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A Damascus scroll relating to a waqf for the Yūnusiyya1
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 March 2011
Extract
The Yūnusiyya is one of those small-scale, largely family-based Sufi orders which proliferated in the later Middle Ages. Little is known of its growth and development. The eponymous founder, one Yūnus ibn Yusuf Ibn Musā'id al-Shaibānī, was a holy man of the type described as majdhūb, which is explained as meaning that he had no shaikh and was self-initiated into the life of devotion and sanctity. He died in 619 (1222–3), approaching ninety years of age, in the district of the Mesopotamian town of Dara, in a village called al-Qunayya. As our source, Ibn Khallikān, adds, “His tomb there is wellknown and an object of pilgrimage”.
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References
2 Wafāyāt al-A'yān, ed. Abbas, Ihsan, Sader, Dar (Beirut, n.d.), vol. VII, pp. 256–257Google Scholar, and Maqrīzī, , Khiṭtāṭ, Bulaq, 1853, vol. II, p. 435Google Scholar. See also Trimingham, J. S., The Sufi Orders in Islam (Oxford, 1971), p. 15Google Scholar and notes 4 & 5.
3 See the information in Hajar, Ibn, al-Durar al-Kāmina, (Cairo, 1966), vol. II, p. 200Google Scholar; al-Maqrīzī, , Kitāb al-Sulūk, (Cairo, 1956), vol. I, p. 774, & vol. II, p. 31Google Scholar; al-Furāt, Ibn, Ta'rīkh (Beirut, 1939), vol. VIII, p. 129 (for his arrest)Google Scholar; al-Suqā'ī, Ibn, Tālī Kitāb Wafāyāt al-A'yān, ed. Sublet, J., (Damascus, 1974), p. 73Google Scholar(the translation, pp. 95–6, needs to be revised).
4 Sulūk, vol. II, pp. 241–2.
5 al-Mibrad, Yūsuf b. al-Hādī Ibn, Thimār al-maqāsid fī dhikr al-māsdjid, ed. Talas, Muhammad As'ad (Beirut, 1934), p. 103Google Scholar. The text quoted in Dahan, Sami, La Description de Damas d'lbn Šaddad(Damascus, 1956), p. 131Google Scholar, note 1, should be corrected accordingly. Unfortunately I did not have access to vol. II of al-Nu'aimī's, al-Dārisfī ta' rīkh al-madāris, (Damascus, 1951)Google Scholar, to see what information it contains on this and the other zawiyas connected with the Yūnusiyya.
6 The scroll was presented to the Library on 7 September 1971 by the managers of the Browne Fund, having purchased it from Christie's.
7 Kitāb Adab al-Qadā',(Damascus 1982), p. 571Google Scholar: when “transferring” to another authority an act, either in a copy or by appending the original, i.e. in a kitāb ḥukmī, the qadi signs his usual 'alāmatop right, and then puts the same or a different 'alāma that he uses over the joins ('lā awṣālihi).
8 See Ibī Abīl-Dam, op. cit., pp. 558–9, & 571–2. For this copying of documents in extenso into later documents, see also Vesely, R., “Les Requetêtes en Égypte au XVIe siècle”, Revue des Études Islamiques, XLV (1977), p. 217Google Scholar.
9 Ibn al-Furāt, VIII, pp. 213 & 216, Sulūk, I, p. 817: died Shawwāl 695 (August 1296), aged 57.
10 A similar iqrār is found at the end of a model waqfiyya in Abīl-Dam, Ibn, Kitab Adab al-Qadā' (Damascus, 1982), p. 548Google Scholar.
11 For a later example of an isjāl tanfīdhī, issued by qadis of all four schools of law, see R. Vesely, “Les Requetes etc.”, loc. cit., p. 243, n. 1.
12 For a model isjāl containing one qadi's authentication of the isjāl of another, see al-Nuwairī, , Nihāyat al-arab, IX, pp. 151–2Google Scholar.
13 al-Suqā'ī, op. cit., no. 13, p. 10: died Ramadān 694 (July–August 1295). See also Ibn al-Furāt, VIII, pp. 196 & 201; Suluk, I, pp. 810–11.
14 Durar, IV, pp. 98–9: came to Damascus 725 (1325), died Rajab 737 (February 1337).
15 Durar, IV, pp. 109–10: born Rabī I 707 (September 1307), died Rabī II 777 (September 1375).
16 This seems to have been written on the recto of the original waqfiyya, because E is confusingly described as “beginning in the margin to the right of the verso of Walī al-Dīn's isjāl”, i.e. F.
