AN ANNOTATED GUIDE TO ARABIC AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL WRITINGS (NINTH TO NINETEENTH CENTURIES C.E.)

This annotated guide is ordered chronologically by the autobiographer's death date. Each entry includes the author's name, with the most commonly used element(s) in boldface, birth and death dates, and a brief characterization of the author and the autobiography (except those translated in this volume), followed by bibliographic information about the Arabic text, translation(s) if available, and occasional secondary sources that deal directly with the autobiographical text. In cases of autobiographies that were once widely known and cited but appear now to have been lost, references are given that may help in locating the missing texts. Bracketed entries for “autobiographies” cited by other scholars that do not in fact exist, or do not appear to be autobiographical, are also included. Translations are generally provided for the titles of autobiographical texts but not for other sources.

Toward the end of our project, an enigmatic ennumeration of Arabic autobiographers published in a work titled Itḥāf al-nubalā’ by Rāshid al-Zahrānī was brought to our attention. This list is transmitted from an apparently unpublished study by the contemporary Saudi scholar Bakr ibn ‘Abd Allāh Abū Zayd titled Kitāb al-Naִzā’ir. It gives the names and death dates of 126 Arabic autobiographers (40 of whom are twentieth-century authors who do not fall within the time frame of this study) but includes no citations to the works themselves. It offers particularly thorough coverage for the Arabian peninsula, a region not well represented in other sources, from the seventeenth century to the present. Where this listing supplemented our own research, those names have been added with page references to Itḥāf al-nubalā’ (hereafter IN).

It is our hope that this necessarily preliminary list will be of use to scholars of autobiography and, indeed, that it will be supplemented and augmented by further research in this new and fertile area of scholarship.

Abbreviations

EI¹/EI²

Encyclopaedia of Islam. Leiden: E. J. Brill. 1st ed., 1913–16, 2d ed., 1960–.

GAL

Carl Brockelmann, Geschichte der arabischen Litteratur (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1898–1902; Supplementband 1937–42; rev. ed. 1943– 49).

GAS

Geschichte des arabischen Schrifttums. Ed. Fuat Sezgin. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1967–98.

Ibn Ṭūlūn

Al-Fulk al-mashḥūn fī aḥwāl Muḥammad Ibn Ṭūlūn. Damascus: Maṭba‘at al-Taraqqī, 1929.

IN

Rāshid ibn Sha‘bān ibn Aḥmad al-Zahrānī, Itḥāf al-nubalā’ bi-siyar al-‘ulamā’. Riyadh: Dār al-Ṣumay‘ī li-l-Nashr wa-l-Tawzī‘, 1996.

Maqqarī

Nafḥ al-ṭīb min ghuṣn al-Andalus al-raṭīb. Ed. Iḥsān ‘Abbās. Beirut: Dār Ṣādir, 1968.

Qifṭī

Ibn al-Qifṭī, Ta’rī[hmp.5]kh al-ḥukamā’. Ed. J. Lippert. Leipzig: Dieterich, 1903.

Sakhāwī

Al-Jawāhir wa-l-durar fī tarjamat Shaykh al-Islām Ibn Ḥajar. Cairo: Wizārat al-Awqāf, al-Majlis al-A‘lā li-l-Shu’ūn al-Islamiyya, wa-Lajnat Iḥyā’ al-Turāth al-Islāmī, 1986.

Sha‘rānī

Laṭā’if al-minan wa-l-akhlāq fī wujūb al-taḥadduth bi-ni‘mat Allāh ‘alā al-iṭlāq. Cairo: ‘Ālam al-Fikr, 1938–39.

Suyūṭī

Jalāl al-Dīn al-Suyūṭī. Ed. Elizabeth M. Sartain. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975.

‘Uyūn

Ibn Abī Uṣaybi‘a, ‘Uyūn al-anbā’ fī ṭabaqāt al-aṭibbā‘. Ed. Niִzār Riḍā. Beirut: Dār Maktabat al-Ḥayāt, 1965.

Yāqūt¹

Irshād al-arīb ilā ma‘rifat al-adīb, also known as Mu‘jam al-udabā’. Ed. D. S. Margoliouth. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1907–32.

Yāqūt²

Mu‘jam al-udabā’: irshād al-arīb ilā ma‘rifat al-adī[hmp.5]b. Ed. Iḥsān ‘Abbās. Beirut: Dār al-Gharb al-Islāmī, 1993.

Authors (by date of death)

Ninth Century

[Muḥammad ibn ‘Umar al-Wāqidī (b. 130/747, d. 207/823)

Although Tarif Khalidi mentions an autobiography by the historian al-Wāqidī, no such text appears to exist; the reference is, rather, to isolated khabar-anecdotes in the first person attributed to an unlikely chain of transmitters. Tarif Khalidi, Arabic Historical Thought in the Classical Period (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994): 44 n. 46.]

Abū ‘Abd Allāh Ḥārith ibn Asad al-‘Anazī al-Muḥāsibī (b. ca. 165/781, d. ca. 243/857)

Early ascetic and mystic whose brief account of conversion to the mystical path is prefaced to his Kitāb al-Naṣā’iḥ (The Book of Advice), also known as al-Waṣāyā (The Bequests). The text, which provides no dates or specific references to events in his life, is available in multiple Arabic editions. Translated passages appear in Louis Massignon, Essai sur les origines du lexique technique de la mystique musulmane (Paris: P. Guethner, 1922); and Margaret Smith, An Early Mystic of Baghdad: A Study of the Life and Teaching of Ḥārith b. Asad al-Muḥāsibī (London: Sheldon Press, 1935 [rpt. 1977]).

Abū Zayd Ḥunayn ibn Isḥāq al-‘Ibādī (b. 194/809, d. 260/873 or 264/877)

Christian Arab physician and translator of Greek works. His autobiography is quoted, apparently in full, in ‘Uyūn, 257–74. It is translated in this volume. See also Michael Cooperson, “The Purported Autobiography of Ḥunayn ibn Isḥāq.” Edebiyât: Special Issue—Arabic Autobiography N.S. 7, no. 2 (1997): 235–49.

Abū ‘Abd Allāh Muḥammad ibn ‘Alī al-Ḥakīmal-Tirmidhī (b. before 215/830, d. between 292 and 297/905 and 910)

Controversial religious figure influential on later philosophers and mystics. His autobiography is published in Khatm al-awliyā’, ed. ‘Uthmān Yaḥyā (Beirut: Buḥūth wa-dirāsāt bi-idārat ma‘had al-ādāb al-sharqiyya, al-Maṭba‘a al-Kāthūlīkiyya, 19, 1965 = Recherches publiées sous la direction de l'Institut des lettres orientales de Beyrouth, vol. 19, Imprimérie Catholique, 1965:14–32). It is translated in this volume. Another English translation appears in Bernd Radtke and John O'Kane, The Concept of Sainthood in Early Islamic Mysticism: Two Works by al-Ḥakīm al-Tirmidhī (Richmond, Surrey: Curzon Press, 1996), 15–36.

[Aḥmad ibn Ismā‘īl ibn Ibrāhīm Ibn al-Khaṣīb (d. 290/903)

Secretary/administrator (kātib) and poet. He is cited in IN, 23, as an autobiographer (out of chronological order and with no death date). The reference may be to an anthology of his prodigious correspondence mentioned by Yāqūt: “For the most part, he wrote about himself to his friends; he and Ibn al-Mu‘tazz wrote wonderous letters and epistles to each other.” Yāqūt adds, however, quoting Ibn al-Nadīm, that Ibn al-Khaṣīb also wrote “a Kitāb Ṣifat al-nafs (Book on the Description of the Soul/Self)”(Yāqūt¹ 1: 377–78; Yāqūt² 1:199–201). This possibly autobiographical work does not survive.]

Tenth Century

Abū l-Qāsim al-Ḥasan ibn Faraj, known as Ibn Ḥawshab (d. 302/914)

A convert from Imāmī Shi‘ism to Ismā‘īlī Shi‘ism and a missionary/agent provocateur (dā‘ī) in Yemen. The original text is lost, but an extract preserved in al-Qāḍī al-Nu‘mān, Risālat iftitāḥ al-da‘wa, ed. Wadad al-Qāḍī (Beirut: Dār al-Thaqāfa, 1970), 32–62, describes his conversion and early missionary work. See “Ibn Ḥawshab,” Wilferd Madelung, EI² 6:438–39.

Abū Bakr Muḥammad ibn Zakariyyā’ al-Rāzī (b. 250/854, d. 313/925 or 323/935)

Famous physician and philosopher (Latin Rhazes). His autobiography appears in Rasā’il falsafiyya li-Abī Bakr Muḥammad ibn Zakariyā al-Rāzī = Abi Bakr Mohammedi filii Zachariae Raghensis [Razis] opera philosophica (Cairo: al-Maktaba al-Murtaḍiyya, 1939), 98–111. A French translation by Paul Kraus has been published as “Raziana I: La Conduite du philosophe,” Orientalia, N.S. 4 (1935): 300–34. In it he describes his life, beliefs, and learning as a response to critics who claim that he does not live the life of a philosopher as exemplified by Socrates.

Abū Ja‘far Aḥmad ibn Ya‘qūb Yūsuf, known as Ibn al-Dāya al-Baghdādī (b. ca. 245/859, d. 330 or 40/941 or 51)

Scholar of astronomy, philosophy, and history and author of a biography of Aḥmad ibn Ṭūlūn, ruler of Egypt (r. 868–84). His Kitāb al-Mukāfa’a (The Book of Compensation), ed. Aḥmad Amīn and ‘Alī Jarīm (Cairo: al-Maṭba‘a al-Amīriyya, 1941), which deals with the comic and tragic vicissitudes of life, includes anecdotes from his own life and that of his father (who served the famous musician Ibrāhīm al-Mahdī until the latter's death).

Abū al-Faḍl Ja‘far ibn ‘Alī al-Ḥājib (b. ca. 260/873, d. ca. 342/954)

Devoted servant, then chamberlain, to the first Fāṭimid caliph, al-Mahdī. His autobiography, compiled by one Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad al-Yamanī, is in the third person when the compiler is narrating and in the first person when Ja‘far himself speaks. It is a lively account, covering the flight of al-Mahdī from Syria to North Africa in the years 902–5. The Arabic text was edited by Wladimir Ivanow et al., Bulletin of the Faculty of Arts, Egyptian University 4, no. 2 (1936): 107–33, and translated into English by Wladimir Ivanow in Ismaili Tradition Concerning the Rise of the Fatimids (London: Oxford University Press, 1942), 184–223. Marius Canard's French translation, “L'autobiographie d'un chambellan du Mahdī ‘Obeidallāh le Fāṭimide,” Hespèris 39 (1952): 279–329, is reprinted in Marius Canard: Miscellanea Orientalis (London: Variorum, 1973).

Abū Bakr Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan ibn Ya‘qūb al-‘Aṭṭār Ibn Miqsam (d. 354/965)

Grammarian and Qur’ān reciter, cited in IN, 22, as an autobiographer. The text in question may be his lost Kitāb Akhbār nafsih (The Book of Information about Himself), which appears under the amended title, Kitāb (al-)ikhtiyār nafsihi, in GAS 9:149–50. See also EI² Supplement, 393.

