Forging a Scholarly Dynasty: The Banū Fahd in Mamluk and Early Ottoman Mecca

Bauden, Frédéric

doi:10.1017/S1356186326101588

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Forging a Scholarly Dynasty: The Banū Fahd in Mamluk and Early Ottoman Mecca

Bauden, Frédéric

2026 • In Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland. Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, p. 1-35

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10.1017/S1356186326101588

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Keywords :

Banū Fahd; Mecca; Scholarly Dynasties; Social Reproduction

Abstract :

[en] This article examines how the Banū Fahd of Mecca successfully established and maintained a scholarly dynasty specialising in ḥadīth transmission across multiple generations during the Mamluk period (eighth/fourteenth-eleventh/seventeenth centuries). Drawing on social reproduction theory, the study analyses the deliberate strategies through which this family transformed itself from judge-merchants into “the ḥadīth transmitters of the Hijaz.” The analysis focuses on Taqī al-Dīn Muḥammad (d. 871/1466) as the pivotal figure who systematically forged the family’s scholarly identity through multiple interconnected strategies: intensive early education of children and relatives, strategic exploitation of Mecca’s position as a pilgrimage centre to build networks with visiting scholars, creation of a family library that became a regional resource, development of sophisticated information management tools (indexes, notebooks, summaries), cultivation of excellence in manuscript copying, and elaboration of genealogical claims linking the family to ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib. These practices were consciously transmitted across several generations, creating a cumulative effect that sustained the family’s reputation into the early eleventh/seventeenth century. The study demonstrates that this scholarly dynasty succeeded not through passive inheritance but through active, systematic cultivation of multiple forms of capital—economic, social, cultural, and symbolic—deployed strategically to reproduce elite status across generations.

Research Center/Unit :

Transitions - Transitions - Unité de recherches sur le Moyen Âge et la première Modernité - ULiège

Disciplines :

Classical & oriental studies

Author, co-author :

Bauden, Frédéric ; Université de Liège - ULiège > Département des sciences de l'antiquité > Langue arabe et études islamiques - Histoire de l'art musulman

Language :

English

Title :

Forging a Scholarly Dynasty: The Banū Fahd in Mamluk and Early Ottoman Mecca

Publication date :

2026

Journal title :

Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland. Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland

ISSN :

0035-869X

Publisher :

Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain & Ireland, United Kingdom

Pages :

1-35

Peer reviewed :

