Sixteenth Century
Abū al-Fatḥ Shams al-Dīn Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad ibn ‘Alī ibn ‘Aṭiyya al-‘Awfī al-Mizzī al-Shāfi‘ī (d. 906/1500)
Scholar identified as an autobiographer in Ibn Ṭūlūn (d. 953/1546—see below). The text remains unidentified. See GAL, Suppl. 2:908.
Jamāl al-Dīn Yūsuf Ibn ‘Abd al-Hādī al-Ḥanbalī (b. 840/1436, d. 909/1503)
Prominent Damascene scholar who, according to Ibn Ṭūlūn (d. 953/1546—see below), wrote at length of himself “in his compendium of Ḥanbalī scholars in his book on the praiseworthy qualities [manāqib] of the Imām Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal.” This text remains unidentified.
‘Abd al-Raḥmān ibn Abī Bakr ibn Muḥammad al-Khuḍayrī [= Jalāl al-dīn al-Suyūṭī] (b. 849/1445, d. 909/1505)
Judge, legal scholar, and prolific author. His lengthy autobiography is divided into more than twenty sections covering his birth, family, father, town of origin, studies, teachers, books, clashes with contemporaries, and other topics. One extract is translated in this volume. The Arabic text is published in Elizabeth Sartain, Jalāl al-Dīn al-Suyūṭī, 2 vols. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975). See also Kristen Brustad, “Imposing Order: Reading the Conventions of Representation in al-Suyūṭī's Autobiography,” Edebiyât: Special Issue—Arabic Autobiography, N.S. 7, no. 2 (1997): 327–44.
‘Ā’isha bint Yūsuf al-Bā‘ūniyya (d. 922/1516)
Scholar, Sufi mystic, and author. First-person passages by her quoted in later biographical sources suggest a lost autobiographical text. See Muḥammad al-Ghazzī, al-Kawākib al-sā’ira bi-a‘yān al-mi’a al-‘āshira (Beirut: al-Maṭba‘a al-Amīrikāniyya, 1945–59), 1:287–92; see also ‘Abd al-Ḥayy Ibn al-‘Imād, Shadharāt al-dhahab fī akhbār man dhahab (Cairo: Maktabat al-Qudsī, 1931–33), 8:111–13; and passages cited in ‘Umar Mūsā Bāshā, Ta’rīkh al-adab al-‘arabī: al-‘aṣr al-mamlūkī (Beirut: Dār al-Fikr al-Mu‘āṣir, 1989), 437–42.
‘Abd al-Raḥmān ibn ‘Alī al-Zabīdī [= Ibn al-Dayba‘] (b. 866/1462, d. 944/ 1537)
Religious scholar and historian. His short autobiography covers his childhood, education, teachers, and three pilgrimages to Mecca. The Arabic text and a German summary appear in Rudolf Sellheim, “Die Autobiographie des Ibn ad-Dayba‘,” Folia Rara: Wolfgang Voight LXV Diem Natalem Celebranti [= Verzeichnis der Orientalischen Handschriften in Deutschland, Supplementband 19] (Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner, 1976): 111–19.
Muḥammad ibn ‘Alī ibn Aḥmad [= Ibn Ṭūlūn al-Dimashqī] (b. 880/1473, d. 953/1546)
Scholar of law and government official. This fifty-page autobiography includes descriptions of the author's birth, education, scholarly works, and posts held, as well as a collection of marriage sermons, letters, and selected poetry. Al-Fulk al-mashḥūn fī aḥwāl Muḥammad Ibn Ṭūlūn (The Loaded Pontoon on the Life of Muḥammad Ibn Ṭūlūn) (Damascus: Maṭba‘at al-Taraqqī, 1929).
Zayn al-Dīn al-‘Āmilī [= al-Shahīd al-thānī] (b. ca. 911/1506, d. 965/1558)
Twelver Shi‘ite jurist of southern Lebanon. Fragments of the autobiography (no longer extant), covering his birth, education, teachers, and travels, were preserved in a biography by his student: ‘Alī ibn Muḥammad al- ‘Āmilī, Bughyat al-murīd fī kashf ‘an aḥwāl al-Shaykh Zayn al-Dīn al-Shahīd, which survives in truncated form as part of al-Durr al-manthūr (Qom: Maktabat al-Mar‘ashī al-Najafī, 1978), 2:157–82.
Aḥmad ibn Muṣṭafā ibn Khalīl al-Dīn Ṭaşköprüzādeh (b. 901/1495, d. 968/1561)
Ottoman scholar, professor, and judge. His brief autobiography covers his father's dream of his birth, his education, teaching, books, and remarks on going blind. It is included as the last of the 522 collected biographies in his al-Shaqā‘iq al-nu‘māniyya fī ‘ulamā’ al-dawla al-‘uthmāniyya (Beirut: Dār al-Kitāb al-‘Arabī, 1975), 325–31.
‘Abd al-Wahhāb ibn Aḥmad al-Sha‘rānī (b. 897/1492, d. 973/1565)
Sufi shaykh. This massive autobiography lists each of his blessings from God individually, covering family, childhood, education, spiritual journey, career, personal traits, wives, children, professional rivalries, and much more. The Laṭā‘if al-minan wa-l-akhlāq fī wujūb al-taḥadduth bi-ni‘mat Allāh ‘alā al-iṭlāq (The Book of Gracious Merits and Virtues Bestowed on Me by God and the Absolute Obligation of Recounting His Blessings) (Cairo: ‘Ālam al-Fikr, 1938–39) has been translated into Italian as Il Libro dei Doni, ed. and trans. Virginia Vacca (Naples: Istituto Orientale, 1972), Serie Orientalistica, Testi vol. 13. See also Dwight F. Reynolds, “Shaykh ‘Abd al-Wahhāb al-Sha‘rānī's Sixteenth-century Defense of Autobiography,” Harvard Middle Eastern and Islamic Review 4, no. 1–2 (1997–98): 122–37.
Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad Ibn Ḥajar al-Haytamī (b. 909/1504, d. 974/1567)
Prominent jurist and prolific author, particularly of works against popular religious practices, festivals, music, joking, and frivolity. Extant fragments of his autobiography, in ornate rhymed prose, covering his teachers, education, and professional posts are preserved in ‘Abd al-Qādir al- ‘Aydarūs, al-Nūr al-sāfir ‘an akhbār al-qarn al-‘āshir, ed. Muḥammad Rashīd Afandī al-Ṣaffār (Baghdad: al-Maktaba al-‘Arabiyya, 1934), 289–91.