Abū ‘Alī Ismā‘īl ibn al-Qāsim al-Qālī (b. 288/901, d. 356/967).

Renowned grammarian and lexicographer. Brief autobiographical remarks, primarily concerning his teachers and studies, occasioned by the questions of his student and biographer al-Zubaydī (d. 378–79/989), are recorded by the latter in his biographical compendium of grammarians, the Ṭabaqāt al-naḥwiyyīn wa-l-lughawiyyīn, ed. Muḥammad Abū al-Faḍl Ibrāhīm (Cairo: Muḥammad Sāmī Amīn al-Khānjī al-Kutubī, 1954).

Eleventh Century

‘Alī ibn Muḥammad ibn al-‘Abbās Abū Ḥayyān al-Tawḥīdī (b. ca. 215/927, d. after 400/1009)

Major prose writer and littérateur, cited as an autobiographer in IN, 22. The text remains unidentified.

Abū al-Ḥasan ibn ‘Abd Allāh Ibn Sīnā (b. 370/980, d. 428/1036)

Famous physician and philosopher (Latin Avicenna). His well-known autobiography describes his youth and adolescence and ends when he reaches adulthood. The Arabic text has been preserved in ‘Uyūn, 437–59 and Qifṭī, 413–17. English translations have been published by A. J. Arberry, Avicenna on Theology (London, 1951): 9–24; William Gohlman, The Life of Ibn Sina: A Critical Edition and Annotated Translation (Albany: SUNY Press, 1974); and Dimitri Gutas, Avicenna and the Aristotelian Tradition: Introduction to Reading Avicenna's Philosophical Works (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1988), 22–30.

Abū ‘Alī Muḥammad al-Ḥasan b. al-Ḥasan Ibn al-Haytham (b. ca. 354/965, d. ca. 430/1039)

Famous scholar of medicine, mathematics, and physics (Latin Alhazen). Written in 417/1026 when he was sixty, his autobiography describes his spiritual-philosophical quest for Truth and his scholarly life. Skeptical of religious beliefs, he follows a path based on Aristotelian philosophy and rational deduction and science. The Arabic text is preserved in ‘Uyūn, 550–60.

[Abū al-Rayḥān Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad al-Bīrūnī (b. 362/973, d. after 442/1050)

Famous mathematician, astronomer, geographer, historian, and translator. Despite references to an autobiography by al-Bīrūnī, only the following are extant: (1) 17 lines of verse giving a chronological list of his patrons, preserved in Yāqūt and cited by A. S. Khan, A Bibliography of the Works of al-Bīrūnī (New Delhi: Indian National Science Academy, 1982), 53, as part of a lost work, Majmū‘ min al-ash‘ār (Collection of Verses); and (2) an autobibliography of 138 works in Risāla fī fihrist kutub Muḥammad ibn Zakarīyā al-Rāzī, ed. Paul Kraus (Paris: Imprimerie Orientaliste au Calame, 1936).]

‘Uthmān b. Sa‘īd al-Dānī (b. 371/982, d. 444/1053)

Malikite jurist whose terse account of his birth, travels, and studies appears in Yāqūt, in the first person, as copied and transmitted by his student, Sulaymān ibn Najjāḥ al-Mu’ayyadī. See Yāqūt¹ 5:35–37; Yāqūt² 4:1603–4.

Abū al-Ḥasan ‘Alī Ibn Riḍwān (b. 388/998, d. 453/1061)

Physician and medical scholar. His autobiography is unusual for the inclusion of prosaic details of the author's life: his lowly origins, early struggles, and unhappy domestic life; the death of all of his children; and being robbed by an orphan he attempted to adopt. It also includes an account of a typical day in his life. The Arabic text is preserved in Qifṭī, 294, 298– 300, 443–45; and ‘Uyūn 2:99–105. Excerpts are translated in Michael W. Dols, Medieval Islamic Medicine: Ibn Riḍwān's Treatise “On the Prevention of Bodily Ills in Egypt” (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984), 54–66.

[‘Alī ibn Aḥmad Ibn Ḥazm (b. 384/994, d. 456/1064)

Religious scholar and belletrist of Islamic Spain. His treatise on love, Ṭawq al-ḥamāma fī al-ulfa wa-l-ullāf (The Ring of the Dove on Lovers and Love), which includes a handful of autobiographical anecdotes, is regarded as an autobiography in Iḥsān ‘Abbās, Fann al-sīra (Beirut: Dār al-Thaqāfa, 1956); and Yaḥyā I. ‘Abd al-Dāyim, al-Tarjama al-dhātiyya fī al-adab al-‘arabī al-ḥadīth (Beirut: Dār Iḥyā’ al-Turāth al-‘Arabī, 1956).]

Al-Mu’ayyad fī al-Dīn Hibat Allāh al-Shīrāzī (b. 330s/990s, d. 470/1077)

Missionary/agent provocateur (dā‘ī) for the Shi‘ite Fatimid dynasty of Egypt. This book-length autobiography is a lively account of the adventures of the author from 1038 to 1060 in southern Iran, in Cairo, and battling the Turks in Iraq. Its three sections appear to have been composed at different times. Excerpts from the Sīrat al-Mu’ayyad fī al-dīn dā‘ī al-du‘āt, ed. M. K. Ḥusayn (Cairo: Dār al-Kutub, 1949), are translateed in Jawad Muscati and Khan Bahadur Moulvi, Life and Lectures of the Grand Missionary Al-Muayyad-Fid-Din al-Shirazi (Karachi: Ismailia Assocation of West Pakistan, 1950), and in this volume.

Abū ‘Alī al-Ḥasan ibn Aḥmad Ibn al-Bannā’ (b. 396/1005, d. 471/1079)

Baghdadi scholar of little renown, a fragment of whose personal diary survives. The extant text, which runs from August 3, 1068, to September 4, 1069, consists of first-person, laconic, unpolished, personal jottings, clearly not intended for publication in this form. It describes political and social events and includes conversations with travelers and merchants and discussions of unusual occurrences. It has been edited and translated by George Makdisi, “Autograph Diary of an Eleventh-Century Historian of Baghdad,” BSOAS 18 (1956): 9–31, 239–60; 19 (1957): 13–48, 281–303, 426–443.

‘Abd Allāh Ibn Buluggīn (b. 447/1056, d. after 487/1094)

The last Zirid Berber prince of Granada, who ruled 465/1073–483/ 1090. His autobiography is divided into twelve chapters: the first four chapters deal with the history of his family, and the remaining eight deal with his own life. The final chapter is an intimate and moving summation of his life written from exile in Morocco. Mudhakkirāt al-amīr ‘Abd Allāh ākhir mulūk banī zīri bi-Gharnāṭa al-musammā bi-kitāb al-tibyān, ed. E. Lévi-Proven;alcal (Cairo: Dār al-Ma‘ārif, 1955), has been translated into English by Amin T. Tibi as The Tibyān: Memoirs of ‘Abd Allāh b. Buluggīn, Last Zīrid Amīr of Granada (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1986).

Abū al-Aṣbagh ‘Īsā ibn Sahl al-Asadī al-Tustarī (d. 486/1093)

Jurist identified as an autobiographer in IN, 23. The text remains unidentified. See GAL 1, 383, and GAL Suppl. 1, 661.

Twelfth Century

Abū Ḥāmid Muḥammad al-Ghazālī (b. 450/1058, d. 505/1111)

Famous religious thinker whose autobiography describes his lifelong pursuit of truth and the dramatic spiritual crisis that leads him to explore and reject several schools of thought before finally choosing the mystical path. Al-Munqidh min al-ḍalāl (Cairo: al-Maktab al-Fannī, 1961) has been translated as “Deliverance from Error” by W. Montgomery Watt in The Faith and Practice of Al-Ghazālī (London: Allen and Unwin, 1953).

Abū al-Qāsim ‘Alī ibn Ja‘far al-Baghdādī al-Siqillī Ibn al-Qaṭṭā‘ (b. 433/ 1041, d. 514/1121)

An anthologist, historian, and grammarian whose autobiography, according to Ibn Khallikān (d. 681/1282), was appended to the end of his anthology of Arabo-Sicilian poetry, al-Durra al-khaṭīra fī shu‘arā’ al-jazīra. This work survives only in abridged redactions, none of which contain the autobiography. The various redactions have been collated and edited by Béchir Baccouche as al-Durra al-khaṭīra fī shu‘arā’ al-jazīra: Anthologie des poètes arabo-siciliens (Beirut: Dār al-Gharb al-Islāmī, 1995). See also Ibn Sa‘īd (d. 1286) below.

‘Abd al-Ghāfir ibn Ismā‘īl al-Fārisī (b. 451/1059, d. 529/1135)

Religious scholar and historian whose autobiography is appended to his unpublished work, al-Siyāq li-ta’rīkh Nīsābūr (see GAL Suppl. 1:623). A published abridgment by Ibrāhīm ibn Muḥammad al-Azhar al-Sarifīnī (d. 1243), al-Muntakhab min al-siyāq li-ta’rīkh Nīsābūr, ed. Muḥammad Kāẓim al-Maḥmūdī (Qom: Jamā‘at al-Mudarrisīn, 1983), includes a two-page abridged version of the autobiography (pp. 754–56).

[Abū al-Fatḥ Muḥammad ibn ‘Abd al-Karīm ibn Aḥmad Tāj al-Dīn al-Shahrastānī (b. 479/1086, d. 548/1153).

Historian and philosopher of religion. Guy Monnot (EI² 9:215) has characterized the preface to al-Shahrastānī's Mafātīḥ al-asrār wa-maṣābīḥ al-abrār, ed. Muḥammad ‘Alī Adharshab (Teheran: Iḥyā-i Kitāb, 1997): 103–7, as autobiographical, but the passages in question provide only sparse personal information that pertains to the writing of the larger work and little else.]

‘Abd Allāh ibn Ibrāhīm al-Ḥijārī (d. 549/1155)

Historian whose autobiography was included in his work Kitāb al-Mushib fī gharīb al-maghrib according to Ibn Sa‘īd (d. 685/1286) below.

Ibn al-Imām (d. 550/1155)

Author whose autobiography was included in his work Simṭ al-jumān according to Ibn Sa‘īd (d. 685/1286) below.

Abū Bakr ibn ‘Alī al-Baydhaq al-Ṣinhājī (d. after 559/1164)

Berber companion and chronicler of Ibn Tūmart (founder of the Almohad dynasty). Strictly speaking, this is a memoir of the career of Ibn Tūmart as told by his close companion, although the author appears as a character throughout. In the extant fragments, he provides no information about his life beyond his experiences with Ibn Tūmart. A French translation was published by E. Lévi-Proven;alcal as Documents inédits d'histoire almohade (Paris: P. Geuthner, 1928), 75–224; an Arabic edition, Kitāb Akhbār al-mahdī ibn Tūmart (Algiers: al-Mu’assasa al-Waṭaniyya li-l-Kitāb, 1982), has appeared more recently.

Ẓāhir al-Dīn Abū al-Ḥasan ‘Alī ibn Zayd al-Bayhaqī (b. 493/1100, d. 565/ 1169)

Historian and religious scholar. The complete autobiography is not extant, but excerpts are preserved in Yāqūt, who quotes al-Bayhaqī in the first person from a text he copied. Quoted passages cover al-Bayhaqī's birthdate, education, travels, career, and publications. Briefly mentioned are a visit to his mother, who had memorized the Qur’ān and mastered its exegesis, and her subsequent death. Yāqūt¹ 5:208–13; Yāqūt² 4:1759–68.

