8vo. [211 pages], 23 lines per page, wide margins, headings, keywords and first word to the line in red, modern hard boards, marbled endpapers, few worm holes to lower margins of last 12 leaves without any loss to text, first leaf repaired, copied and corrected by Ahmad al-Hafiz, no date.

Synopsis

Al-Suyuti (1445-1505) was an Egyptian writer and teacher, whose works deal with a wide variety of subjects, but predominantly the Islamic religious sciences.
The son of a judge, al-Suyuti was tutored by a Sufi (Muslim mystic) friend of his father. He was a precocious child and was already a teacher in 1462. A controversial figure, he was deeply embroiled in the political conflicts and theological disputes of his time, and at one point he proclaimed himself the mujaddid (“renewer”) of the Islamic faith. In 1486 he was appointed head of the Sufi Lodge (Khānaqāh) attached to the Mosque of Baybars in Cairo and was living in virtual retirement. When in 1501 he tried to reduce the stipends of Sufi scholars at the mosque, a revolt broke out, and al-Suyuti was nearly killed. After his trial, he was placed under house arrest on the island of Rawḍah (near Cairo). He worked there in seclusion until his death.
Al-Suyuti’s works numbered more than 500, many were mere booklets, and others encyclopaedic. He was co-author of Tafsīr al-Jalālayn (Commentary of the Two Jalāls), a word-by-word commentary on the Qur’ān, the first part of which was written by Jalāl al-Dīn al-Maḥallī. His Itqān fī ‘ulūm al-Qur’ān (Mastery in the Sciences of the Qur’ān), is a well-known work on Qur’anic exegesis. Among his works that have been translated into English is Ta’rīkh al-khulafā’ (History of the Caliphs), as well as a work on cosmology, exegesis and several others.