Peer reviewed

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since 15 June 2026

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Bibliography

ʿA. al-Ḥ. al-Kattānī, Fihris al-fahāris wa-l-athbāt wa-muʿjam al-maʿājim wa-l-mashyakhāt wa-l-musalsalāt [List of the dictionaries of authorities], (ed.) I. ʿAbbās, three vols (Beirut, 1982), vol. ii, p. 912 (wa-anta idhā taʾammalta qalla an tajid fī bayt fī al-islām arbaʿah min al-ḥuffāẓ fī silsilah wāḥidah min bayt wāḥid yatawārathūn al-ḥifẓ wa-l-isnād ghayr hādhā al-bayt al-ʿaẓīm).
Over three generations, they supplemented al-Fāsī’s (d. 832/1429) history of Mecca entitled al-ʿIqd al-thamīn fī tārīkh al-balad al-amīn [The precious necklace in the history of the Safe Place] with chronicles and biographical dictionaries: al-Najm Ibn Fahd, Itḥāf al-wará bi-akhbār Umm al-qurá [The gift of mankind with news of the Mother of Cities], (ed.) F. Shaltūt et al., five vols (Mecca, 1983–1990); al-Najm Ibn Fahd, al-Durr al-kamīn bi-dhayl al-ʿIqd al-thamīn fī tārīkh al-balad al-amīn [The hidden treasure supplementing the precious necklace on the history of the Safe Place], (ed.) ʿA. al-M. ibn ʿA. A. ibn Duhaysh, three vols (Beirut, 2000); al-ʿIzz Ibn Fahd, Ghāyat al-marām bi-akhbār salṭanat al-balad al-ḥarām [The ultimate goal in the news of the sultanate of the sacred precinct], (ed.) F. M. Shaltūt, three vols (Mecca, 1986–1989); al-ʿIzz Ibn Fahd, Bulūgh al-qirá fī dhayl Itḥāf al-wará bi-akhbār Umm al-qurá [The attaining of hospitality supplementing the gift to mankind with news of the Mother of Cities], (ed.) Ṣ. al-D. ibn Kh. Ibrāhīm et al., four vols (Cairo, 2005); Jār Allāh Ibn Fahd, Nayl al-muná bi-dhayl Bulūgh al-qirá li-takmilat Itḥāf al-wará: Tārīkh Makkat al-mukarramah min sanat 922 h. ilá 946 h. [The dream come true supplementing the attaining of hospitality being a continuation of the gift to mankind: history of the Noble Mecca from 922 AH to 946 AH], (ed.) M. al-Ḥ. al-Hīlah, two vols (Riyadh, 2000).
Muḥammad Murtaḍá al-Zabīdī, Tāj al-ʿarūs min jawāhir al-qāmūs [The bride’s tiara made of the jewels of the lexicon], 40 vols (Kuwait, 1965), vol. viii, p. 514 (Banū Fahd muḥaddithū al-Ḥijāz).
A. de Candolle, Histoire des sciences et des savants depuis deux siècles, suivie d’autres études sur des sujets scientifiques, en particulier sur la sélection dans l’espèce humaine (Geneva, 1885; the 1st edn appeared in 1873), pp. 294 and 296.
É. Durkheim, The Division of Labour in Society, (trans.) G. Simpson (London, 1933), pp. 304–328.
P. Bourdieu and J.-C. Passeron, The Inheritors: French Students and Their Relation to Culture, (trans.) Richard Nice (Chicago, 1979).
P. Bourdieu, The State Nobility: Elite Schools in the Field of Power, (trans.) Lauretta C. Clough (Stanford, CA, 1996).
The study of the strategies developed by lineages to acquire symbolic and social capital and maintain their status is a line of inquiry that Michael Chamberlain pursued for the emergence of a scholarly elite in Damascus during the late Ayyubid and early Mamluk periods. For a comprehensive overview of this topic, see M. Chamberlain, Knowledge and Social Practice in Medieval Damascus, 1190–1350 (Cambridge, 1994). However, the author’s study is primarily focused on the existing strategies within the elite (ʿulamāʾ) and does not address the role of these strategies in the emergence of scholarly dynasties. See also, for the later periods, H. Touati, ‘Les Héritiers: anthropologie des Maisons de science maghrébines aux XIe/XVIIe et XIIe/XVIIIe siècles’, in Modes de transmission de la culture religieuse en Islam, (ed.) H. Elboudrari (Cairo, 1993), pp. 63–92.
For a brief presentation of the family and its most prominent members, see M. ibn Ḥ. al-Ṣumadānī, ‘Usrat Banī Fahd al-Hāshimīyah al-Makkīyah wa-nashāṭuhā al-ʿilmī (1)’ [The Banū Fahd family of Mecca and its scientific activity (1)], al-ʿArab 37.1–2 (2001), pp. 70–82; M. ibn Ḥ. al-Ṣumadānī, ‘Usrat Banī Fahd al-Hāshimīyah al-Makkīyah wa-nashāṭuhā al-ʿilmī (2)’, al-ʿArab 37.3–4 (2001), pp. 178–193; Ota Keiko 太田敬子, ‘14–16-seiki no Mekka no uramā: Fahudo-ke no jirei kara’ 一四ǀ一六世紀のメッカのウラマー :ファフド家の事例から [Meccan ʿulamāʾ from the fourteenth to the sixteenth century: a case study on the Fahd family], Ochanomizu shigaku お茶の水史学 62 (2019), pp. 173–187. Four members of the