| From: Thomas Hockey et al. (eds.). The Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers, Springer Reference. New York: Springer, 2007, pp. 1112-1113 |
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Suyūṭī: Abū al‐Faḍl ʿAbd al‐Raḥmān Jalāl al‐Dīn al‐Suyūṭī
Alnoor Dhanani
Born Cairo, (Egypt),
1445
Died 1505
Suyūṭī
wrote an important work on “religious” astronomy, whose sources derived from
the traditions of the Prophet. Born into a family engaged in religious scholarship
and holding administrative offices, he became the most prolific authors in
all of Islamic literature. His father was a preacher, taught Shāfiʿī religious
law, and acted as a deputy judge (qāḍī). He died prematurely
when his son was only 5 years old, but he had made financial arrangements
that allowed Suyūṭī to pursue a path of scholarship through the guardianship
and aid of his father's friends and students. Suyūṭī commenced his studies
at an early age, with the study of Islamic religious sciences under various
teachers. This included the study of ḥadīth (statements and actions
of the Prophet Muḥammad and his companions as recorded by his contemporaries
and collated into collections by later authors), some rudimentary arithmetic
for the solution of problems of inheritance, and probably the study of rudimentary
timekeeping (mīqāt) and traditional medicine. At the young
age of 18, he assumed his father's former position of teaching religious law
at the Shaykhū mosque and provided juridical consultative opinions. Soon
afterward in 1467, Suyūṭī
reinitiated the study of ḥadīth at the mosque of Ibn
Ṭulūn.
He was appointed to teach ḥadīth at the prestigious Shaykhūniyya
madrasa (religious college) in 1472 and then was given a royal appointment
by the Mamlūk Sultan Qāʾit Bāy (reigned: 1468–1495) to
the directorship of the Baybarsiyya khānqāh (Ṣūfī lodge) in 1486. Suyūṭī's
personality and convictions resulted in controversy and polemics with contemporary
scholars as well as officials among the ruling Mamluks. He withdrew from public
life in 1501, following a conflict over the finances of the Baybarsiyya khānqāh
and spent the rest of his days editing and revising his works.
Suyūṭī
wrote over 500 works that primarily focus on topics and issues in the Islamic
religious and the Arabic linguistic disciplines. Two of his works deal with
astronomy and medicine. His interest in astronomy, however, was not in what
we or his contemporaries would call scientific, i. e., related to the
pre‐Islamic astronomical heritage that had been transmitted in the 8th
and 9th centuries. Rather his interest in astronomy lay in the discussion
of celestial objects and phenomena as found in the corpus of literature and
activity, which comprises ḥadīth. As such, his al‐Hayʾa
al‐saniyya fī al‐hayʾa al‐sunniyya (The
radiant cosmology: On sunnī cosmology) is a religiously oriented
account of “cosmology,” that is to say, celestial and terrestrial entities
from the perspective of ḥadīth, or more precisely the
ḥadīth corpus which, in Suyūṭī's
view, reflects the position of the Sunnī community as laid out by Sunnī
religious scholars. In the introduction of the Radiant Cosmology, Suyūṭī
states,
“This is a book on cosmology (ʿilm al‐hayʾa), which I have compiled from the traditions (al‐athār)
and have appended it with reports [by earlier narrators] (akhbār)
so that those with intelligence may find delight and those with vision may
reflect. I have titled it The Radiant Cosmology: On Sunnī Cosmology.”
On
the one hand, Suyūṭī wanted to inform his readers about Sunnī cosmology,
as it was discussed in traditions and reports of earlier narrators. On the
other hand, Suyūṭī's choice of the term
cosmology (hayʾa) for his religious enterprise was novel. The
astronomers had utilized the term hayʾa since the 9th century
to signify the configuration of the celestial orbs. Thus the term ʿilm
al‐hayʾa was used to signify the discipline of “astronomy.”
Suyūṭī's
appropriation of the terms hayʾa and ʿilm al‐hayʾa for his enterprise indicates a conscious attempt to
present an alternative religious cosmology, that is to say an “Islamic cosmology,”
to replace the “scientific” cosmology of the astronomers. In his Autobiography,
Suyūṭī is
quite explicit regarding his views on science:
I do not
occupy myself [with] logic and the philosophical disciplines (ʿulūm
al‐falsafa)
because they are forbidden, and even if they were permissible, I would not
prefer them to the religious disciplines.
During
this period, astronomy, and other sciences, certainly fell under the classification
of “philosophical disciplines.” Suyūṭī and other religious scholars
regarded them with suspicion for, in their view, these disciplines ultimately
derived from pre‐Islamic sources. Suyūṭī
regarded his sources, in contrast, to be the unimpeachable views of religious
scholars from earlier generations. Just as they had provided the material
for the sound formulation of Islamic Law that governed all aspects of life,
including the proper practice of rituals, the sound understanding of the text
of the Qurʾān, and so forth, only they could provide the basis for
a sound “Islamic” cosmology, that is to say the cosmology for Muslims who
follow the path of tradition and orthodoxy (i. e., the Sunnīs).
He held similar views regarding medicine.
The subjects
that Suyūṭī
treats in the Radiant Cosmology comprise the Divine Throne (ʿarsh), the Divine Footstool
(kursī), the Tablet (lawḥ), and the Pen (qalam),
which are entities mentioned in the Qurʾān, as well as the seven
heavens and seven Earths, Sun, Moon, stars, night, day, hours, water and winds,
clouds and rain, thunder, lightning, thunderbolt, Milky Way, rainbow, earthquakes,
mountains, seas, and River Nile. Suyūṭī's approach to these subjects is apparent in his chapter
headings, which refer to reports of the views of selected earlier authorities
regarding these “cosmological” entities. As such, the Radiant Cosmology
preserves the views of these earlier religious authorities whose works are
lost to us.
Selected References
Heinen, Anton M. (1982). Islamic Cosmology: A Study of as‐Suyūṭī's
al‐Hayʾa as‐sanīya fī l‐hayʾa as‐sunnīya
with Critical Edition, Translation, and Commentary. Beirut: F. Steiner
Verlag.
Ragep, F. J. (1993).
Naṣīr al‐Dīn al‐Ṭūsī's
Memoir on Astronomy (al‐Tadhkira fī ʿilm
al‐hayʾa). 2 Vols. New York:
Springer‐Verlag.
Sartain, E. M. (1975). Jalāl al‐Dīn al‐Suyūtī:
Biography and Background. 2 Vols. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.