Samaw’al ibn Yaḥyā al-Maghribī (b. 520/1126, d. 569/1174)

Jewish scholar who converted to Islam and became an anti-Jewish polemicist. The autobiography is appended to his treatise against Judaism. It gives an account of his parents, his childhood and education, his growing doubts about the claims of Judaism, and finally a series of visions of the Prophets Samuel and Muhammad that ultimately lead to his conversion. The Arabic text and English translation are found in Samau’al al-Maghribī: Ifḥām al-Yahūd “Silencing the Jews,” ed. and trans. Moshe Perlmann (New York: American Academy for Jewish Research, 1964).

‘Umāra ibn Abī l-Ḥasan al-Ḥakamī al-Yamanī (b. 515/1121, d. 569/1175)

Poet, historian, and politician. His book-length autobiography recounts anecdotes, in roughly chronological order, about his childhood and extended family, his travels from Yemen to Egypt, his political and poetic career in Egypt under the Fatimids, various viziers of Egypt, and finally his unsuccessful attempts to gain the favor of Saladin, who had him crucified on charges of heresy and treason. Passages from Kitāb fīhi nukat al-‘aṣriyya fī akhbār al-wuzarā’ al-miṣriyya (Contemporary Anecdotes on News of the Ministers of Egypt), ed. Hartwig Derenbourg (rpt. Cairo: Maktabat Matbūlī, [1897] 1991), are summarized or translated in ‘Oumāra du Yémen: sa vie et son oeuvre, ed. Hartwig Derenbourg (Paris: E. Leroux, 1897–1904).

Usāma ibn Munqidh (b. 488/1095, d. 573/1188)

Syrian nobleman, poet, and warrior during the Crusades. This is one of the best-known medieval Arabic autobiographies in the West. It was written when Usāma was ninety years old and contains anecdotes from his adventures in the Crusades arranged thematically and associatively, rather than chronologically. One section describes the strange social, medical, legal, and sexual customs of the Europeans he encountered in the Crusader cities. Kitāb al-I‘tibār, ed. Philip K. Hitti (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1930), is published in an English translation by Philip K. Hitti as An Arab-Syrian Gentleman and Warrior in the Period of the Crusades: Memoirs of Usāmah Ibn-Munqidh (New York: Columbia University Press, 1929; rpt. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987).

Aḥmad ibn ‘Alī Ibn Ma’mūn (b. 509/1115, d. 586/1191)

Judge, grammarian, and lexicographer. The full text is lost, but excerpts are preserved by Yāqūt, who copied from Ibn Ma’mūn's original. These recount his education and early years, including an account of a childhood friend and his older brother. Ibn Ma’mūn was appointed to a judgeship in his mid twenties, became a powerful political figure, but was then imprisoned for eleven years. The text closes by relating this reversal of his fortunes. Yāqūt¹ 2:51–57; Yāqūt² 1:448–53.

Thirteenth Century

Abū al-Faraj ‘Abd al-Raḥmān Ibn al-Jawzī (b. 511/1116, d. 597/1201)

Jurist, historian, and preacher. This text consists of advice from the author to his son, but the third section recounts the author's own childhood and young adulthood in exemplary terms. Laftat al-kabad ilā naṣīḥat al-walad (The Turning of the Heart toward Advising One's Son), ed. ‘Abd al-Ghaffār Sulaymān al-Bindarī (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-‘Ilmiyya, 1987).

‘Imād al-Dīn al-Kātib al-Iṣfahānī (b. 519/1125, d. 597/1201)

Personal secretary/chancellor to Saladin and historian. His al-Barq al-shāmī (The Syrian Thunderbolt), a professional diary of sorts, is written as a historical account of Saladin's reign and includes not only narrative accounts of Saladin's actions but also official letters, poems, and memorandums, all told with a distinctly autobiographical voice emphasizing al-Iṣfahānī's role in the events. Al-Suyūṭī (d. 909/1505) and al-Sha‘rānī (d. 973/1565), see below, both refer to it as al-Iṣfahānī's tarjama of himself. Al-Barq al-shāmī, vol. 3, ed. Muṣṭafā al-Hayarī, and vol. 5, ed. Fāliḥ Ḥusayn (‘Ammān: ‘A. H. Shuman, 1986–87). Only two of the seven volumes of al-Barq have survived, but a condensed version, the Sanā by al-Bundarī, gives a summary of the whole: al-Fatḥ ibn ‘Alī al-Bundarī, Sanā al-barq al-shāmī, ed. Ramazan Şeşen (Beirut: Dār al-Kitāb al-Jadīd, 1971).

Abū Muḥammad Rūzbihan ibn Abī Naṣr al-Fasā’ī al-Baqlī al-Shirāzī (b. 522/ 1128, d. 606/1209)

Sufi mystic and Qur’ān commentator. His spiritual autobiography was written in 557/1181–82 when he was fifty-five. It is in the first person and recounts his visionary encounters with God, angels, prophets, and Sufi figures. In the first fifth of the text, which is the autobiographical memoir proper, Rūzbihan describes how he was overwhelmed by a vision at the age of fifteen and thereafter abandoned his vegetable shop for a year of wandering in the desert. Abridged versions of the Arabic text are available in Ruzbihan al-Bakli ve kitab Kaşf al-asrar’i ile Farsca bazi Şiirleir, ed. Nazif Hoca (Istanbul: Edebiyat Fakultesi Matbaas=i, 1971), and in “Kashf al-asrār,” ed. Paul Nwyia, in al-Machriq 64 (1970): 385–406. The text exists, however, in two complete manuscripts and is being edited for publication by Javad Nurbakhsh. For a recent English translation based on these manuscripts, see Rūzbihan Baqlī, The Unveiling of Secrets: Diary of a Sufi Master, trans. Carl Ernst (Chapel Hill, N.C.: Parvardigar Press, 1997), 9–26.

[Al-Malik Muḥammad ibn ‘Umar al-Manṣūr (b. 567/1171–2, d. 617/1220)

Ruler of Ḥamāh and historian. There are numerous autobiographical remarks in his chronicle glorifying Saladin. Regrettably, only a final section survives in Miḍmār al-ḥaqā’iq wa-sirr al-khalā’iq, ed. Ḥasan Ḥabashī (Cairo: Ālam al-Kutub, 1968), passim. See Angelika Hartmann, EI² 6:429–30.]

Yāqūt al-Ḥamawī (b. 575/1179, d. 622/1229)

Prominent biographer and encyclopedist. He appended his autobiography to the end of his monumental biographical compendium, Irshād al-arīb. It is mentioned by al-Suyūṭī (d. 909/1505), Ibn Ṭūlūn al-Dimashqī (d. 953/1546), and al-Sha‘rānī (d. 973/1565), see below, but has since been lost.

Muwaffaq al-Dīn Abū Muḥammad ‘Abd al-Laṭīf ibn Yūsuf al-Baghdādī (b. 557/1162, d. 629/1231)

Grammarian, lexicographer, philosopher, and physician. The autobiography appears to have been part of a larger work titled Ta’rīkh (History, or Diary), composed for his son, Sharaf al-Dīn Yūsuf. The complete work has not survived, but excerpts are preserved in ‘Uyūn, 683–96. Selections are translated in this volume, and an extensive English paraphrase appears in George Makdisi, The Rise of Colleges: Institutions of Learning in Islam and the West (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1981), 84–88. See also Shawkat Toorawa, “Language and Male Homosocial Desire in the Autobiography of ‘Abd al-Laṭīf al-Baghdādī,” Edebiyât: Special Issue—Arabic Autobiography, N.S. 7, no. 2 (1997): 251–65.

Muḥyī al-Dīn Ibn al-‘Arabī (b. 560/1165, d. 638/1240)

One of the most important figures in postclassical Sufism. He is often cited for the strongly autobiographical nature of his writings, but no single text presents itself as an autobiography per se. See Rūḥ al-quds fī munāṣaḥat al-nafs (Damascus: Maṭba‘at al-‘Ilm, 1964); al-Durra al-fākhira fī dhikr man intafa’tu bihi fī ṭarīq al-ākhira (see Austin below); and al-Futūḥāt al-makkiyya, 12 vols. (Cairo: al-Hay’ah al-Miṣriyya li-l-Kitāb, 1972–91). English translations of the first two appear in R. W. J. Austin, Sufis of Andalusia: The Rūḥ al-Quds and al-Durrah al-fākhirah of Ibn ‘Arabī (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1972 [London: Allen and Unwin, 1971]).

Kamāl al-Dīn ‘Umar ibn Hibat Allāh Ibn al-‘Adīm (b. 588/1192, d. 660/1262)

Aleppan scholar and historian. The complete autobiography that Ibn al- ‘Adīm wrote at the behest of his friend and biographer Yāqūt has not survived, but passages are cited in Yāqūt¹ 6:18–46 and Yāqūt² 5:2068–91 and are translated in this volume. See also Nuha N. N. Khoury, “The Autobiography of Ibn al-‘Adīm as Told to Yāqūt al-Rūmī,” Edebiyât: Special Issue—Arabic Autobiography, N.S. 7, no. 2 (1997): 289–311.

‘Abd al-Raḥmān ibn Ismā‘īl al-Maqdisī Abū Shāma (b. 599/1202, d. 665/ 1268)

Damascene jurist and historian. His complete autobiography is translated in this volume: Al-Dhayl ‘alā al-rawḍatayn, ed. Muḥammad Kawtharī as Tarājim rijāl al-qarnayn al-sādis wa-l-sābi‘ (Cairo: Dār al-Kutub al-Malikiyya, 1947), 37–39; see also an edition from a different manuscript, Tarjamat Abī Shāma manqūla min Dhayl kitāb al-rawḍatayn, ed. and trans. Barbier de Meynard, in Recueil des Historiens des Croisades, 5:207–16 (Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, 1872–1906). See also Joseph Lowry, “Time, Form, and Self: The Autobiography of Abū Shāma.” Edebiyât: Special Edition—Arabic Autobiography, N.S. 7, no. 2 (1997): 313–25.

Manṣūr ibn Salīm al-Hamadānī al-Iskandarānī Wajīh al-Dīn Abū al-Muִzaffar Ibn al-‘Imādiyya (b. 607/1210, d. 673/1275)

Muḥtasib (inspector of the markets) of Alexandria who is identified as an autobiographer in IN, 25. The text remains unidentified.

Sa‘d al-Dīn ibn Ḥamawiyya al-Juwaynī (b. 592/1196, d. 674/1276)

Damascene military commander and historian. The original text does not survive but appears to have been a historical chronicle with a highly autobiographical tone. Claude Cahen has pieced together the fragments preserved in later sources that include first-person passages relating to the birth of the author's father, the author's political exploits, opinions of various personalities, and his eventual retirement from his military career to become a Sufi. Claude Cahen, “Une source pour l'histoire ayyubide: Les mémoires de Sa‘d al-dīn ibn Ḥamawiya al-Juwaynī,” Bulletin de la Faculté des Lettres de Strasbourg, 7 (1950): 320–37; rpt. in Les peuples musulmans dans l'histoire médievale (Damascus: Institut Fran;alcais de Damas, 1977), 457–82.