family who wrote historical works on Mecca were the subject of two short studies: N. ibn S. al-Rashīd, ‘Banū Fahd: muʾarrikhū Makkah al-Mukarramah’ [The Banū Fahd: historians of the Noble Mecca], al-ʿArab 11.11–12 (1977), pp. 908–941; N. ibn S. al-Rashīd, ‘Banū Fahd: muʾarrikhū Makkat al-mukarramah wa-l-taʿrīf bi-makhṭūṭ al-Najm Ibn Fahd “Itḥāf al-wará bi-akhbār Umm al-Qurá”’ [The Banū Fahd, historians of the Noble Mecca, and a presentation of the manuscript of al-Najm Ibn Fahd ‘Itḥāf al-wará bi-akhbār Umm al-Qurá’], in Sources for the History of Arabia, Part 2 (Studies in the History of Arabia): Proceedings of the First International Symposium on Studies in the History of Arabia, 23rd–28th of April 1977, Sponsored by the Department of History, Faculty of Arts, University of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, (ed.) A. M. Abdalla, S. al-Sakkar, and R. T. Mortel, two vols (Riyadh, 1979), vol. i, pp. 69–90.
See M. H. Benkheira, A. Giladi, C. Mayeur-Jaouen, and J. Sublet (eds.), La Famille en Islam d’après les sources arabes (Paris, 2013); S. B. Savant, and H. de Felipe (eds.), Genealogy and Knowledge in Muslim Societies: Understanding the Past (Edinburgh, 2014); S. Aube, and M. Szuppe (eds.), Channels of Transmission: Family and Professional Lineages in the Early Modern Middle East, special issue of Eurasian Studies 15.2 (2017); C. U. Werner, M. Szuppe, N. Michel, and A. Fuess (eds.), Families, Authority, and the Transmission of Knowledge in the Early Modern Middle East (Turnhout, 2021).
Besides Chamberlain’s Knowledge and Social Practice, see particularly K. S. Salibi, ‘The Banū Jamā‘a: a dynasty of Shāfi‘ite jurists in the Mamluk period’, Studia Islamica 9 (1958), pp. 97–109; W. M. Brinner, ‘The Banū Ṣaṣrā: a study in the transmission of a scholarly tradition’, Arabica 7.2 (1960), pp. 167–195; J. E. Gilbert, ‘The Ulama of Medieval Damascus and the International World of Islamic Scholarship’ (unpublished PhD thesis, University of California, Berkeley, 1977); E. Sirriyeh, ‘Whatever happened to the Banū Jamāʿa? The tail of a scholarly family in Ottoman Syria’, British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 28.1 (2001), pp. 55–65; M. Kondo, ‘The ʿulamāʾ in the Mamluk period: a re-examination of the al-Subkī family’, in Studies on the History and Culture of the Mamluk Sultanate (1250–1517), (ed.) S. Conermann, and T. Miura (Göttingen, 2021), pp. 175–202.
For some families in Mecca, see particularly K. Otsuya, ‘Marriages of Meccan scholarly families in 650–850/1252–1446’, Orient 54 (2019), pp. 105–125.
T. Wollina, ‘Family and transmission of knowledge in Mamluk and early Ottoman Damascus’, in Families, Authority, and the Transmission of Knowledge in the Early Modern Middle East, (eds.) C. U. Werner, M. Szuppe, N. Michel, and A. Fuess (Turnhout, 2021), pp. 15–36.
Ibid, pp. 21–24.
Chart 1 provides a comprehensive list of all family members who received education in hadith transmission, as well as those who subsequently engaged in scholarship. For the sake of convenience, when one of those members is quoted for the first time in this article, the number appended to their name in the chart will be quoted between parentheses.
Taqī al-Dīn al-Fāsī, al-ʿIqd al-thamīn fī taʾrīkh al-balad al-amīn, (eds.) F. Sayyid, M. al-Fiqī, and M. M. al-Ṭanāḥī, eight vols (Beirut, 1986), vol. ii, pp. 79, and vol. iv, p. 82.
On this family, its members, and the positions they occupied in Mecca, see F. Bauden, ‘Les Ṭabariyya: histoire d’une importante famille de la Mecque (fin XIIe–fin XVe s.)’, in Egypt and Syria in the Fatimid, Ayyubid and Mamluk Eras (Proceedings of the 1st, 2nd and 3rd International Colloquium organized at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in May 1992, 1993 and 1994), (eds.) U. Vermeulen and D. De Smet (Leuven, 1995), pp. 253–266; S. ʿA. al-Gh. Mālikī, al-Ṭabarīyūn: Muʾarrikhū Makkat al-mukarramah: Nashāṭātuhum al-ʿilmīyah wa-waẓāʾifuhum fī al-Ḥaram khilāla al-qarn al-thāmin al-hijrī [The Ṭabarīs, historians of Mecca: their scientific activities and the positions they held in the Sanctuary during the eigth century AH] (al-Ṭāʾif, 2005).
Al-Fāsī, al-ʿIqd al-thamīn, vol. ii, pp. 79–80.
Ibid, vol. iv, p. 82.
Ibid, vol. ii, p. 296 (no. 402).
Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Sakhāwī, al-Ḍawʾ al-lāmiʿ li-ahl al-qarn al-tāsiʿ [The radiant light for the people of the ninth century], 12 vols (Cairo, 1934–1936), vol. ix, p. 231 (no. 570).
Al-Fāsī, al-ʿIqd al-thamīn, vol. v, p. 408 (no. 1782).
Al-Sakhāwī, al-Ḍawʾ al-lāmiʿ, vol. ix, pp. 281–283 (no. 727).
Al-Kattānī, Fihris al-fahāris, vol. iii, p. 734. One member, Muḥammad (see Chart 1, no. 41), is still mentioned as ‘the great traditionist’ in the biography of a Meccan scholar who was born in 996/1588. This family member was thus still active in the early eleventh/seventeenth century. See al-Muḥibbī, Khulāṣat al-athar fī aʿyān al-qarn al-ḥadiya ʿashar [The essence of the tradition regarding the notables of the eleventh century], four vols (Beirut, 1966), vol. iv, p. 185.
Given the specialisation of this scholarly dynasty in hadith transmission, the decline for oral transmission, which began in the tenth/sixteenth century, might have contributed to the loss of status and, subsequently, to their vanishment. On the decline of oral transmission, see G. Davidson, Carrying on the Tradition: A Social and Intellectual History of Hadith Transmission Across a Thousand Years (Leiden, 2020), pp. 96–109.
On three of these families who monopolised various positions in Mecca, see H. Abokadejah, Les Grandes Familles élitaires de La Mecque à la fin de l’époque médiévale (VIIe/XIIIe siècle–IXe/XVe siècle): étude historique d’un phénomène social (Unpublished PhD dissertation, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, 2020). On their role in scholarship, see Kh. ʿA. al-B. I. al-Badanah, ‘al-Usar al-ʿilmīyah fī Makkat al-mukarramah wa-atharuhā ʿalá al-ḥayāt al-ʿilmīyah khilāl al-ʿaṣr al-mamlūkī (648–923 h./1250–1517 m.)’ [The families of the Noble Mecca and their impact on the intellectual life during the Mamluk period (648–923 AH/1250–1517 CE)] (unpublished MA thesis, Umm al-Qurá University, 2004).
See, particularly, K. Morimoto (ed.), Sayyids and Sharifs in Muslim Societies: The Living Links to the Prophet (London, 2012).
On the matrimonial alliances, besides Abokadejah, Les Grandes Familles, see more particularly, Otsuya, ‘Marriages of Meccan scholarly families’.
Al-Sakhāwī, al-Ḍawʾ al-lāmiʿ, vol. ix, p. 231 (no. 570).
Z. Szombathy, The Roots of Arabic Genealogy: A Study in Historical Anthropology (Budapest, 2003), pp. 192–193.
Al-Najm Ibn Fahd, al-Durr al-kamīn, vol. i, p. 391.
Al-Sakhāwī, al-Ḍawʾ al-lāmiʿ, vol. vi, pp. 126–131 (no. 409).
Ibid, vol. vi, p. 128.
See the list in Bauden, ‘Ṭabariyya’, p. 255.
Szombathy, Roots of Arabic Genealogy, p. 188.
For the Mamluks, see J. L. Meloy, Imperial Power and Maritime Trade: Mecca and Cairo in the Later Middle Ages (Chicago, 2010); for the Rasulids, see É. Vallet, ‘Les Sultans du Yémen, protecteurs de La Mecque (XIIIe–XIVe s.)’, Comptes rendus de l’Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres (2017), pp. 211–232.
On these families whose members held the main religious positions, see M. Ṣ. al-Ṭāsān, ‘al-Waẓāʾif al-dīnīyah wa-l-idārīyah bi-l-masjid al-ḥarām fī ʿahd dawlat al-Mamālīk’ [The religious and administrative positions in the Holy Mosque in the period of the Mamluk dynasty], al-ʿUṣūr/Ages 5.2 (1990), pp. 283–310.
On the madrasahs in Mecca, see R. T. Mortel, ‘Madrasas in Mecca during the medieval period: a descriptive study based on literary sources’, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 60.2 (1997), pp. 236–252; P. Franke, ‘Educational and non-educational madrasas in early modern Mecca: a survey based on local literary sources’, Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft 170.1 (2020), pp. 77–106. On Mecca as a centre for hadith transmission, see A. Ḍ. M. Ḥasan, ‘ʿIlm al-ḥadīth fī Makkat al-mukarramah khilāl al-ʿaṣr al-mamlūkī (648–923 h.)’ [The science of tradition in Noble Mecca during the Mamluk period (AH 648–923)] (unpublished PhD dissertation, Umm al-Qurá University, 1987), particularly pp. 353–359 for the Banū Fahd as traditionists.
These members leveraged the wealth accumulated by their ancestor, Jamāl al-Dīn Muḥammad. While commerce remained a primary income for some—such as Muḥyī al-Dīn Yaḥyá (al-Sakhāwī, al-Ḍawʾ al-lāmiʿ, vol. x, p. 233; see Chart 1, no. 14) and Walī al-Dīn ʿAṭīyah (al-Sakhāwī, al-Ḍawʾ al-lāmiʿ, vol. v, p. 149; see Chart 1, no. 11)—the family increasingly drew upon their status as hadith transmitters as a viable economic alternative. Regarding the remuneration of transmitters with elevated chains of transmission, see Davidson, Carrying on the Tradition, pp. 156–158.