17 For a reason that is not clear to me, A, B and C are alluded to indirectly, that is to say, as they are alluded to and quoted from in D. That is why, it seems, their respective qadis have the indication of their demise after their names, “God have mercy on him (raêimahu Allāh)”. Their text can hardly be quoted directly if their death is assumed to have occurred.
18 In the Gazetteer of Syria, prepared by Hourani, M. and Heyda, C., published by the Defense Mapping Agency, Washington, D.C., 2nd ed., 1983, it appears as Subaynah aṣ-Ṣaghlra, lat. 33° 27' N long. 36° 17' E, to the N.E. of Subaynah al-Kabīra ( = al-Gharbiyya)Google Scholar.
19 See the sources in note 3.
20 On modern maps the settlement of Hawsh al-Rayḥāniyya is a little more than 1 km. N.E. of Subaina al-Saghīra ( = al-Sharqiyya).
21 This village was part of the waqf of the Dār al-Qur'ān al-Kaīm al-Ṣābūniyya in Damascus according to al-Nu'aimī (al-Dāris fī ta'rīkh al-madāris, ed. al-Hasani, Ja'far, (Damascus, 1948), I, p. 15Google Scholar; note 12 says that the village is situated 8 km south of Damascus). See the same text in the partial edition of al-Nu'aimī (Dūr al-Qur'an fī Dimashq, ed. al-Munajjid, , (Beirut, 1973), p. 20)Google Scholar but al-Munajjid gives the distance from Damascus as 10 km (in TasṢīṢ Kitāb al-Dāris, (Beirut, 1981), pp. 12–13)Google Scholar.
22 According to Hinz, , Islamische Mässe und Gewichte, (Leiden, 1970), pp. 37–8Google Scholar, the Damascene ghirāra as a unit of capacity is about 265 litres and as a unit of weight about 204.5 kg.
23 Amin al-Dawla Kamāl al-Dīn Abū'l-Ḥasan ibn Ghazal al-Sāmirī, the vizier of al-Ṣāliḥ Ismā'īl in Damascus.
24 Compare what Ibn Abī'l-Dam writes in the first half of the thirteenth century about the desirability of limiting the length of leases (Kitāb Adab al-Qadā' (Damascus, 1982), p. 534)Google Scholar: “the aim is to preserve the status of the waqf property, not to allow persons to seize control of it, especially in such an age as ours, when a dominant group has taken to making a two or three hundred year lease on a waqf. Time goes by and it becomes just like freehold property”.
25 al-Ghazzī, , al-Kawākib al-sā'ira, (Beirut 1945), I, p. 241Google Scholar. The same source, I, pp. 225–6, records that a Qur'ān reader, who died in 915 (1509–10), retired to live in “the zawiya of Muhyl al-Dīn al-Rajīḥī in al-sahm al-a'lā”, the latter apparently being a part of al-Ṣaliḥiyyā. This seems to refer to the Zawiya of 'Abd al-Qādir (see note 44 below).
26 Durar, II, p. 398: born Jumādā II 724 (May–June 1325), died 7 Shawwal 785 (3 December 1383).
27 Durar, III, pp. 39–41: born 727 (1326–7), died 7 Dhū'l-Hijja 771 (2 July 1370).
28 There.is another (later?) 'ālama below it: al-ḥamd lillāhi 'alā iḥsānihi.
29 Durar, V, p. 5: born in 710s (1310s), died Rabī II 770 (November–December 1368).
30 Durar, V, p. 40: born Rabī II 729 (February 1329), died Safar 792 (January–February 1390). The edition (ed. Muhammad al-Haqq, Cairo) has Nu'aim in place of Tamim and, as kunyā, Abu'l-'Abbas.
31 Ḍaw', VII, p. 107: born in 740s (1339–48), died Muharram 805 (August 1402).
32 Ḍaw', X, p. 13: died Muharram 805 (August 1402), was qadi in Damascus eleven times in twenty-five years.
33 Durar, I, p. 202: died Sha'bān 726 (July 1326) aged 77.
34 Durar, IV, pp. 68–9: born in 630s (1232–41), died Jumādā II 717 (August–September 1317), became qadi in Damascus in 687 (1288) and held the office until the year of his death.
