Mauritanian scholar of the Daymān whose short marginal commentary (ṭurra) on al-Akhḍarī’s Sullam became a teaching text of the maḥaẓra, itself copied and glossed.
Life
The West African Arabic Manuscript Database (WAAMD), following the fifth volume of Arabic Literature of Africa (ALA V, p. 492), records him as Muḥanḍ Bāba b. Aʿbayd al-Bārikī al-Daymānī, with the fuller genealogy Muḥanḍ Bāba b. Aʿbayd b. Aḥmad b. al-Mukhtār Yūra b. Yaʿqūb b. Bārik, and the alternative nisba al-Shamshawī. WAAMD also records a nickname, ابّاته. He was born in Dhū al-Ḥijja 1185 (March 1772) and died on the night of Wednesday 4 Ṣafar 1277 (22 August 1860).
In the maḥaẓra, the nomadic and village schools of Mauritania, al-Akhḍarī’s Sullam was the logic text, and teachers’ explanations were often written down as a ṭurra, a short commentary in the margins around the poem. Muḥanḍ Bāba’s Ṭurrat al-Sullam is one of these. WAAMD records an old complete copy of ten pages in a family collection (Ahl Bukum), copied by Muḥammad b. Bukum. His ṭurra was in turn glossed: a collection of glosses on it, al-Ḥawāshī al-Madūriyya ʿalā ṭurrat Muḥanḍ Bāba al-Shinqīṭī ʿalā al-Sullam al-murawnaq, circulates in a digital copy published in 2024.
Uncertain or disputed
- His other works and his teachers and students are not given in the sources consulted; ALA V (p. 492) was not consulted directly.
- The author of al-Ḥawāshī al-Madūriyya is not named in the description of the digital copy consulted.
Works
- Ṭurrat al-Sullam طُرَّةُ السُّلَّمِ — üzerine al-Sullam al-munawraqA short marginal commentary on al-Akhḍarī’s al-Sullam al-murawnaq. Manuscript: an old complete copy, 10 pp., copied by Muḥammad b. Bukum (WAAMD 9766, ALA V).şerh
Reception
The ṭurra was itself glossed (al-Ḥawāshī al-Madūriyya), a sign that it served as a teaching text in the maḥaẓra; see ‘The Sullam in the madrasa’ and ‘The Maghrib and Mauritania’.
Sources (2)