Ṣafī al-Dīn ibn Abī al-Manṣūr Ibn Ẓāfir (b. 595/1198, d. 682/1283)

Sufi mystic identified by al-Sha‘rānī (d. 973/1565—see below) as an autobiographer. The author figures in many of the entries in a collection of biographies of saintly men he encountered, purportedly penned for his son, Ibrāhīm, but the focus remains biographical. It is not clear, however, that this is the text intended by al-Sha‘rānī. See La Risāla de Ṣafī al-Dīn ibn Abī Manṣūr ibn Ẓāfir: Biographies des ma;afitres spirituels connus par un cheikh égyptien du VIIe/XIIe siècle, ed. and trans. Denis Gril (Cairo: Institut Fran;alcais d'Archéologie Orientale du Caire, 1986).

Abū al-Ḥasan ‘Alī ibn Mūsā Ibn Sa‘īd al-Maghribī (b. 610/1208, d. 685/ 1286)

Andalusian man of letters and biographer. Al-Maqqarī (2:262) reports that in his autobiography, included in al-Mughrib fī ḥulā al-Maghrib, Ibn Sa‘īd cites three previous autobiographers and their works as predecessors: Ibn al-Imām (d. 550/1155), Simṭ al-jumān; al-Ḥijārī (d. 549/1155), al-Mushib; and Ibn al-Qaṭṭā‘ (d. 433/1041) al-Durra (see above). Extant editions of the Mughrib, however, do not contain Ibn Sa‘īd's autobiography.

Abū al-Rabī‘ al-Mālaqī. Identified as an autobiographer by al-Sha‘rānī (d. 973/1565—see below), perhaps Abū al-Ḥasan ‘Ubaydallah ibn Aḥmad ibn Abī al-Rabī‘ (b. 599/1202, d. 648/1289), the author of an unpublished al-Barnāmaj (see GAS Suppl. 1:547).

Fourteenth Century

[Al-Ḥasan ibn Yūsuf Ibn al-Muṭahhar al-Ḥillī (b. 648/1250, d. 726/1325)

Religious scholar identified as an autobiographer in IN, 25. The reference may be to his entry on himself in Khulāṣat al-aqwāl fī ma‘rifat al-rijāl, but this consists only of an autobibliography, with no further information.]

‘Abd Allāh ibn Muḥammad Ibn Farḥūn (d. 729/1327)

Identified as an autobiographer in IN, 25. The text has not been identified.

Abū al-Fidā’ al-Ayyūbī: Ismā‘īl ibn ‘Alī ibn Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad ibn ‘Umar Ayyūb al-Malik al-Mu’ayyad (b. 672/1273, d. 732/1331)

Ruler of the city-state of Ḥamāh who wrote a political and military chronicle of his reign. The text, however, contains little in the way of personal information. An English translation is offered in P. M. Holt, The Memoirs of a Syrian Prince: Abū al-Fidā’ Sultan of Ḥamāh (672–732/1273–1331) (Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner, 1983).

Abū l-Makārim Rukn al-Dawla Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad ‘Alā’ al-Dīn al-Biyābānakī al-Simnānī (b. 659/1261, d. 736/1336)

Major Sufi religious figure. The text is translated in this volume. Al-‘Urwa li-ahl al-khalwa wa-l-jalwa, ed. Najīb Māyil-i Hirawī (Teheran: Mawla, 1983), 396–400. See also Jamal J. Elias, The Throne Carrier of God: The Life and Thought of ‘Alā’ al-Dawla al-Simnānī (Albany: SUNY Press, 1995).

Jamāl al-Dīn Abū al-Ḥajjāj Yūsuf ibn ‘Abd al-Raḥmān al-Quḍā‘ī al-Mizzī al-Kalbī al-Dimashqī (b. 654/1256, d. 742/1341)

Damascene religious scholar identified as an autobiographer in IN, 26. The text has not been identified.

Athīr al-Dīn Muḥammad Abū Ḥayyānal-Gharnāṭī al-Jayyānī al-Nafzī al-Andalusī (b. 654/1256, d. 745/1344)

Grammarian and religious scholar. Later authors such as Ibn Ḥajar (d. 852/1449) and al-Suyūṭī (d. 909/1505) write that his autobiography was quite lengthy and was written as an act of mourning after the untimely death of his daughter Nuḍār, considered by contemporaries a scholar in her own right. The text of his al-Nuḍār fī al-maslāt ‘an Nuḍār (Book of Purest Gold on Consolation for Nuḍār) is no longer extant.

Abū ‘Abd Allāh Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad ibn ‘Uthmān al-Dhahabī (b. 672–3/ 1274, d. 748/1348)

Famous biographer and historian identified as an autobiographer in IN, 26. The text has not been identified.

Al-Ṣalāḥ Abū al-Ṣafī Khalīl Ibn Aybak al-Ṣafadī (b. 696–97/1297, d. 764/ 1363)

Renowned biographer, cited as an autobiographer by al-Sakhāwī (d. 902/1497—see below). The text has not been identified.

‘Abd al-Raḥīm ibn al-Ḥasan al-Isnawī al-Shāfi‘ī (b. 704–5/1305, d. 772/ 1370)

Biographer whose autobiography, according to IN, 26, is found in his Ṭabaqāt al-Shāfi‘iyya, which has been published in facsimile, Ṭabaqāt al-Shāfi‘iyya (Baghdad: Ri’āsat Dīwān al-Awqāf, 1970–71), and in a version edited by ‘Abd Allāh al-Jabbūrī (Riyadh: Dār al-‘Ulūm li-l-Ṭibā‘a wa-l-Nashr, 1981).

Muḥammad ibn ‘Abd Allāh ibn Sa‘īd ibn ‘Alī ibn Aḥmad al-Salmānī [= Lisān al-Dīn ibn al-Khaṭīb] (b. 713/1313, d. 775/1374)

Scholar and political figure. Written in 1369, his autobiography includes a brief history of his family, an account of his life and career, lists of his teachers and writings, and many samples of his poetry and correspondence. The text appears in his al-Iḥāṭa fī akhbār Gharnāṭa (The Complete Source on the History of Granada), ed. Muḥammad ‘Abd Allāh ‘Inān (Cairo: Maktabat al-Khānjī, 1978), 4:438–640.

Ibrāhīm ibn ‘Abd al-Raḥīm Ibn Jamā‘a (b. 725/1325, d. 790/1388)

Religious scholar who served as Shāfi‘ite grand qāḍī (judge) of Cairo and later Damascus. He studied with al-Mizzī (d. 742/1341) and al-Dhahabī (d. 772/1370); see above. His autobiography is mentioned by al-Sakhāwī (d. 902/1427—see below), but the text remains unidentified.

Fifteenth Century

Abū Zayd ‘Abd al-Raḥmān ibn Muḥammad Ibn Khaldūn (b. 732/1332, d. 808/1406)

Famous political figure, historian, and social theorist. He originally included his autobiography as an appendix to his historical work, al-‘Ibar, and later expanded and published it as an independent book. It includes an account of his family and education, as well as detailed memoirs of his political career, including his encounter with Tamerlane. Al-Ta‘rīf bi-Ibn Khaldūn wa-riḥlatih gharban wa-sharqan (An Account of Ibn Khaldūn and His Travels West and East) (Cairo: Lajnat al-Ta‘līf wa-l-Tarjama wa-l-Nashr, 1951). A partial English translation by Walter Fischel appears in Ibn Khaldūn and Tamerlane (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1952).

Ṣārim al-Dīn Ibrāhīm ibn Muḥammad ibn Aydamir Ibn Duqmāq al-Qāhirī (d. 809/1407)

Historian cited in Sakhāwī as an autobiographer. The text remains unidentified.

Muḥammad ibn Abī Bakr ibn ‘Abd al-‘Azīz ibn Muḥammad al-‘Izz Ibn Jamā‘a (d. 819/1416)

Member of the prominent Ibn Jamā‘a family of jurists. Al-Sakhāwī writes that “he wrote a fascicle [juz’] which he called Ḍaw’ al-shams fī aḥwāl al-nafs [The Light of the Sun, Concerning the States of the Self] in which he included an account of himself [dhakara fīhā tarjamat nafsih],” but the text remains unidentified.

Abū al-Ṭayyib Taqī al-Dīn Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad ibn ‘Alī al-Fāsī (b. 775/ 1373, d. 832/1429

Religious scholar and historian of Mecca. Al-Suyūṭī (d. 909/1505), Ibn Ṭūlūn (d. 953/1546), and al-Sha‘rānī (d. 973/1565), see below, all refer to his autobiography, which includes a detailed account of his education, teachers, publications, and quotations from others regarding his publications. Al-‘Iqd al-thamīn fī ta’rīkh al-balad al-amīn (Cairo: Maṭba‘at al-Sunna al-Muḥammadiyya, 1958–1969), 1:331–63. There is also a shorter autobiography, written in the third person, in al-Fāsī's supplement to a work by Ibn Nuqṭa (d. 628/1231), Dhayl al-Taqyīd fī ruwāt al-sunan wa-l-masānīd, ed. Kamāl Yūsuf al-Ḥūt (Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-‘Ilmiyya, 1990), 1: 60–69.

Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad ibn ‘Alī ibn Yūsuf Ibn al-Jazarī (b. 751/1350, d. 833/1429)

Religious and legal scholar. A brief account of his birth, studies, travels, teachers, students, and books appears in his Ghāyat al-nihāya fī ṭabaqāt al-qurrā’, ed. Gotthelf Bergstr;auasser (Cairo: Maktabat al-Khānjī, 1933), 2:247–51.

‘Abd Allāh al-Turjumān al-Andalusī [Fray Anselmo Turmeda] (b. 753/1352, d. 835–6/1432?)

Mallorcan convert to Islam. The autobiography is translated in this volume. Tuḥfat al-adīb fī al-radd ‘alā ahl al-ṣalīb, ed. Maḥmūd ‘Alī Ḥamāya (Cairo: Dār al-Thaqāfa li-l-Ṭibā‘a wa-l-Nashr, 1983). A more reliable Arabic text with Spanish translation appears in Mikel de Epalza, Fray Anselm Turmeda (‘Abdallah al-Taryuman) y su polemica islamo-cristiana: Edición, traducción y estudio de la Tuhfa, 2d ed. (Madrid: Hiperion, 1994).

Sirāj al-Dīn Ismā‘īl ibn Abī Bakr Ibn al-Muqrī al-Yamanī (b. 765/1363, d. 837/1433).

Scholar and poet identified as an autobiographer by al-‘Aydarūs (d. 1037/1628—see below). The text remains unidentified.

Aḥmad ibn ‘Alī ibn Muḥammad [= Ibn Ḥajar] al-‘Asqalānī (b. 773/1372, d. 852/1449)

Major religious scholar, particularly in ḥadīth studies. One autobiography appears in Raf‘ al-iṣr fī quḍāt Miṣr (History of the Judges of Egypt) (Cairo: al-Maṭba‘a al-Amīriyya, 1957), 85–88, and is translated in this volume. See also the autobiographical notices and passages in his al-Durar al-kāmina, Inbā’ al-ghamr, al-Mu‘jam al-mufahras, and al-Mu‘jam al-mu’assas (IN, 27–28).

