Mamluk-era scholar, best known for his Qurʾān commentary on the coherence of verses and suras, who read al-Kātibī’s Shamsiyya in 828/1425 and wrote an enlarged recension of the Īsāghūjī.
Life
Al-Biqāʿī was born about 809/1406–07 in a mountain village of the Biqāʿ valley; in 821/1418 his father and uncles were killed in an attack on the village and he himself was wounded. He moved to Damascus in 823/1420, where Tāj al-Dīn Ibn Bahādur taught him morphology, grammar, rhetoric, logic, legal theory and law. The TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi records that in 828/1425 he read ‘al-Kātibī’s al-Shamsiyya’ with Badr al-Dīn Ḥasan al-Hindī, an early witness to the teaching of the book in the Mamluk lands. After three years in Jerusalem he settled in Cairo in 834/1430–31, where he attended Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī’s circle for eighteen years and taught Qurʾān commentary and ḥadīth, including nine years of lessons on al-Bukhārī at the court of Sultan Jaqmaq.
His great work is Naẓm al-durar, a commentary on the Qurʾān built on the relations (munāsabāt) between verses and suras. Its use of the Bible and its departures from transmitted exegesis drew heavy criticism, and he also attacked Ibn al-Fāriḍ, Ibn ʿArabī and al-Ghazālī. In 880/1475 he left Cairo for Damascus, where he died on 18 Rajab 885 (23 September 1480); al-Suyūṭī was among his students.
Among his works on logic and mathematics the TDV lists Tatmīm Īsāghūjī bi-masāʾil kathīra, an expanded version of al-Abharī’s Īsāghūjī, and a revision of Ibn Marzūq’s versification of al-Khūnajī’s logic. Brockelmann describes a ‘recension enlarged with examples’ of the Īsāghūjī by an ‘Abū l-Ḥasan ʿAlī b. ʿUmar al-Shāfiʿī al-Biqāʿī’ (d. 885), which he makes the base text of al-Sanūsī’s commentary; since al-Biqāʿī’s kunya was Abū al-Ḥasan and the death date is the same, this is very probably the same work, with a slip in the given name.
Uncertain or disputed
- The identification of al-Biqāʿī with the ‘Abū l-Ḥasan ʿAlī b. ʿUmar al-Biqāʿī’ of Brockelmann is likely (same kunya, nisba, father’s name and death year, and the TDV lists a Tatmīm Īsāghūjī among his works) but Brockelmann gives the ism as ʿAlī; Brockelmann’s Supplement also misprints the death date as 885/1440.
Works
- Tatmīm Īsāghūjī bi-masāʾil kathīra تَتْمِيمُ إِيسَاغُوجِي بِمَسَائِلَ كَثِيرَةٍ — к ĪsāghūjīAn enlarged recension of the Īsāghūjī (TDV). Brockelmann’s ‘Neubearbeitung durch Beispiele vermehrt’ by ‘Abū l-Ḥasan ʿAlī b. ʿUmar al-Biqāʿī’, base text of al-Sanūsī’s commentary, is very probably this work. Manuscript.труд
- Taḥrīr Naẓm al-Khūnajī li-Ibn Marzūq — к al-KhūnajīA revision of Ibn Marzūq al-Ḥafīd’s versification of al-Khūnajī’s logic, Naẓm al-Jumal (TDV).труд
- Naẓm al-durar fī tanāsub al-āy wa-l-suwar نَظْمُ الدُّرَرِ فِي تَنَاسُبِ الآيِ وَالسُّوَرِHis Qurʾān commentary, begun 861/1457 and finished in fair copy in Damascus in 882/1477.труд
Reception
His report of reading the Shamsiyya in 828/1425 is one of the earliest dated records of the book being taught in Syria and Egypt (see ‘The Shamsiyya in teaching’).
Sources (2)