Al-Fāsī, al-ʿIqd al-thamīn, vol. viii, p. 329 (no. 3492); al-Sakhāwī, al-Ḍawʾ al-lāmiʿ, vol. xii, p. 137 (no. 844).
On the role of women in the transmission of hadith, see A. Sayeed, Women and the Transmission of Religious Knowledge in Islam (New York, 2013).
Al-Sakhāwī, al-Ḍawʾ al-lāmiʿ, vol. xii, p. 137.
Ibid, vol. ix, p. 231.
Ibid, p. 281 (samiʿa al-kathīr min shuyūkh baladihi wa-l-qādimīn ilayhā).
Ibid, p. 282.
Ibid, pp. 281–282 (wa-kataba ʿan man dabba wa-daraja … wa-ʿarafa al-ʿālī wa-l-nāzil).
On this, see E. Dickinson, ‘Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ al-Shahrazūrī and the Isnād’, Journal of the American Oriental Society 122.3 (2002), pp. 481–505; Davidson, Carrying on the Tradition, pp. 25–45.
Al-Sakhāwī, al-Ḍawʾ al-lāmiʿ, vol. ix, p. 283 (wa-taṣaddá lil-ismāʿ fa-akhadha ʿanhu al-nās min sāʾir al-āfāq al-kathīr).
Ibid (wa-lam yanfakka ʿan … al-qiyām bi-mā yahummuhu min amr ʿiyālihi).
See, respectively, ibid, vol. xi, p. 11 (no. 340), p. 92 (no. 242), vol. vi, p. 126 (no. 409), vol. xii, p. 159 (no. 991), p. 146 (no. 910), and p. 67 (no. 410).
On reading practices and the education of children, see K. Hirschler, The Written Word in the Medieval Arabic Lands: A Social and Cultural History of Reading Practices (Edinburgh, 2012), particularly pp. 82–123.
On this, see M. Gharaibeh, ‘Kinder und Kindheit in der muslimischen Überlieferungspraxis der Prophetischen Tradition’, Berliner Theologische Zeitschrift 40.1 (2023), pp. 96–114.
Al-Sakhāwī, al-Ḍawʾ al-lāmiʿ, vol. v, pp. 148–149 (no. 515).
Ibid, p. 149.
See, respectively, ibid, vol. x, p. 239 (no. 1004), vol. iv, p. 224 (no. 574).
See, respectively, ibid, vol. iv, p. 70 (no. 204), vol. xi, p. 133 (no. 428).
Ibid, vol. iv, pp. 224–226 (no. 574).
Ibid, vol. iii, p. 52 (no. 204). An ijāzah that ʿIzz al-Dīn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz granted to an Aleppan scholar during his pilgrimage in 915/1510 exemplifies the multigenerational transmission of knowledge with the Banū Fahd. The licence invokes his father, Najm al-Dīn ʿUmar, and grandfather, Taqī al-Dīn Muḥammad, as his own masters, while also recording that the recipient attended a reading of a small hadith collection conducted by his son, Muḥibb al-Dīn Jār Allāh, who was 24 years old. Spanning four generations, this licence demonstrates how such chains of transmission consolidated the family’s scholarly standing. The licence has been preserved (MS orient. A 1857, Gotha, Forschunsbibliothek) in ʿIzz al-Dīn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz’s hand. It has also recently been published: A. ibn J. Hadīmī, ‘Ijāzat al-ʿIzz Ibn Fahd al-Hāshimī al-Makkī (850–922 h.) lil-Burhān al-ʿImādī al-Ḥalabī (baʿda 880–954 h.)’ [The licence of transmission of al-ʿIzz Ibn Fahd al-Hāshimī al-Makkī (850–922 AH) for al-Burhān al-ʿImādī al-Ḥalabī (aft. 880–954 AH)], al-Dārah 48.3 (2022), pp. 239–270.
On al-Maqrīzī, see F. Bauden, ‘Taqī al-Dīn Aḥmad ibn ʿAlī al-Maqrīzī’, in Medieval Muslim Historians and the Franks in the Levant, (ed.) A. Mallett (Leiden, 2014), pp. 161–200; N. Rabbat, Writing History: Al-Maqrizi and His Historical Project (Edinburgh, 2023).
Al-Sakhāwī, al-Ḍawʾ al-lāmiʿ, vol. xi, pp. 92–93 (no. 242).
The marginal note in Taqī al-Dīn Muḥammad’s handwriting is to be found in al-Maqrīzī’s holograph copy of the first volume of Imtāʿ al-asmāʿ: MS Şehid Ali Paşa 1887 (Istanbul, Süleymaniye Kütüphanesi), fol. 202b. Al-Maqrīzī corroborates that the text was read in his presence while in Mecca by Taqī al-Dīn Muḥammad, with his son Najm al-Dīn ʿUmar attending, the said year: see al-Maqrīzī, al-Sulūk li-maʿrifat duwal al-mulūk [The way to behave by taking cognizance of the dynasties of rulers], (eds.) M. M. Ziyādah and S. ʿA. al-F. ʿĀshūr, four vols (Cairo, 1934–1973), vol. iv, p. 858; al-Maqrīzī, Durar al-ʿuqūd al-farīdah fī tarājim al-aʿyān al-mufīdah [The unique necklaces regarding the useful biographies of the luminaries], (ed.) M. al-Jalīlī, four vols (Beirut, 2002), vol. iii, pp. 385–386.