Ibrāhīm ibn Aḥmad ibn Nāṣir Abū Isḥāq ibn Shihāb Abī al-‘Abbās al-Muqaddasī al-Nāṣirī al-Bā‘ūnī al-Dimashqī al-Ṣāliḥī al-Shāfi‘ī (b. 777/1376, d. 870/1465)

Prominent scholar, khaṭīb (official preacher) first at the Umayyad mosque in Damascus and later at the al-Aqsā in Jerusalem, identified as an autobiographer in Sakhāwī. The text remains unidentified.

Abū ‘Abd Allāh al-Qurashī—cited in Sha‘rānī as an autobiographer and tentatively identified as the religious scholar Abū ‘Abd Allāh Muḥammad Abū al-‘Abbās ibn ‘Īsā al-‘Ubbādī al-Tilimsānī (d. 871/1467). The text remains unidentified.

Abū Zayd ‘Abd al-Raḥmān ibn Makhlūf al-Tha‘ālabī al-Jazā’irī (b. 785/ 1383, d. 875/1470–71)

Identified as an autobiographer in IN, 28. The text remains unidentified.

Burhān al-Dīn Ibrāhīm ibn ‘Umar al-Biqā‘ī (d. 885/1480)

Scholar and commentator who adapted the Isagoge of Porphyry; cited in IN, 28. The text is unidentified but may be one of the works mentioned by the editor or al-Biqā‘ī's al-Qawl al-mufīd fī uṣūl al-tajwīd, ed. Khayr Allāh al-Sharīf (Beirut: Dār al-Bashā’ir al-Islāmiyya, 1995), 7–14.

Al-Shams Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad ibn al-Khiḍr al-‘Ayzarī al-Dimashqī

Cited in Sakhāwī as an autobiographer and tentatively identified as Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad ‘Abd Allāh ibn Khayḍar Sulaymān ibn Dāwūd ibn Ḍumayda, known as al-Khayḍari (b. 821/1418, d. 894/1489), who was a student of Ibn Ḥajar (d. 852/1449—see below) and a personal acquaintance of al-Sakhāwī (d. 902/1497—see below). Al-Sakhāwī's lengthy but extremely negative biographical entry on al-Khayḍarī in his al-Ḍaw’ al-lāmi‘ contains passages that suggest that he had seen an autobiography in the author's own hand. Al-Ḍaw’ al-lāmi‘ (Cairo: Maktabat al-Qudsī, 1934–36), 9:117–124.

Shihāb al-Dīn Abū al-‘Abbās Aḥmad al-Barnusī [= Zarrūq] (b. 846/1442, d. 899/1493)

Moroccan Sufi around whose teachings the Zarrūqiyya Sufi order emerged. Entertaining anecdotes of his childhood, travels, and education appear in an untitled fahrasa and al-Kunnāsh fī ‘ilm ’āsh, both still in manuscript. Selected passages appear in translation in Zarrūq the Sufi: A Guide in the Way and a Leader to the Truth, by Ali Fahmi Khushaim (Tripoli, Libya: General Company for Publication, 1976).

Muḥammad ibn ‘Abd al-Raḥmān ibn Muḥammad ibn Abī Bakr al-Shāfi‘ī [= al-Sakhāwī] (b. 830/1427, d. 902/1497)

Scholar of ḥadīth and the compiler of a major biographical dictionary. A detailed account of his education, teachers—particularly Ibn Ḥajar (d. 852/1449—see above)—publications, and citations of praise from contemporaries appears in his biographical compendium, al-Ḍaw’ al-lāmi‘ li-ahl al-qarn al-tāsi‘ (Cairo: Maktabat al-Quds, 1934–36), 8:2–32.

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.

Seventeenth Century

‘Abd al-Qādir ibn Muḥammad ibn Yaḥyā al-Ṭabarī al-Makkī (d. 1033/ 1623–24)

Schoolteacher and close friend of the governor of Mecca, identified as an autobiographer in IN, 29. The text remains unidentified.

Abū Bakr ibn Abī al-Qāsim ibn Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad al-Ḥusaynī, commonly known as Ibn al-Ahdal al-Yamanī (b. 984/1576, d. 1035/1626)

Sufi and scholar from a prominent southwestern Arabian family, identified as an autobiographer in IN, 30. The autobiography may be in his unpublished Nafhat al-mandal fī tarājim sādāt al-ahdal.

Abū al-‘Abbās Aḥmad ibn Aḥmad ibn Aḥmad ibn ‘Umar al-Tanambaktī al-Sūdānī al-Takrūrī, commonly known as Bābā al-Tanambaktī or Aḥmad Bābā (b. 936/1556, d. 1032/1627)

Prominent West African religious scholar. His autobiography is in the unpublished Kifāyat al-muḥtāj li-ma‘rifat man laysa fī al-Dībāj, which is, according to John Hunwick, very similar to the biography in al-Bartallī's Fatḥ al-shakūr (pers. com., December 28 1999). Muḥammad ibn Abī Bakr al- Ṣiddīq al-Bartallī, Fatḥ al-shakūr fī ma‘rifat a‘yān ‘ulamā’ al-takrūr, ed. Muḥammad al-Kattānī (Beirut: Dār al-Gharb al-Islāmī, 1981).

‘Abd al-Qādir ibn ‘Abd Allāh al-‘Aydarūs (b. 978/1570, d. 1037/1628)

Sufi scholar of Arabian origin, born and lived in India. His autobiography is included under the year of his birth in his biographical dictionary, al-Nūr al-sāfir ‘an akhbār al-qarn al-‘āshir, ed. Muḥammad Rashīd Afandī al- Ṣaffār (Baghdad: al-Maktaba al-‘Arabiyya, 1934), 334–343, and is translated in this volume.

[Aḥmad ibn Abī al-Fatḥ Shihāb al-Dīn al-Ḥakamī al-Maqqarī (b. ca. 986/ 1577, d. 1041/1632)

Noted historian of Islamic Spain. Although autobiographical passages in Rawḍat al-ās al-‘āṭirat al-anfās fī dhikr man laqītuhu min a‘lām al-ḥaḍratayn Marrākush wa-Fās (Rabat: al-Maṭba‘a al-Malakiyya, 1964) include a great deal of information about the author's life and education, the focus is on other scholars' lives. He is identified as an autobiographer in IN, 30.]

[Abū Zayd al-Sayyid ‘Abd al-Raḥmān ibn Muḥammad al-Jazūlī al-Tamanārtī (d. 1060/1650)

Berber religious scholar. His Fawā‘id al-jamma bi-isnād ‘ulūm al-umma (French translation Col. Justinard, Fawaid Al Jamma Bi ‘Ouloumi Al Oumma [Chartres: Durand, 1953] is a list of teachers (mashyakha) but filled with personal observations. The French translation covers approximately one-third of the Arabic text.]

Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad Badr al-Dīn al-‘Āmirī Najm al-Dīn al-Ghazzī al-Shāfi‘ī (b. 977/1570, d. 1061/1651)

Scholar and biographer. His autobiography, which originally appeared in his biography of his father, the Bulghat al-wājid fi tarjamat shaykh al-islām al-wālid, is no longer extant, but extracts are preserved in the notice devoted to him in al-Muḥibbī (d. 1111/1700—see below), Khulāṣat al-athar fī a‘yān al-qarn al-ḥādī ‘ashar (Beirut: Maktabat Khayyāṭ, 1966), 189–200. It appears to have been a traditional tarjama but is notable for its use of ḥadith and passages about the author's mother. See also the autobiographical passages in al-Ghazzī's al-Kawākib al-sā’ira bi-a‘yān al-mi’a al-‘āshira, ed. Jibrā’īl Sulaymān Jabbūr, 3 vols. (Beirut: al-Maṭba‘a al-Amrīkāniyya, 1945–59).

Ḥajjī Khalīfa, Muṣṭafā ibn ‘Abd Allāh, Kātib Çelebī b. 1017/1609, d. 1067/ 1657)

Ottoman Turkish historian and bibliographer. He is identified as an Arabic autobiographer in IN, 30, but the only extant autobiography is in Ottoman Turkish. See Mīzān al-ḥaqq fī ikhtiyār al-aḥaqq, ed. Moriz Wickerhauser, in Wegweiser zum Verständnis der türkischen Sprache: Eine deutsch-türkische Chrestomathie (Vienna: Kaiserlich-Königlichen Hof- und Staatsdruckerei, 1853), 159–67, and translated into English as The Balance of Truth, by G. L. Lewis (London: Allen and Unwin, 1957). An autobiographical note that appears at the end of part 1 of Sullam al-wuṣūl ilā ṭabaqāt al-fuḥūl may originally have been composed in Arabic. See GAL Suppl. 2:636–37.

Shihāb al-Dīn Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn ‘Umar al-Khafājī (b. 979/1571, d. 1069/1659)

Cairene religious scholar and man of letters. His autobiography includes an enumeration of teachers and contemporaries, as well as details about his birth, education, and family history, all in rhymed prose. Rayḥānat al-alibbā’ wa-zahrat al-ḥayāt al-dunyā, ed. ‘Abd al-Fattāḥ Muḥammad al-Ḥilw (Cairo: ‘Īsā al-Bābī al-Ḥalabī, 1967), 2:281–411.

Aḥmad ibn ‘Alī al-Dimashqī al-Khalwatī, commonly known as Ibn Sālim al- ‘Umarī al-Ḥanbalī (d. 1086/1657–6)

Identified as an autobiographer in IN, 30. The text remains unidentified.

Abū ‘Abd Allāh Mahammad [sic] ibn Aḥmad Mayyāra (b. 997/1591, d. 1071/1662).

Muslim religious scholar and author of Jewish descent. Autobiographical details are mentioned in his fahrasa, included as part of his unpublished Naẓm al-durar wa-l-la’ālī (mss. Rabat 855 and 3702 Z). See Charles Pellat, EI² 6:932–33.

Muḥsin Fayd al-Kāshānī (b. 1007/1598, d. 1091/1680)

Prolific Shi‘ite mystic, philosopher, and ḥadīth scholar. His biographer mentions that al-Kāshānī wrote an independent autobiography titled Sharḥ al-ṣadr (Opening Up the Heart) in 1685 and cites al-Kashānī's own description of it: “a summary of my conditions and the disasters that have befallen me during my life, during my travels and sojourns, my studies and teaching, my pleasures and pains, my obscurity and fame, my loneliness and companionship.” See Yūsuf ibn Aḥmad al-Baḥranī, Lu’lu’at al-Baḥrayn (Najaf: Maṭba‘at al-Nu‘mān, 1966), 130. The text apparently has not have survived.

Muḥammad Jamāl al-Dīn ibn Abī Bakr ibn Aḥmad al-Shillī al-Ḥaḍramī (b. 1030/1621, d. 1093/1682)

Biographer, historian, and astronomer. His autobiography is a traditional self-tarjama that cites examples of earlier autobiographers and “speaking of God's Bounty” as motivations for writing an autobiography. In his biographical compendium, al-Mashra‘ al-rāwī fī manāqib al-sādat al-kirām āl Abī ‘Alawī, ed. Muḥammad al-Shāṭirī (Beirut: n.p., 1982), 38–41, the autobiography is located at the end of the section devoted to Muḥammads, rather than alphabetically.

