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Abstract

The famous Egyptian polymath ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Suyūṭī (d. 911/1505) regarded himself as “Absolute Renewer” (mujaddid muṭlaq) of the tenth Islamic Islamic century, because of what he saw as an absolute scholarly leadership in a wide range of disciplines. Attempting to boost the authority of the declining Abbasid caliphate, he unsuccessfully demanded a novel appointment as Chief Qadi of the whole Islamic realm from the caliph. He had built his far-reaching claims not only on his education and travels and his vast literary production but also on his extended scholarly contacts and on the speeding distribution of his writings in many Islamic regions. 
 

Murtaḍā al-Zabīdī (d. 1205/1791), the famous lexicographer, traditionist and Sufi polymath of Indian origin who studied in India and Yemen and finally settled in Cairo, had much in common with al-Suyūṭī. He was described by an admiring visitor as “the Suyūṭī of his time”, and even contributed with his first-rate Ḥadīṯ chains of transmission and lectures to the revival of al-Suyūṭī’s old Dār al-ḥadīṯ in the Šayḫū Mosque in Cairo. Making ample use of al-Suyūṭī’s fundamental works in Ḥadīṯ scholarship and philology, he nevertheless showed his pride of having achieved with his comprehensive Arabic lexicon, the Tāj al-ʿarūs, a goal that the older polymath had envisaged but never finished. Al-Zabīdī’s own extremely extensive network of scholarly, Sufi and personal acquaintances went far beyond al-Suyūṭī’s and showed the expanded interrelations within the Islamic World since the 15th century. 
 

The lecture will compare two towering scholarly figures of different epochs for their commonalities and reflect on the cultural and political changes which account for the different character and profile of two otherwise remarkably similar scholars.  
 

Bio

Stefan Reichmuth is retired Professor of Arabic and Islamic Studies at Bochum University and former chief editor of the journal Die Welt des Islams (2002–2016). He published on Arabic and Islam in Africa, the history of science in the Islamic World, Sufism, and early modern and modern transregional Muslim scholarly networks. Publications include: The World of Murtaḍāal-Zabīdī (1732–1791). Life, Networks and Writings, Oxford 2009; The Presence of the Prophet in Early Modern and Contemporary Islam (3 vols, ed. with Rachida Chih, Nelly Amri, Dilek Sarmis, Denis Gril, and David Jordan), Leiden 2022–2023; “Between Science and Mysticism. Sabir Multani and the Reform of Humoral Medicine in Pakistan”, in Saeed Zarrabi-Zadeh et al. (eds.), Dynamics of Islam in the Modern World. Essays in Honor of Jamal Malik, Leiden 2022, 63–89; “Frömmigkeit und Sufismus”, in Georges Tamer (ed.), Islam II. Religionen, Lebensformen, Geistesgeschichte, Stuttgart 2025, 161–195.

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