The text reads: بلغت قراة في المجلس ٦٣ / على مولفه ابقاه اللـه تعالى / وكتب ابو بكر بن فهد الهاشمي.
MS Şehid Ali Paşa 1887 (Istanbul, Süleymaniye Kütüphanesi), fol. 211b.
Al-Maqrīzī, Durar al-ʿuqūd al-farīdah, vol. iii, p. 386.
The fact that al-Maqrīzī quoted Najm al-Dīn ʿUmar as a source in one of his works is highlighted by al-Sakhāwī in Najm al-Dīn ʿUmar’s biography as a merit. See al-Sakhāwī, al-Ḍawʾ al-lāmiʿ, vol. iv, p. 130.
On the importance of network building for scholars, particularly with regard to Ibn Ḥajar (d. 852/1449), see M. Gharaibeh, ‘Brokerage and interpersonal relationships in scholarly networks. Ibn Ḥaǧar al-ʿAsqalānī and his early academic career’, in Everything Is on the Move: The Mamluk Empire as a Node in (Trans-)Regional Networks, (ed.) S. Conermann (Bonn, 2014), pp. 223–266.
See the section below entitled ‘The al-Sakhāwī connection: precious textual witnesses’.
On these, see Davidson, Carrying on the Tradition, pp. 242–275.
For Taqī al-Dīn Muḥammad, see al-Hīlah, al-Taʾrīkh wa-l-muʾarrikhūn, p. 143 (nos. 20–22), p. 144 (nos. 26–30), and p. 145 (nos. 33, 35); for Najm al-Dīn ʿUmar, see ibid, p. 150 (no. 13), p. 153 (no. 17–18), pp. 154–155 (nos. 27–39); for ʿIzz al-Dīn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, see ibid, p. 177 (no. 9), p. 178 (nos. 10–11), for Muḥibb al-Dīn Jār Allāh, see ibid, p. 200 (nos. 17–19), p. 206 (no. 26), p. 207 (no. 30).
See Davidson, Carrying on the Tradition, p. 242.
F. Bauden, ‘Data overload and information management in the Mamluk period (1250–1517)’, in Personal Manuscripts: Copying, Drafting, Taking Notes, (eds.) D. Durand-Guédy and J. Paul (Berlin, 2023), pp. 33–83.
On al-Maqrīzī’s preserved notebooks, see F. Bauden, ‘Maqriziana I: discovery of an autograph manuscript of al-Maqrīzī: towards a better understanding of his working method, description: section 1’, Mamlūk Studies Review 7 (2003), pp. 21–68; F. Bauden, ‘Maqriziana I: discovery of an autograph manuscript of al-Maqrīzī: towards a better understanding of his working method, description: section 2’, Mamlūk Studies Review 10 (2006), pp. 81–139; F. Bauden, ‘Maqriziana II: discovery of an autograph manuscript of al-Maqrīzī: towards a better understanding of his working method, analysis’, Mamlūk Studies Review 12.1 (2008), pp. 51–118.
Al-Sakhāwī, al-Ḍawʾ al-lāmiʿ, vol. ix, p. 282.
See Bauden, ‘Data overload’, p. 44. It is interesting to note that the manuscript belonged to al-Zabīdī, who regarded the Banū Fahd family in high esteem, as reminded above.
Al-Sakhāwī, al-Ḍawʾ al-lāmiʿ, vol. vi, p. 129.
Ibid, vol. i, p. 5.
MS Feyzullah 1413 (Istanbul, Millet Kütüphanesi). The copy was executed in Mecca in 862/1458.
See the editor’s introduction to al-ʿIzz Ibn Fahd, Ghāyat al-marām, vol. i, p. 13.
On these tools, see Bauden, ‘Data overload’, pp. 52–62.
On al-Ṣafadī’s tadhkirah, see É. Franssen, ‘aṣ-Ṣafadī’s taḏkira and its holograph in Princeton University Library’, in Durand-Guédy and Paul, Personal Manuscripts, pp. 217–262.
MS Ayasofya 3139 (Istanbul, Süleymaniye Kütüphanesi).
See al-Sakhāwī, al-Ḍawʾ al-lāmiʿ, vol. x, pp. 238–240 (no. 1004).
Muḥyī al-Dīn Yaḥyá uses the verb intakhaba in the colophon to describe the kind of selections he made. MS Ar. 3857 (Dublin, Chester Beatty Library), fol. 34b (ākhir mā untukhiba min al-Mujālasah li-l-Dīnawarī).
MS Ar. 3857 (Dublin, Chester Beatty Library), fol. 1a (hādhihi al-akhbār muttaṣilah bi-l-sanad jamīʿuhā ḥadhaftuhu takhfīfan wa-hiya ʿalá ghayr tartīb aṣlihi).
MS Ar. 3857 (Dublin, Chester Beatty Library), fols. 35a–38a.
MS Ar. 3857 (Dublin, Chester Beatty Library), fol. 65a (naqaltu min khaṭṭ al-wālid abqāhu Allāh taʿalá min tadhkiratihi).
MS Ar. 3857 (Dublin, Chester Beatty Library), fols. 45a, 45b, 93a, 93b.
Al-Sakhāwī, al-Ḍawʾ al-lāmiʿ, vol. xi, p. 92 (wa-aqāma bi-baladihi mulāziman li-l-nasākhah li-abīhi wa-akhīhi wa-ghayrihimā ḥattá kataba bi-khaṭṭihi al-kathīr min al-kutub al-kibār ka-Sharḥ al-Bukhārī li-shaykhinā marratayn wa-Tafsīr Ibn Kathīr wa-Tārīkh Ibn al-Athīr wa-Sharḥ al-Minhāj li-l-Damīrī wa-li-Abī al-Fatḥ al-Marāghī wa-mā yafūqu al-waṣf wa-huwa aḥsan khaṭṭan min akhīhi maʿa mushārakah la-hu fī al-surʿah wa-l-ṣiḥḥah).
Ibid, vol. xi, p. 133. The question of the circulation of manuscripts between Egypt and the Hijaz to India has recently been addressed by Christopher Bahl in C. Bahl, Mobile Manuscripts: Arabic Learning Across the Early Modern Western Indian Ocean (Cambridge, 2025).