Muḥammad b. al-Ḥasan al-Ḥurr al-‘Āmilī (b. 1033/1624, d. 1099/1688)

Prominent Shi‘ite jurist and ḥadīth scholar. A terse account of his life, travels, studies, and books, ending with selections of his poetry, appears in his biographical dictionary, Amal al-‘āmil fī tarājim ‘ulamā’ jabal ‘Āmil ed. Aḥmad al-Ḥusaynī (Baghdad: Maktabat al-Andalus, 1965–66), 1:141–54.

Abū ‘Alī al-Ḥasan al-Yūsī (b. 1040/1631, d. 1102/1691)

Innovative and influential Moroccan Sufi thinker. One of his works, al-Fahrasa, is a lengthy autobiography; however, only the introduction and first section have survived and these are unpublished. Selections are cited in Jacques Berque, Al-Yousi: Problèmes de la culture marocaine au XVIIème siècle (Paris: Mouton, 1958), and in ‘Abd al-Kabīr al-‘Alawī al-Mudghirī, Al-Faqīh Abū ‘Alī al-Yūsī: namūdhaj min al-fikr al-maghribī fī fajr al-dawla al-‘alawiyya (Muḥammadiyya, Morocco: Maṭba‘at Faḍāla, 1989). See al-Fahrasa, mss. in al-Khizāna al-Ḥasaniyya nos. 1183, 5470, and 5995; and ms. in al-Khizāna al-‘Amma, no. 1234 K. A second and more famous text, al-Muḥāḍarāt (Rabat: Maṭbū‘āt Dār al-Maghrib li-l-Ta’līf wa-l-Tarjama wa-l-Nashr, 1976), contains many autobiographical passages. Both are remarkable for the author's frank discussions of childhood misdeeds, the pleasures of his conjugal sex life, and other intimate details of his personal life.

‘Alī ibn Muḥammad al-‘Āmilī (d. 1103/1692)

Shi‘ite scholar and biographical compiler. His autobiography includes traditional information on his family and education but also describes strange occurrences and adventures during his travels, his efforts to preserve his books, and a poignant lament at the death of his son. Al-Durr al-manthūr, ed. Aḥmad al-Ḥusaynī (Qom: Maktabat al-Mar‘ashī al-Najafī, 1978), 2:238–59.

Eighteenth Century

Muḥammad Amīn ibn Faḍl Allāh al-Muḥibbī (b. 1061/1651, d. 1111/ 1700)

Historian identified as an autobiographer in IN, 31. The reference may be to the selections of al-Muḥibbī's prose and poetry appended, without an autobiographical narrative of any sort, to the end of his Nafḥat al-rayḥāna, ed. Muḥammad al-Ḥilw (Cairo: Dār Iḥyā’ al-Kutub al-‘Arabiyya, 1967–69), 5:49–79.

Ni’mat Allāh al-Jazā’irī (b. 1050/1640, d. 1112/1701)

Shi‘ite author and jurist. His autobiography is included as the epilogue to his al-Anwār al-nu‘māniyya (Tabriz: Sharikat-i Chāp, 1958–62), 4:302–26, a collection of treatises on ethics, dogma, education, love theory, and other topics and covers his studies and accomplishments, but also highlights his sufferings in a humorous style. An English translation by Devin J. Stewart is published in “The Humor of the Scholars: The Autobiography of Ni‘mat Allāh al-Jazā’irī (d. 1112/1701),” Iranian Studies 22 (1989): 47–50.

Al-Ḥasan ibn ‘Alī ibn Yaḥyā al-‘Ujaymī (b. 1049/1639–40, d. 1113/1701– 2)

Meccan religious scholar and historian identified as an autobiographer in IN, 31. The text remains unidentified.

Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad al-Manqūr al-Tamīmī al-Najdī (b. 1067/1656–57, d. 1125/1701–2)

Najdī scholar of religion and science identified as an autobiographer in IN, 31. The text remains unidentified.

Mulla Aḥmad ibn Abī Sa‘īd al-Ḥanafī al-Ṣāliḥī al-Amīṭhawī Jīwan (b. 1047/ 1637, d. 1130/1717)

Religious scholar and tutor to the Mughal emperor Awrangzīb (Aurangzeb). There is, according to A. S. Bazmee Ansari in EI² 2:558, a detailed autobiographical note in his unpublished Manāqib al-awliyā’. A short extract is quoted in ‘Abd al-Ḥayy al-Laknawī (d. 1304/1886—see below), Nuzhat al-khawāṭir wa-bahjat al-masāmī wa-l-nawāẓir (Beirut: Dār Ibn Ḥazm, 1999), 691–92.

Aḥmad ibn Qāsim al-Būnī (d. 1139/1726–27)

Identified as an autobiographer in IN, 31. The text remains unidentified.

Al-Qāsim ibn al-Ḥusayn ibn Muṭahhir al-Jurmūzī al-Ṣan‘ānī (b. 1100/1688, d. 1146/1733–4)

Identified as an autobiographer in IN, 31. The text remains unidentified.

Aḥmad ibn ‘Alī al-Manīnī (b. 1100/1688, d. 1172/1759)

Identified as an autobiographer in IN, 31. The text remains unidentified.

Abū Sa‘īd Muḥammad ibn Muṣṭafā ibn ‘Uthmān al-Khādimī (b. 1113/1701, d. 1186/1772)

Sufi author identified as an autobiographer in IN, 31. The text remains unidentified. See GAL Suppl. 2:663–64.

Yūsuf ibn Aḥmad al-Baḥrānī (b. 1107/1696, d. 1186/1772)

Prominent Shi‘ite jurist and ḥadīth scholar. His autobiography is found in his biographical compendium, Lu’lu’at al-Baḥrayn, ed. Muḥammad Ṣādiq Baḥr al-‘Ulūm (Najaf: Maṭba‘at al-Nu‘mān, 1966), 442–49, and is translated in this volume.

Muḥammad ibn al-Ṭayyib al-Qādirī (b. 1124/1712, d. 1187/1773)

Moroccan scholar. His extensive autobiography, principally an autobibliography with some references to himself and family, is in Iltiqāṭ al-durar (wa-mustafād al-mawā’iִz wa-al-‘ibar min akhbār wa-a‘yān al-mi’a al-ḥādiya wa-al-thāniya ‘ashar), ed. Hāshim al-‘Alawī al-Qāsimī (Beirut: Manshūrāt Dār al-Āfāq al-Jadīda, 1983), 449–92. He also wrote a fihrist, which is unpublished.

‘Abd al-Raḥmān ibn ‘Abd al-Karīm al-Anṣārī (b. 1124/1712, d. 1197/1781)

Historian and man of letters. His brief third-person autobiographical notice is notable for its listing of the dates of his wedding and his children's births, weddings, and so forth; his daughters are given separate entries in the larger work. Tuhfat al-muḥibbīn wa-al-aṣḥāb fī ma‘rifat mā li-al-madīniyyīn min al-ansāb, ed. Muḥammad al-‘Arūsī al-Miṭwī (Tunis: al-Maktaba al-‘Atīqa, 1970), 27–29.

Mīr Ghulām ‘Alī ibn Nūḥ al-Ḥusaynī al-Wāsiṭī Āzād Bilgrāmī (b. 1116/ 1704, d. 1200/1786).

Religious scholar, accomplished poet, and historian. Āzād Bilgrāmī's autobiography forms part of his Tasliyat al-fu’ād, itself incorporated into a larger biographical work on Indian religious scholars. In it he describes his education, travels, and works. His account is notable for its poetic turn of phrase, especially in the description of his journey to Mecca and Medina and his experiences there, which take up a large part of the autobiography. See Āzād Bilgrāmī, Ṣubḥat al-marjān fī āthār Hindustān, ed. Amīn ibn Ḥasan al-Ḥalwānī (lithograph, Bombay, 1886), 118–23. For references to his other works, including autobiographies in Persian, see A. S. Bazmee Ansari, EI² 1:808.

Muḥammad Khalīl ibn ‘Alī ibn Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad al-Murādī al-Dimashqī (b. 1173/1759, d. 1206/1791)

Damascene historian and biographer. An account written in ornate rhymed prose, including references to his father, family, education, and many poems, but few personal details, is appended to ‘Arf al-bashām fī man waliya fatwā Dimashq al-Shām, ed. Muḥammad Muṭi‘ al-Ḥāfiִz and Riyāḍ ‘Abd al-Ḥalīm Murād (Damascus: Maṭba‘at Majmu‘at al-Lugha al-‘Arabiyya, 1979), 144–214. He states, however, that he has written at length about his own life in another work with details of his travels, studies, writings, trials and tribulations, and so forth (p. 151). The latter text is unidentified.

Nineteenth Century

Aḥmad Ibn ‘Ajība (b. 1160/1747 or 1161/1748, d. 1224/1809)

Ḥadīth scholar and Sufi shaykh. His autobiography covers his childhood, education, teachers, wives, children, dramatic conversion to Sufism at the age of 46, period of imprisonment, and religious beliefs. The Arabic text is unpublished but has been translated into French by J.-L. Michon, L'autobiographie (fahrasa) du soufi marocain Ahmad ibn ‘Agiba (1747–1809) (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1969); rpt. of Arabica 15–16, 1968–69. Michon cites three extant mss.: D 1845 in the Bibliothèque générale de Rabat and two in private hands (pp. 22–24).

Abū al-Qāsim al-Zayyānī (b. 1147/1734, d. 1249/1809)

Historian and civil servant who wrote a lengthy, panoramic account of his life and the events he witnessed, including much nonautobiographical historical and geographical information. Al-Tarjumāna al-kubrā fī akhbār al-ma‘mūr barran wa-baḥran, ed. ‘Abd al-Karīm al-Filālī (Rabat [?]: Wizārat al-Anbā’, 1967).

Abū al-Rabī‘ Sulaymān ibn ‘Abd Allāh al-Ḥawwāt (b. 1160/1747, d. 1232/ 1816)

Historian, biographer, and poet. This book-length, first-person account covers the author's life and family, including his father, his father's four wives, his mother, his education, and a variety of events in his adult career. Thamarat unsī fī al-ta‘rīf bi-nafsī (The Fruit of My Familiarity in Knowing Myself) (Shafshawan: Wizārat al-Thaqāfa, Markaz al-Dirāsāt wa-l-Buḥūth al-Andalusiyya, 1996). He also penned an unpublished kunnāsha, a type of literary daybook (Thamarat, 16).

Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad al-Mu‘askarī al-Jalīlī, known as Abū Ra‘s (b. 1150/ 1737, d. 1239/1823)

Religious scholar. This book-length autobiography includes details of his family history, teachers, travels, conversations with scholars, and discussions of theological issues and an autobibliography. Fatḥ al-ilāh wa-minnatih fī al-taḥadduth bi-faḍl rabbī wa-ni‘matih: ḥayāt Abī Ra's al-dhātiyya wa-al-‘ilmiyya (Algiers: al-Mu;hZassasa al-Waṭaniyya li-l-Kitāb, 1990).

[Aḥmad ibn Zayn al-Dīn al-Aḥsā’ī al-Baḥrānī (b. 1166/1753, d. 1240/1826)

Identified as an Arabic autobiographer in IN, 32. The only published text located, however, was composed in Persian.]

