Mauritanian scholar of hadith who taught in Morocco, the Hijaz and at al-Azhar, and wrote al-Sabk al-badīʿ al-muḥkam, a commentary on al-Akhḍarī’s Sullam.
Life
According to the TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, Muḥammad Ḥabīb Allāh was born in 1878 in the village of Tikya in the Ḥawḍ al-Gharbī province of Mauritania. His nisba al-Jakanī refers to his ancestor Jākan al-Abar, head of a tribe known for its scholars, and al-Shinqīṭī to Shinqīṭ, the old name of the region; Māyābā was the nickname of his grandfather Aḥmad, and he took Abū al-Mawāhib as his kunya. He memorised the Qurʾān in his family and studied Qurʾān readings with Muḥammad al-Amīn al-Jakanī, Mālikī law with Aḥmad b. Aḥmad b. Hādī al-Lamtūnī and judicial procedure with his brother al-Mukhtār.
After the French occupation of Mauritania in 1909 he emigrated to Morocco, where he studied Qurʾān commentary, hadith and logic and for a time taught the sultan ʿAbd al-Ḥafīẓ. He then settled in Medina and lived for a time in Mecca, teaching in the Prophet’s Mosque, the Ḥaram and the Ṣawlatiyya and Falāḥ madrasas; his request by letter in 1924 for an ijāza from ʿAbd al-Ḥayy al-Kattānī occasioned the writing of al-Kattānī’s Fihris al-fahāris. Finally he moved to Cairo, where he taught hadith at the Faculty of Uṣūl al-Dīn of al-Azhar until his death on 2 February 1944; he was buried in the cemetery of Imām al-Shāfiʿī. The TDV describes him as a moderate scholar of Sufi leanings, untouched by the modernist and Salafī currents of his day.
Most of his works are on hadith, among them Zād al-muslim fī mā ittafaqa ʿalayhi al-Bukhārī wa-Muslim, but he also wrote on the sciences of the Mauritanian curriculum: a commentary on al-Akhḍarī’s logic poem, al-Sabk al-badīʿ al-muḥkam fī sharḥ naẓm al-Sullam, and one on al-Akhḍarī’s poem on rhetoric, al-Jawhar al-maknūn, as well as works on legal theory, Qurʾānic sciences and Arabic.
Uncertain or disputed
- Whether al-Sabk al-badīʿ has been printed could not be established; a Turkish list of printed commentaries mentions a ‘Şankîtî (1428/2007)’, which may refer to this work or to another Shinqīṭī commentary (see the catalogue).
- The Hijri year of his death (1363) is calculated from the TDV’s Gregorian date.
Works
- al-Sabk al-badīʿ al-muḥkam fī sharḥ naẓm al-Sullam السَّبْكُ البَدِيعُ المُحْكَمُ فِي شَرْحِ نَظْمِ السُّلَّمِ — üzerine al-Sullam al-munawraqCommentary on al-Akhḍarī’s al-Sullam al-murawnaq, listed among his works by the TDV; printing details not given there.şerh
- Ibrāz al-durr al-maṣūn ʿalā al-Jawhar al-maknūn إِبْرَازُ الدُّرِّ المَصُونِ عَلَى الجَوْهَرِ المَكْنُونِ — üzerine AhdarîCommentary on al-Akhḍarī’s poem on rhetoric (TDV).şerh
- Zād al-muslim fī mā ittafaqa ʿalayhi al-Bukhārī wa-Muslim زَادُ المُسْلِمِ فِيمَا اتَّفَقَ عَلَيْهِ البُخَارِيُّ وَمُسْلِمٌHis best-known work: the hadiths shared by the two Ṣaḥīḥs, arranged alphabetically, printed with his commentary Fatḥ al-munʿim (Cairo 1348 and later).eser
- Anwār al-nafaḥāt fī sharḥ Naẓm al-Waraqāt أَنْوَارُ النَّفَحَاتِ فِي شَرْحِ نَظْمِ الوَرَقَاتِOn al-ʿImrīṭī’s versification of al-Juwaynī’s al-Waraqāt on legal theory (TDV).şerh
Reception
His commentary on the Sullam is one of several written by Shinqīṭī scholars outside Mauritania, beside the Mauritanian ṭurra tradition (see ‘Commentaries, glosses and translations’).
Sources (1)