MS Şehid Ali Paşa 1910 (Istanbul, Süleymaniye Kütüphanesi). The colophon is on fol. 237b.
For basic information on the writing pace, see F. Déroche, ‘The copyist’s working pace: some remarks towards a reflexion on the economy of the book in the Islamic world’, in Theoretical Approaches to the Transmission and Edition of Oriental Manuscripts: Proceedings of a Symposium Held in Istanbul, March 28–30, 2001, (eds.) J. Pfeiffer and M. Kropp (Würzburg, 2007), pp. 203–213.
Al-Maqrīzī, Durar al-ʿuqūd al-farīdah, vol. iii, pp. 385 (wa-kutiba[t] minhu nuskhah bi-khaṭṭ waladihi ʿUmar al-madhkūr qabla an ukmilahu).
MS. Orient. A1771 (Gotha, Forschungsbibliothek), fol. 1a. See Bauden, ‘Data overload’, p. 50.
MS Yeni Cami 887 (Istanbul, Süleymaniye Kütüphanesi), fol. 1a. The note is dated 846/1442–1443.
Al-Shammāʿ, Safīnat Nūḥ, quoted by al-Hīlah, al-Tārīkh wa-l-muʾarrikhūn, pp. 103–104.
His note of consultation reads: al-ḥamd lillāh ʿalá niʿamihi / anhāhu qirāʾatan (or muṭālaʿatan) wa-kitābatan (or naskhan) / dāʿiyan li-mālikihi bi-ṭūl al-baqāʾ / wa-dawām al-irtiqāʾ Muḥammad al-madʿū ʿUmar / ibn Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad al-Hāshimī al-Makkī bi-hā / sanat 869. See MS Ayasofya 3036 (Istanbul, Süleymaniye Kütüphanesi), fol. 1a, MS A2925/1–8 (Istanbul, Topkapı Sarayı Müzesi Kütüphanesi), fol. 1, MS Feyzullah 1404 (Istanbul, Millet Genel Kütüphanesi), fol. 1a. Al-Sakhāwī corroborates that Najm al-Dīn ʿUmar copied the text from the Cairene owner. See al-Sakhāwī, al-Iʿlān bi-l-tawbīkh li-man dhamma ahl al-taʾrīkh [Open denunciation of the critics of the historians], (ed.) Ṣ. A. al-ʿAlī (Beirut, 1986), p. 214. See the translation in F. Rosenthal, A History of Muslim Historiography (Leiden, 1968), p. 444.
Al-Sakhāwī, Irshād al-ghāwī bal isʿād al-ṭālib wa-l-rāwī lil-iʿlām bi-tarjamat al-Sakhāwī [The guidance of the misled or better the help of the seeker of knowledge and the transmitter who want to be informed about the biography of al-Sakhāwī], (ed.) S. ibn F. al-Dawsarī (Kuwait, 2014), pp. 568–570. Al-Sakhāwī lists all the copies of his texts that were in the Banū Fahd library, either in his own hand or copied by Najm al-Dīn ʿUmar and ʿIzz al-Dīn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz.
Four volumes, MSS 68–71 (Lucknow, al-Maktabah al-Nāṣirīyah).
Vols. ii–iv, MS 5236 (Dublin, Chester Beatty Library), and vol. v, MS 3405 (Damascus, al-Maktabah al-Waṭanīyah).
MS Ayasofya 2950 (Istanbul, Süleymaniye Kütüphanesi).
MS Or. 2366 (Leiden, Universiteitsbibliotheek). The final leaves are missing in both manuscripts and the dates of copy are thus unknown.
MS 2035 (Tarim, Maktabat al-Aḥqāf). The manuscript is undated.
MS Ar. 2105 (Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France).
MS Or. 1850 (Gotha, Forschungsbibliothek).
MS 8996 tārīkh/83609 (Cairo, al-Maktabah al-Azharīyah).
MS 109 Muṣṭalaḥ (Cairo, al-Maktabah al-Azharīyah).
MS 23244b (Cairo, Dār al-Kutub al-Miṣrīyah). The title page is in al-Sakhāwī’s hand.
MS Landberg 234 (Yale University Library). Each title page is in al-Sakhāwī’s hand. Some treatises also contain some of his notes and there is even a certificate of audition in his handwriting for one of the treatises that was read to him by ʿIzz al-Dīn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz (fol. 69a).
Al-Sakhāwī, al-Ḍawʾ al-lāmiʿ, vol. iv, p. 71. If he produced several copies of this text, it may have been with the objective of selling some of them.
See the section below entitled ‘The Banū Fahd library’.
Muḥibb al-Dīn Jār Allāh navigated the transition from Mamluk to Ottoman rule, successfully safeguarding the family’s status amidst the shifting political landscape. On his activities during the Ottoman period and the importance of his transmission, see N. Dumairieh, Intellectual Life in the Ḥijāz before Wahhabism: Ibrāhīm al-Kūrānī’s (d. 1101/1690) Theology of Sufism (Leiden, 2022), p. 92.
This library was recently the subject of a study: K. Wynter-Stoner, The Maḥmūdīyah: The History of a Library, Its Books, and Its Readers (unpublished PhD dissertation, University of Chicago, 2022).
D. Behrens-Abouseif, The Book in Mamluk Egypt and Syria (1250–1517): Scribes, Libraries and Market (Leiden, 2018), p. 25.