‘Abd al-Raḥmān [Abdul Rahaman] (b. ca. 1176/1762, d. 1245/1829)

West African captured at twenty-one and sold into slavery in the United States. Freed at sixty-six, he attempted to return with his family to West Africa but died after arriving in Liberia. He wrote a short autobiography in Arabic that was translated and published in American newspapers in 1828. See Allan Austin, African Muslims in Antebellum America: A Sourcebook (New York: Garland, 1984), 121–55.

Muḥammad ibn ‘Alī al-Shawkānī (b. 1173/1860, d. 1250/1834)

Historian and jurist. Numerous autobiographical passages are to be found throughout his works, the most important in al-Badr al-ṭāli‘ bi-maḥāsin man ba‘d al-qarn al-sābi‘, 2 vols. (Cairo: Maṭaba‘at al-Sa‘āda, 1929). His Dhikrayāt (Beirut: Dār al-‘Awda, 1983) focuses on others rather than himself.

Maḥmūd ibn ‘Abd Allāh Shihāb al-Dīn al-Ālūsī (b. 1217/1803, d. 1270/ 1850)

Literary scholar. His autobiography incorporates biographies of his principal teachers, examples of their poetry, and enumerations of his own qualities and motivations, all in rhymed prose (saj‘). It is located in the opening section of his literary compendium, Kitāb gharā’ib al-ightirāb wa-nuzhat al-albāb (Baghdad: Maṭba‘at Shāhbandar, 1909), 2–26.

Abū Bakr al-Ṣiddīq [Edward Donellan] (b. 1208–9/1794. d. 1850)

Originally from Timbuktu, orphaned at four, captured and sold into slavery at fourteen, he lived the rest of his life in the West Indies, where he kept plantation accounts in Arabic. He wrote two short accounts of his life in Arabic in 1834 and 1835, including a vivid description of his childhood, education, travels, capture, and enslavement. See Ivor Wilks, “Abū Bakr al-Ṣiddīq of Timbuktu,” in Africa Remembered: Narratives by West Africans from the Era of the Slave Trade, ed. Philip Curtin (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1968), 152–69; and Allan Austin, African Muslims in Antebellum America: A Sourcebook (New York: Garland, 1984), 553–57.

Muḥammad ‘Ayyād al-Ṭanṭāwī (b. 1215/1801, d. 1278/1861)

According to Yaḥyā Ibrāhīm ‘Abd al-Dāyim, al-Tarjama al-dhātiyya fī al-adab al-‘arabī al-ḥadīth (Beirut: Dār Iḥyā’ al-Turāth al-‘Arabī, 1975), 45–52, al-Ṭanṭāwī wrote an autobiography at the request of a Russian friend during his sojourn in Saint Petersburg where he taught Arabic at the university beginning in 1840. The text remains unidentified.

‘Umar ibn Sa‘īd (b. ca. 1184/1770, d. 1281/1864)

West African originally from Futa Toro, captured and sold into slavery in North America, arriving in South Carolina in 1807. He composed an autobiography in Arabic in 1831 of which two differing translations were published in American newspapers (1848 and 1864). A later, final autobiography referred to in 1869 has never been found. The earlier autobiography, covering his childhood, education, capture, and life as a slave, is published in facsimile and in English translation in Marc Shell and Werner Sollers, eds., The Multilingual Anthology of American Literature (New York: New York University Press, 2000), 58–93.

[Rifā‘a Rāfi‘ ibn Badawī ibn ‘Alī al-Ṭahṭawī (b. 1215/1801, d. 1290/1873)

Religious scholar and reformist. His travel account of the five years he spent in France is classified by some Arab scholars as the beginning of the modern Arabic autobiographical tradition. Takhliṣ al-ibrīz ilā talkhiṣ Bārīz (The Purification of Gold in the Description of Paris Told) (Cairo: Dār al-Ṭibā‘a al-Khidaywiyya, 1835) has been translated into French by Anouar Louca as L'Or de Paris (Paris: Sindbad, 1988).]

Aḥmad Fāris al-Shidyāq (b. 1219/1804, d. 1305/1887)

Author, poet, and linguist. Al-Sāq ‘alā al-sāq fī mā huwa l-Fariyāq (Thigh over Thigh on the Question of Who Am I), 2 vols. (Paris: Benjamin Duprat, 1855). His fascinatingly idiosyncratic, satirical autobiography is framed as a comic discussion of the war between the sexes but generally follows the author's life story in a wild, Rabelaisian amalgam of styles. See also Paul Starkey, “Fact and Fiction in al-Sāq ‘alā al-Sāq,” in Writing the Self: Autobiographical Writing in Modern Arabic Literature, ed. Robin Ostle, Ed de Moor, and Stefan Wild (London: Saqi Books, 1998), 30–38.

Abū al-Ḥasanāt Muḥammad ibn ‘Abd al-Ḥayy al-Laknawī al-Hindī (b. 1264/ 1848, d. 1304/1886).

Scholar and author. Autobiographical passages appear in many of his works. In the introduction to his al-Si‘āya fī kashf mā fī sharḥ al-wiqāya, 2 vols. in 1 (Lahore: Suhail Academy 1976), 41–42, al-Laknāwī writes: “I have mentioned a part of my autobiography [tarjamat nafsī] in al-Nāfi‘ al-kabīr li-man yuṭāli‘ al-jāmi‘ al-ṣ;aghīr, in al-Ta‘līqāt al-sinniyya ‘alā al-fawā’id al-bahiyya, and in the introduction to al-Ta‘līq al-mumajjad ‘alā muwaṭṭā al-imām muḥammad. Now I wish to mention [another] necessary part.”

Mikhāyil Mishāqa (b. 1214–15/1800, d. 1284–85/1888)

Historian and scholar. His text, written in 1873, includes elements of his family and personal history but treats primarily the chaotic political events of his time. Portions were published as Muntakhabāt min al-jawāb ‘alā iqtirāḥ al-aḥbāb (Selections from a Response to a Suggestion by Loved Ones) (Beirut: Mudīriyyat al-Āthār, 1955) and translated into English by W. M. Thackston, Jr., as Murder, Mayhem, Pillage and Plunder: The History of Lebanon in the 18th and 19th Centuries by Mikhāyil Mishāqa (Albany: SUNY Press, 1988).

‘Alī ibn Sulaymān al-Dimnatī al-Būjum‘awī ‘Alī (b. 1234/1819, d. 1306/ 1889)

Identified as an autobiographer in IN, 33. The text remains unidentifed.

Al-Nawāb Muḥammad Ṣadīq ibn Ḥasan Khān al-Qannūjī al-Būfālī (b. 1248/ 1832, d. 1306/1889)

Well-known Arabian religious scholar identified as an autobiographer in IN, 33. The text remains unidentified.

‘Alī Mubārak (b. 1239/1824, d. 1312/1893)

Statesman, reformer, and engineer. His memoirs, written in 1889, are a remarkable account of his childhood misadventures, education, travel in France, and political career. The text was originally published in al-Khiṭaṭ al-tawfīqiyya al-jadīda li-miṣr al-qāhira wa-mudunihā wa-bilādihā al-qadīma wa-l-mashhūra (The New Description in Honor of Tawfīq of Cairo, Egypt, and Her Old and Famous Cities and Towns) (Bulaq, Egypt: al-Maṭba‘a al-Kubrā al-Amīriyya, 1888–89), 9:37–61, then separately a year after his death as Ta’rīkh ḥayāt al-maghfūr lahu ‘Alī Mubārak Bāshā (History of the Life of the Late ‘Alī Mubārak Pasha), ed. Muḥammad Bāshā al-Ḥakīm (Cairo: Muḥammad Bey Durrī, 1894). An extract is translated in this volume.

Muḥammad ibn ‘Uthmān ibn Yūsuf al-Ḥusaynī Jalāl = Muḥammad Bey ‘Uthmān Jalāl (b. ca. 1242/1826, d. 1315–16/1898).

Government official, civil servant, accomplished translator and author. Muḥammad ‘Uthmān Jalāl's autobiography was written at the request of ‘Alī Mubārak (d. 1312/1893—see above) for inclusion in his Khiṭaṭ. It is a chronological account of his studies, government appointments, and descriptions of the translations he undertook, interspersed with personal observations about the people he encountered and the problems he faced. It includes many lines of verse occasioned by situations in his daily life. The text is in ‘Alī Mubārak, al-Khiṭaṭ al-tawfīqiyya al-jadīda li-miṣr al-qāhira wa-mudunihā wa-bilādihā al-qadīma wa-l-mashhūra (Bulaq, Egypt: al-Maṭba‘a al-Kubrā al-Amīriyya, 1888–1889), 17:62–65.

Nubar Nubarian Pasha (b. 1240/1825, d. 1318/1899)

Ethnically Armenian Ottoman statesman, born in Turkey, educated in France, who served in Egyptian government. His memoirs, written between 1890 and 1894 in French and covering the period 1842–79 from his arrival in Egypt to the deposing of the khedive Ismā‘īl are primarily a political memoir rather than a personal autobiography. Mémoires de Nubar Pacha, introd. and notes Mirrit Butros Ghali (Beirut: Librairie du Liban, 1983).

Twentieth Century [texts cover late nineteenth century]

‘Ā’isha ‘Iṣmat al-Taymūriyya (b. 1255–56/1840, d. 1319–20/1902)

Female author and poet. An autobiographical introduction is prefaced to her allegorical narrative, Natā’ij al-aḥwāl fī al-aqwāl wa-l-af‘āl (The Results of a Life in Words and Deeds) (Cairo: Maṭba‘at Muḥammad Afandī Muṣṭafā, 1888). It describes her childhood aversion to the domestic education offered by her mother and her love of the world of books and learning opened up to her by her father. This section has been translated by Marilyn Booth as “The Results of Circumstances in Words and Deeds,” in Opening the Gates: A Century of Arab Feminist Writing, ed. Margot Badran and Miriam Cooke (London: Virago, 1990): 126–28.

Ibrāhīm Fawzī Pasha (b. 1265/1849, d. after 1321/1902)

Egyptian military officer. His memoirs, which begin in 1874 with his recruitment by General Gordon to serve in Sudan, are a lively account covering his service with Gordon, his imprisonment for slave trading, his participation in the ‘Urābī rebellion against British rule in Egypt, and the Mahdists' siege of Khartoum, which he survived. Kitāb al-Sūdān bayn ayday Gordon wa-Kitchener (The Sudan under Gordon and Kitchener), 2 vols. (Cairo: al-Mu’ayyad, 1902). See also Eve M. Troutt Powell, “Waving His Own Flag: Ibrāhīm Fawzī Pasha's Narrative of the Sudan,” Edebiyât: Special Issue—Arabic Autobiography, N.S. 7, no. 2 (1997): 363–78.

Muḥammad ‘Abduh (b. 1265–66/1849, d. 1323/1905)

Islamic reformer and author. His autobiography was written sometime after 1892 at the urging of a western friend. Only the introduction and the first chapter were completed, and then, much later, a second chapter. There are multiple Arabic editions; see, for example, al-A‘māl al-kāmila li-l-Imām Muḥammad ‘Abduh (The Complete Works), ed. Muḥammad ‘Amāra (Beirut: al-Mu’assasa al-‘Arabiyya li-l-Dirāsa wa-l-Nashr, 1972), 2:315–37.

