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An early source on Shaykh Khaḍir al-Mihrānī

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 December 2009

P. M. Holt
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Shaykh Khaḍir al-Mihrānī, the Ṣ؛fī guide and soothsayer of the Maml؛k sultan al-Ẓāhir Baybars (regn. 658–76/1260–77), was the subject of an article by Louis Pouzet, ‘Haḍir ibn Abî Bakr al-Mihrānî’ (Bulletin d'Études Orientales, XXX, 1978, 173–83), which is based almost entirely on the account of Shaykh Khaḍir in al-Nahj al-sadīd by the Coptic chronicler al-Mufaḍḍal b. Abi'l-Faḍā'il. Pouzet was apparently unaware that an almost identical account of Shaykh Khaḍir appears in the eighth volume of Ibn al-Dawādārī's Kanz al-durar wa-jāmi' al-ghurara. The editor of this volume, Ulrich Haarmann, discusses at length in his introduciton (pp.24–9) the relationship between the works of Ibn al-Dawādārī and Ibn Abi'l-Faḍā'il, and demonstrates that they drew independently on a source derived at one or two removes form the still largely unpublished Ḥawādith al-zamān of the Syrian chronicler al-Jazarī (658–739/1260–1338). Since Ibn al-Dawādārī completed this volume, according to the colophon, in 734/1334, while the unique (and probably autography) MS of al-Nahj al-sadīd is dated 759/1358, the version in Kanz al-durar may reasonably be assumed to be the older. A collation of the two versions, however reveals that they agree almost entirely, both verbally and in content. Two points of detail regarding Blochet's edition and translation of Ibn Abi'l-Faḍā'il, as used by Pouzet, may be noted in passing. Blochet, p. 459, line 2, reads kanīsat al-fuh؛d (tr. ‘l'église des Panthères’), a textual error for kanīsat al-Yah؛d, Șthe synagogue of the Jews’. Pouzet here tacitly corrects his source (p. 178). On the other hand, he accepts Blochet's curious rendering of bābā as ‘intendant’ (Pouzet, pp. 174–5 and n. 9), whereas it is surely obvious from the context that it has here, as often, a dervish connotation.

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Articles
Information
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 46 , Issue 1 , February 1983 , pp. 33 - 39
Copyright
Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London 1983

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References

1 Al-Mufaḍḍal, Abi'l-Faḍā'il, Kitāb al-nahj al-sadīd; ed. and tr. Edgar, Blochet, Patrologia orientalis. XIV. 1920. 381, 450–62. I am obliged to my former student, Miss Francine McNulty, for bringing Pouzet' article to my notice.Google Scholar

2 Ibn, al-DawādārīKanz al-durar wa-ghurar, vIII. ed. Ulrich, Haarmann, Cairo/Freiburg, 1391/1971, 220–4.Google Scholar

3 See furtherUlrich, Haarmann, Quellen-studien zur frϋhen Mamlukenzeit, Freiburg, 1970, 109–14.Google Scholar

4 Samira, Kortantamer, Ägypten und Syrien zwīschen 1317 und 1341 in der Chronik des Mufaḍḍal b. Abī l-Faḍā'il, Freiburg, 1973, 11–15Google Scholar

5 For the date of Ibn Shaddād's work and its title (al-Rawḍ al-zāhir fī sīrat al-Malik al-Ẓāhir). see my article, ‘Three biographies of al-Zāhir Baybar’ (in the press). The incident referred to by Pouzet at P. 178 and n. 43 as reported by Ibn Shaddād is in his al-A'lāq al-khaṠīra, not the biography.

6 Ibn Shaddād, al-Rawḍ al-zāhir, MS Edirne Selimiye 2306, ff, 193a-194b.

7 On Khaḍir's nisba, al-Mihrānī, see Pouzet at. 174. n. 5; and see further Stephen, R. Humphreys, From Saladin to the Mongols, Albany, 1977, 100 and 430. n. 29.Google Scholar on the Mihrāniyya as Kurdish tribal group.

8 Ibn 'Abd al-Ẓāhir, al-Rawḍ al-zāhīr, ed. 'Abd al-'Azīz al-KhuwayṠir. al-Riyāḍ ]1396/1976], 263. 266.

9 Ibn, Abd al-Ẓ'hir, al-Raws, 158, 271.Google Scholar

10 Ibn, al-Dawādārī. Kanz, VIII, 222.Google Scholar

11 Haarmann, , Quellenstudien, 159–83.Google Scholar

12 Ibn, al-dawādārī, Kanz, VIII. 221.Google Scholar

13 Ibn, al-dawādārī, Kanz, VIII, 223–4.Google Scholar

14 Ibn, al-ṣuqā'ī, Tālī kitāb wafayāt al-a'yān, ed. and tr. Jacqueline, sublet, Damascus, 1974, No. 106:Google Scholar the copy of the part of the MS containing this notice was made in 715'1316: cf. p. 179 (Arbaic text). Ibn, Taghrībīrdi, al-Nuj؛m al-zāhira, Cairo, VII, 276–7.Google ScholarAl-Maqrizī, , Kitāb al-sul؛k I Cairo, 1956, 608;Google Scholartext amended with additions form IBn abi'l-Faḍā'il.