35 Durar, IV, p. 120–3: born 666 (1267–8), died 15 Jumādā I 739 (29 November 1338).
36 Ḍaw', V, p. 308: born 759 (1358), died Rabī II 809 (September–October 1406).
37 Ḍaw', III, p. 240 (and 243): born ca. 770 (1368–9), died 873 (1468–9).
38 The hand of the Qadi Zain al-īln is markedly “north-African” in character. Mujīr al-Dīn (II, pp. 247–8) records an Amīn al-Dīn Sālim b. Ibrāhīm al-Maghribī al-Sanhājī (also died in 873), who was qadi in both Damascus and Jerusalem. I think this suggests that the two entries given by Sakhāwī (Ḍaw', III, pp. 240 & 243, see footnote above) do refer to a single person.
39 Ḍaw', III, pp. 283–4: born before 740 (1339), died Ramadān 799 (May–June 1397).
40 Ḍaw', VI, pp. 66–7: born 781 or 782 (1379–81), died Rabī II 872 (November 1467).
41 Ḍaw', I, p. 152: born 815 (1412–13), died 4 Sha'bān 884 (21 October 1479; “he held the position of qadi in Damascus more than once”.
42 Ḍaw', V, pp. 225–7: born c. 820 (1417), died Jumādā I 885 (July–August 1480).
43 For his son, Najm al-Dīn 'Umar, see al-Ghazzī, , al-Kawākib al-sā'ira (Beirut, 1945), I, pp. 284–5Google Scholar.
44 His full genealogy is given in al-Ghazzī, op. cit., I, p. 241. Back to Shaikh Yunus it is as follows, with the two steps that are missing in al-Ghazzī added in square brackets: 'Abd al-Qādir b. Muḥammad [b. Muhammad] b. 'Umar b. 'Īsā [b. al-Rajīhī] b. Sābiq b. Hilāl b. Yūnus. Note that he is called al-Mizzī thumma al-Ṣāliḥī, but Muḥyī al-Dīn, not Zain al-Dīn. According to al-Ghazzī, he was born 12 Rabī' I 852 (16 May 1448), studied fiqh, became a sufi, served as a Ḥanbalī deputy qadi and died 14 Muḥarram 910 (27 June 1504).
46 He was acting as deputy qadi in Damascus for Burhān al-Dīn Ibn Mufliḥ in 910 (1504–5), seeṬulūn, Ibn, Mufākaha, I, p. 276Google Scholar. This Burhān al-Dīn is the grandson of the one named in no.16, see al-Ghazzī, op. cit., I, pp.108–9.
46 Ḍaw', V, p. 208: born ca. 818 (1415). Sakhāwī met him in the ṢaliṢiyyā suburb of Damascus and in Cairo. He was appointed deputy qadi by Najm al-Dīn b. al-Burhān Ibn Muflih. This was in Rabī I 885 (May 1480) according to Ṫulūn, Ibn, Mufakaha, I, p. 15Google Scholar, although he had already acted for another qadi.
47 al-Ghazzī, op. cit., I, p. 131: “settled in Damascus and served as deputy qadi several times,” but called Shams al-Dīn in this text. He died Saturday, 10 Dhū'l-Ḥijja 923 (Saturday, 26 December 1517). See also Ṫulūn, Ibn, Mufākaha, I, pp. 317–18 & 338Google Scholar.
48 al-Ghazzī, op. cit., III, p. 78: died Wednesday, 7 Rajab 954 (Wednesday, 24 August 1547).
49 No document on this scroll confirms no. 5. The fact that three of its witnesses have a qadi's “countersignature” beneath their names probably means that a separate isjāl was issued on their evidence. On the other hand, although no. 22 expressly confirms no. 21, there is no overlap in the witnesses.
50 R. Vesely (in “Les Requetes etc.,” loc. cit., pp. 221–2 and note 1) interprets such a marginal instruction as an order by the qadi issuing a document for the registration of that same document in the tribunal's registers.
51 See the section Fīl-shahāda 'alāl-shahāda in Ibn Abī'1-Dam, op. cit., pp. 399–403. There is the merest reference to the death of a witness as a justification for such a procedure, but an earlier oral transmission is presumed (op. cit., p. 413). See also al-Khassāf, , Kitāb adab al-qādī, ed. Ziyada, Farhat, (Cairo, 1978), pp. 724ffGoogle Scholar.
52 Similar condemnation of written proof (and seals) is in al-Khassāf, op. cit., p. 702.