Al-Azdi al-Humaydi

Life

Humaydi's family belonged to the Arab Azd tribe from Yemen. According to the Encyclopedia of Islam, his father was born in al-Rusafa, a suburb of Córdoba. Due to civil strife at the time, Humaydi's father moved to the island of Majorca, where Humaydi was born in c. 1029AD.

While in Spain, Humaydi was a student of Ibn 'Abd al-Barr and both a student and friend of Ibn Hazm, from whom Humaydi took his Zahirite views in Muslim jurisprudence. Due to persecution of Zahirites in Al-Andalus by the rival Malikites at the time, Humaydi fled from Spain for good in 1056.

Eventually, Humaydi settled down in Baghdad, where the Zahirite rite had once been the official law of the land. While not enjoying state sponsorship, his views did receive tolerance as opposed to the outright persecution from which Humaydi had escaped. He died in the city in 1095.

Works

Humaydi was famous for his biography of the notables of Islamic Spain, entitled Jadhwat al-muqtabis fī tārīkh ʻulamāʼ al-Andalus (جذوة المقتبس فى ذكر ولاة الاندلس ) . He composed the book while in Baghdad on request of his friends, writing entirely from memory without any other written sources. and an important primary source for the life of Ziryab.

Humaydi's historical works are one of the main Arabic primary sources on the Pisan–Genoese expeditions to Sardinia in the early 11th century, largely considered precursors to the Crusades.

In the field of hadith, Humaydi is credited with inventing the genre of combining multiple independent books of hadith into bound collections, a style of cataloging which would gain even more popularity in the 12th century. His books on hadith are also considered significant to modern attempts at critical reevaluations, especially al-Jamʻ bayna al-Ṣaḥīḥayn (الجمع بين الصحيحين) his combination between the two most important canonical works, Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim.

Edited works

• al-Dhahab al-masbuk fi wa'z al-muluk. Eds. Abu Abd al-Rahman Ibn Aqil al-Zahiri and Dr. Abd al-Halim Uways. Riyadh: Dar Alam al-Kutub, 1982. 235 pages. Kings and rulers.
• El Tafsir al-gharib ma fi al-Sahihayn de el Humaydi. Ed. Z.M.S. 'Abd al-'Aziz (PhD dissertation). Complutense University of Madrid, 1989. Based on a 1995 reprint of Humaydi's original from Maktabat al-Sunna in Cairo.

Citations

References

1. Huici, Miranda, A.. (2012). "al- Ḥumaydī". BRILL Online.
2. [[William Montgomery Watt]] and Pierre Chacha, ''A History of Islamic Spain'', pg. 133. [[Edinburgh]]: [[Edinburgh University Press]], 2001.
3. Fierro, pg. 73.
4. Mohammad Sharif Khan and Mohammad Anwar Saleem, ''Muslim Philosophy And Philosophers'', pg. 35. [[New Delhi]]: Ashish Publishing House, 1994.
5. Initially, he went to [[Mecca]] and performed the Muslim [[Hajj
6. Travis Bruce. "The Politics of Violence and Trade: Denia and Pisa in the Eleventh Century". [[Journal of Medieval History]], vol. 32, pgs. 127-142. 2006.
7. [[Christopher Tyerman]], ''God's War: A New History of the Crusades'', pg. 55. [[London]]: [[Penguin Books]], 2006.
8. al-Jamʻ bayna al-Ṣaḥīḥayn, pg. 73.
9. link. (2016-03-04 .)