K. Hirschler, Medieval Damascus: Plurality and Diversity in an Arabic Library. The Ashrafīya Library Catalogue (Edinburgh, 2016); K. Hirschler, A Monument to Medieval Syrian Book Culture: The Library of Ibn ʿAbd al-Hādī (Edinburgh, 2020); S. Aljoumani and K. Hirschler, Owning Books and Preserving Documents in Medieval Jerusalem: The Library of Burhan al-Din (Edinburgh, 2023); S. Aljoumani, G. Burak, and K. Hirschler, The Library of Aḥmad Pasha al-Jazzār (Leiden, 2025). See also H. Touati, L’Armoire à sagesse: bibliothèques et collections en Islam (Paris, 2003).
Mortel, ‘Madrasas in Mecca’.
On these, see J. Sourdel-Thomine, and D. Sourdel, ‘Certificats de pèlerinage par procuration à l’époque mamlouke’, Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 25 (2001), pp. 212–233.
See C. Juvin, ‘Calligraphy and writing activities in Mecca during the medieval period (twelfth–fifteenth centuries)’, Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies 43 (2013), pp. 153–165.
For a brief study of the Banū Fahd library, see S. ibn Ṣ. Āl Kamāl, ‘Maktabat āl Ibn Fahd wa-dawruhā fī izdihār al-ḥarakah al-ʿilmīyah’ [The library of the Ibn Fahd family and its role in the flourishing of the scientific movement], Majallat Jāmiʿat al-Qurʾān al-Karīm wa-l-ʿUlūm al-Insānīyah [Journal of the University of the Noble Quran and the Humanities] 17 (2008), pp. 1–31.
Al-Najm Ibn Fahd, al-Durr al-kamīn, vol. i, p. 391 (wa-iqtaná min al-kutub al-ḥisān wa-l-uṣūl mā lam yaḥṣul li-aḥad min ahl baladihi wa-kāna samaḥa al-ʿāriyah bi-hā li-ahl baladihi wa-ghayrihim min al-ghurabāʾ man ʿarafa wa-man lā yaʿrif wa-hādhā shayʾ lā yuʿraf li-ahl baladihi wa-awqafa kutubahu ʿalá awlādihi al-dhukūr wa-awlādihim li-tastamirr al-ʿāriyah ʿalá ʿādatihā).
ʿU. ibn A. al-Shammāʿ, Safīnat Nūḥ [Noah’s ark], MS 1640 Tārīkh (Cairo, Dār al-Kutub al-Miṣrīyah), fol. 163b; quoted by al-Hīlah, al-Tārīkh wa-l-muʾarrikhūn, p. 103.
Al-Najm Ibn Fahd, al-Durr al-kamīn, vol. i, p. 395.
Al-Sakhāwī, al-Ḍawʾ al-lāmiʿ, vol. xi, p. 133.
Al-Hīlah, al-Tārīkh wa-l-muʾarrikhūn, pp. 103–104. The two texts on Yemen were al-Janadī’s (d. circa 732/1332) al-Sulūk fī ṭabaqāt al-ʿulamāʾ wa-l-mulūk, and al-Khazrajī’s (d. 812/1409) al-ʿIqd al-ḥasan fī ṭabaqāt akābir al-Yaman.
ʿU. ibn A. al-Shammāʿ, al-Qabas al-ḥāwī li-ghurar Ḍawʾ al-Sakhāwī [The fire encompassing the highlights of al-Sakhāwī’s light], (ed.) Ḥasan Ismāʿīl Muruwwah and Khaldūn Ḥasan Muruwwah, two vols (Beirut, 1998), vol. i, p. 28.
Al-Najm Ibn Fahd, al-Durr al-kamīn, vol. iii, p. 1247 (aṣlaḥa al-kathīr min kutubinā).
One composite volume (majmūʿah), preserved in Mecca (Maktabat al-Ḥaram al-Makkī, MS 441 hadith), offers a compelling illustration of several of the strategies highlighted in the preceding pages. This manuscript consists of a collection of texts authored primarily by several members of the Banū Fahd family, with the majority composed by Taqī al-Dīn Muḥammad. Significantly, all the texts contained within this volume were copied by multiple members of the family across different generations, demonstrating a sustained commitment to preserving and transmitting their scholarly heritage. The manuscript is particularly valuable for the substantial testimonies it preserves regarding the transmission of these texts among various relatives spanning several generations. These transmission records not only document the intellectual lineage within the family but also reveal the pedagogical networks and practices through which knowledge was disseminated and authenticated within this prominent scholarly dynasty.
MS Reisülkuttab 670 (Istanbul, Süleymaniye Kütüphanesi).
The ownership mark reads as follows: الحمد [لله …] / محمد المدعو عمر بن فهد / لطف الله به حامدا ومـ...
The mark reads: ثم صار لحفيده محمد [بن] / عبد العزيز بن عمر بن فهـ[ـد].
MS Landberg 234 (Yale University). The first note reads: من كتب الـ[ـفقير؟] / جار الله بن عبد العز[يز] / ابن فهد الهاشمي المكي. The second note reads: الحمد لله الكريم الجواد / التي لا تحصا نعمه على / الاعداد / صار في نوبة من عرف نفسه / بالعجز والفنا وعرف ربه / بالقدرة والبقا المفتقر / الى عفو ربه الفرد القوي / محمد بن جار الله بن فهد الهاشمي / العلوي لطف الله به / وعفا عنه ووالديه / ومشايخه والمسلمين / ورزقه الثبات عند / الممات بجاه سيد السادات / محمد المصطفا عليه افضل / السلام والصلات.