The Teachers of Shihāb al-Dīn ‘Umar al-Suhrawardi

Abstract

We are informed by Ibn al-‘Imād that Shihāb al-Dīn ‘Umar b. ‘Abd Allāh al-Suhrawardī (d. 632/1234), the celebrated Ṣūfi and founder of the Suhrawardīya Order, “heard Traditions from a number (of scholars)”, and that he wrote “a Mashyakha in an attractive section (fijuz’inlaṭtīf)”. This Mashyakha was known to Ḥājjī Khalīfa,4 but no copy is noted by Brockelmann. Now it is always interesting to have the names of the teachers of famous men, more especially when such information rests on the authority of the celebrities themselves, and it is therefore a fortunate chance that a manuscript of Shihab al-Dīn al-Suhrawardī’s essay in autobiography has actually survived. What is more, this unique copy is in the autograph of an eminent scholar; the colophon is signed Muhammad b. Shukr al-Shāfi‘ī, and is dated 738/1337. To complete the good story, the recension mounts to the author himself, and the learned copyist has transcribed from his archetype a note of samā’ with al-Suhrawardī dated 620/1223 at Baghdad.The author gives the names of fifteen of his teachers, together with the texts of a small number of Traditions heard by him from each; each Tradition is furnished with a full isnād; and in some instances the dates of the teacher's birth and death are provided. The list begins with Shihāb al-Dīn's uncle, Diyā’ al-Dīn ‘Abd al-Qāhir b. ‘Abd Allāh al-Suhrawardī, himself a well-known Ṣūfī scholar (d. 562/1168, see Brockelmann I 436, Suppl. I 780); significantly enough no mention is made of ‘Abd al-Qādir al-Jīlānī (d. 561/1167) who is commonly reported to have initiated al-Suhrawardī into Ṣūfism.