā al-Būlāqī, Ḥasan al-Quwaysinī, Ibrāhīm al-Saqqā and others, and began teaching there in 1851. According to the TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi he wrote notes (taqrīrāt) and glosses on almost every book taught at al-Azhar, while continuing his father’s trade. Four of his students, among them Ḥassūna al-Nawāwī, later became Shaykh al-Azhar.

He served as fatwa secretary to the Shaykh al-Azhar Muṣṭafā al-ʿArūsī and in 1881 succeeded his teacher al-Saqqā as Shāfiʿī mufti. The khedive Tawfīq appointed him Shaykh al-Azhar in December 1881 in place of the Ḥanafī al-Mahdī al-ʿAbbāsī; he resigned in October 1882 and was reappointed in December 1886. Under ʿAbbās Ḥilmī II he resisted the reform commission set up in 1894, which included Muḥammad ʿAbduh, and he resigned in June 1895. He died after a stroke on 21 Shawwāl 1313 (5 April 1896).

Two of his works matter for logic. His taqrīr on al-Bājūrī’s gloss on the Sullam was printed in the margins of that gloss, which itself surrounds al-Akhḍarī’s poem: a single page thus shows the text, a gloss and notes on the gloss. And in a fatwa dated 9 August 1888 he did not reject in principle the teaching of non-religious subjects at al-Azhar: mathematics and geography were not against the law and might even be a religious duty, and, relying on al-Ghazālī and Ibn Ḥajar al-Haytamī, he discussed the conditions under which philosophy, logic, chemistry, astronomy, theology and dialectic may be studied, warning that they must not lead into conflict with the law. Muḥammad ʿAbduh reported that al-Anbābī refused his proposal to teach Ibn Khaldūn’s Muqaddima on the ground that there was no precedent for it.

Works

• Taqrīr ʿalā Ḥāshiyat al-Bājūrī ʿalā matn al-Sullam تَقْرِيرٌ عَلَى حَاشِيَةِ البَاجُورِيِّ عَلَى مَتْنِ السُّلَّمِ — к al-BājūrīNotes printed in the margin of al-Bājūrī’s gloss on al-Akhḍarī’s Sullam: Būlāq 1297/1880 (Brockelmann; Penn), Cairo 1319, 1324/1906 and 1328 (TDV; QNL); edited by Muḥammad Aḥmad Rutan (Cairo 2011).примечания
• Taqrīr ʿalā Ḥāshiyat al-Bājūrī ʿalā matn al-SanūsiyyaOn al-Bājūrī’s gloss on al-Sanūsī’s creed; printed many times from 1300/1883 (TDV).примечания
• Risāla fī ʿilm al-waḍʿOn the theory of the assignment of words to meanings, a subject close to logic; manuscripts in Cairo and Jeddah (TDV).труд
• Fatwa on teaching the non-religious sciences at al-Azhar (9 August 1888)Discusses the conditions for studying philosophy, logic and other rational sciences (TDV, after ʿAbd al-Mutaʿāl al-Ṣaʿīdī).труд

Reception

The Būlāq print of the Sullam with al-Bājūrī’s gloss and al-Anbābī’s notes is used on this site to show the layers of the commentary tradition (see ‘The genres of logical writing’).