Aḥmad ‘Urābī (b. 1257/1840–41, d. 1329/1911)

Military officer. His firsthand account of leading the Egyptian rebellion against the British in 1882 also includes a brief account of birth and childhood. There are multiple Arabic editions; see, for example, Mudhakkirāt al-Za‘īm Aḥmad ‘Urābī (Cairo: Dār al-Ma‘ārif, 1983).

Ya‘qūb Ṣanū‘ (b. 1255/1839, d. 1330/1912)

Jewish dramatist, considered the father of modern Egyptian theater. His autobiography covers his career in Egyptian theater and his political difficulties and subsequent exile to France. The original text remains unpublished, but see the references in Irene L. Gendzier, The Practical Visions of Ya‘qūb Ṣanū‘ (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1966), 15, 154 (nn. 34, 35); and Rosella Dorigo Ceccato, “Autobiographical Features in the Works of Ya‘qūb Ṣanū‘,” in Writing the Self: Autobiographical Writing in Modern Arabic Literature, ed. Robin Ostle, Ed de Moor, and Stefan Wolf (London: Saqi Books, 1998), 51–60. There is a French translation titled Ma vie en vers et mon théâtre en prose (Paris: Montgeron, 1912).

Al-Zubayr Raḥma(t) Manṣūr Pāshā (b. 1246/1831, d. 1331/1913)

Trader and political figure. His autobiography, taken down in 1900, covers the second half of the nineteenth century and is a lively account of his experiences as de facto ruler of Baḥr al-Ghazāl (the upper White Nile) in the Sudan. See Na‘ūm Shuqayr, Ta’rīkh al-Sūdān, ed. Muḥammad Ibrāhīm Abū Salīm (Beirut: Dār al-Jīl, 1981), 258–89. A German translation of the text by Martin Thilo is titled Ez-Ziber Rahmet Paschas Autobiographie. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des Sudan (Bonn and Leipzig: K. Schroeder, 1921).

Jurji Zaydān (b. 1278/1861, d. 1332/1914)

Historian, novelist, and publisher. His memoirs are a frank personal account of his childhood, education, and family and include nostalgic portrayals of Beirut during a period of increasing western cultural presence. Though written in 1908, they cover only the years up to 1883 and were not published until 1966. Mudhakkirāt Jurjī Zaydān, ed. Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn Munajjid (Beirut: 1966); pt. 2, al-Madrasa al-kulliyya, ed. Nabīh Amīn Fāris, al-Abḥāth 20 (1967): 323–55. There is an English translation by Thomas Philipp, The Autobiography of Jurji Zaidan (Washington, D.C.: Three Continents Press, 1990).

Muḥammad Farīd (b. 1285/1868, d. 1338/1919)

Political figure. His daily diary covering political and personal events was first published posthumously in the Egyptian journal Kull shay’ wa-l-dunyā, January 16–March 20, 1935. The full text covers the period 1891–1919: Awrāq Muḥammad Farīd (Cairo: al-Hay’a al-‘Āmma li-l-Kitāb, 1978–86). It was translated into English by Arthur Goldschmidt, Jr., as The Memoirs and Diaries of Muḥammad Farīd, an Egyptian Nationalist Leader (1868–1919) (San Francisco: Mellen University Research Press, 1992). See also ‘Abd al-‘Aẓīm Muḥammad Ramaḍān, Mudhakkarāt al-siyāsiyyīn wa-l-zu‘amā’ fī Miṣr 1891– 1981 (Beirut: al-Waṭan al-‘Arabī; Cairo: Maktabat Matbūlī, 1984), 35–50.

‘Alī ibn Ḥasan al-Bilādī al-Baḥrānī (b. 1275/1858, d. 1340/1922)

Shi‘ite religious scholar. This text is a short academic portrayal covering his studies, writings, and a rather detailed account of his main teacher, his father-in-law. It appears in his biographical compendium, Anwār al-badrayn fī tarājim ‘ulamā’ al-Qaṭīf wa-l-Ahsā’ wa-l-Baḥrayn (Najaf: Maṭba‘at al-Nu‘mān, 1957), 270–74.

Emily [Emilie] Ruete, née Princess Salmé (b. 1260/1844, d. 1342/1924)

Omani princess. Her memoirs are an intimate portrayal of life in the sultan's palace of Zanzibar and the author's meeting and elopement with a German official. They were written in German sometime after 1875 and first published in 1886: Memoiren ein arabischen Prinzessin (Berlin: H. Rosenberg, 1886). Recent English translations include An Arabian Princess between Two Worlds, ed. E. van Donzel (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1993), and Memoirs of an Arabian Princess from Zanzibar (New York: Markus Weiner, 1989).

‘Abd al-Qādir ibn Aḥmad ibn Badrān (d. 1336/1927)

Religious scholar identified as an autobiographer in IN, 34. The text remains unidentified.

Muḥammad ibn al-‘Arabī Ibn Abī Shanab (= Ben-Shneb) (b. 1286/1869, d. 1347/1929)

Accomplished teacher and scholar of Arabic and Islam. The very brief third-person autobiography he submitted to a journal for publication was published porthumously. See Majallat al-Ma‘had al-‘Ilmī al-‘Irāqī (= Revue de l'Academie Arabe de Damas) 10, nos. 3–4 (March–April 1930): 238–39.

Aḥmad Shawqī (b. 1285/1868, d. 1351/1932)

Neoclassical poet. His brief memoirs cover his childhood among the Turco-Circassian nobility of Cairo, his explorations in western literature, and the primary influences on his artistic life. They were published as the preface to the first edition of his collection of poetry, al-Shawqiyyāt (Cairo: Maṭba‘at al-Adab, 1898). Later deemed arrogant and elitist, the text was dropped from all subsequent editions.

Abū al-‘Abbās Aḥmad ibn Muṣṭafā al-‘Alawī Ibn ‘Alīwa (b. 1289/1869, d. 1352–53/1934).

Important Sufi shaykh and poet. After Ibn ‘Alīwa's death, the spiritual autobiography that he had dictated to one of his disciples sometime after 1923 was discovered among his papers. It recounts his rise from a modest life as a cobbler to his devoted membership of the Darqāwī-Shādhilī order and includes many intimate details, such as his mother's great love for him, periods of intense loneliness, his difficulties with his wives, and his inner struggles. The autobiography ends in 1910. He would later become the shaykh of an order that came to be known as the ‘Alawī Darqāwī-Shādhilī. The Arabic text is in ‘Addah Bin-Tunis (= ibn Tunis), al-Rawḍa al-saniyya (Mostaganem, 1936), 9–27. It is translated in full, “except for abridgements here and there to avoid repetitions,” and supplemented with “other quotations which help to complete it,” in the study by Martin Lings, A Sufi Saint of the Twentieth Century, Shaikh Ahmad al-‘Alawi: His spiritual Heritage and Legacy, rev. ed. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971), 48–78 (properly, pp. 48–56, 58–59, 60–63, 66–70, 74–78).

Rashīd Riḍā (b. 1282/1865, d. 1343/1935)

Islamic reformer and author. Although a traditionally subdivided text treating family, origins, education, professional opinions and disputes, and defense of his ideas, his autobiography also includes a section analyzing his personality and a detailed discussion of his religious views. The text covers his life to about 1900 and was published as an appendix to part 1 of Kitāb al-manār wa-l-Azhar (The Book of al-Manār and al-Azhar) (Cairo: Maṭba‘at al-Manār, 1934), al-Manār being the influential religious journal Riḍā edited and al-Azhar the famed Islamic university.

Hudā Sha‘rāwī (b. 1296/1879, d. 1367/1947)

Feminist activist and political leader. Her autobiography is a compelling account of her childhood and youth, her education in Arabic, Turkish, and French, her early marriage against her will, and her struggle for women's rights. Written in the 1940s, the text covers the years 1879 to 1924: Mudhakkirāt Hudā Sha‘rāwī (Cairo: Dār al-Hilāl, 1981). In her English translation, Harem Years: The Memoirs of an Egyptian Feminist (London: Virago Press, 1986), Margot Badran has “reordered” the text to preserve the “natural flow” of the narrative.

Muḥammad Kurd ‘Alī (b. 1293/1876, d. 1372/1953)

Historian, journalist, and intellectual. His fifteen-page, traditional autobiography covers his childhood and education and the vicissitudes of his career as a journalist and writer under the Ottoman regime. It was appended to volume 6 of Khiṭaṭ al-Shām (Description of Syria) (Damascus: Maṭba‘at al-Mufīd, 1925–28), 411–25. Kurd ‘Alī later published a greatly expanded version titled Mudhakkirāt (Memoirs) in 4 volumes (Damascus: Maṭba‘at al-Turkī, 1948–51), selections from which are translated by Khalil Totah in Memoirs, a Selection (Washington, D.C.: American Council of Learned Societies, 1954).

Bābakr Badrī (b. 1278/1861, d. 1374/1954)

Sudanese nationalist. The first half of his autobiography covers his childhood, the Mahdist rebellion, and his career as teacher and champion of women's education. The complete text was published posthumously in 2 volumes, 1959 and 1961; part 1 covers the years to shortly after 1900; part 2 begins after World War I: Ta’rīkh ḥayātī (Sudan: Maṭba‘at Miṣr, 1959–61). An English translation is titled The Memoirs of Babikr Bedri, vol. 1, trans. Yousef Bedri and George Scott (London: Ithaca Press, 1969); vol. 2, trans. Yusuf Bedri and Peter Hogg (New York: Oxford University Press, 1980).

Sharaf al-Dīn ‘Abd al-Ḥayy al-Ḥusayn ibn al-Sayyid Yūsuf al-Musāwī al-Āmilī (b. 1290/1873, d. 1377/1957).

Influential Shi‘ite religious scholar and author. Sharaf al-Dīn's extensive autobiography—some two hundred published pages—is an engaging account of his education, travels, and accomplishments, supplemented by many passages of verse by admirers and observations about the political scene in the Middle East from the late nineteenth to the early twentieth century. The autobiography appears in his posthumously published Bughyat al-rāghibīn fī silsilat āl Sharaf al-Dīn, ed. Sayyid ‘Abd Allāh Sharaf al-Dīn (Beirut: al-Dār al-Islāmiyya, 1991), 2:63–254.

‘Abd al-Raḥmān Shukrī (1886–1958)

Poet and intellectual. Although framed as the thoughts and reflections of a young man who is not the author, it has been deemed autobiographical by later literary historians. Kitāb al-I‘tirāfāt, wa-huwa qiṣṣat nafsī (The Book of Confessions, Which Is the Story of Myself) (Alexandria: Maṭba‘at Jurjī Gharzūzī, 1916).

Ṭāhā Ḥusayn (b. 1304/1889, d. 1378/1973)

Author, scholar, and government minister. This moving account of the blind author's childhood in a southern Egyptian village up to his move to Cairo to study at the al-Azhar university is available in multiple Arabic editions as volume 1 of al-Ayyām (The Days). Volume 1, originally published in 1926–27, covers to 1903; the other volumes cover later periods in his life. The full text is available in English translation as The Days—Taha Hussein: His Autobiography in Three Parts (Cairo: American University Press, 1997); and volume 1 as An Egyptian Childhood, trans. E. H. Paxton (London: Routledge, 1932).