Abū Shakūr as-Sālimī was a Shāfiʿite theologian of Persia who lived in the second half of the fifth century of the Hegira (eleventh century C.E.). He is the author of the *at-Tamhīd fī bayān at-tawḥīd* (“The Preparation concerning the Exposition of the Divine Unity”), a Shāfiʿite manual of kalām and of the refutation of sectarian deviation. The Tamhīd is identified by Voorhoeve as the principal source of the *Tibjān fī maʿrifat al-adyān* of Nūruddīn ar-Rānīrī: more than a quarter of the text of the Tibjān is translated literally from the Tamhīd, especially from its last chapter, on orthodoxy and the rejection of innovation (bidʿa).
The Tamhīd
The *Tamhīd* is a Persian treatise on the divine unity and on the refutation of the sectarian deviations of Islam. Its last chapter, Fīʾs-sunna waʾl-jamāʿa waʾr-radd ʿalāʾl-bidʿa (“On the Sunna and the Community and the Refutation of Innovation”), supplies the material from which Raniri, working more than five centuries later in Acheh, composed the bulk of his survey of the pre-Muslim religions and the sects of Islam. The work is listed by Brockelmann in GAL I, 419; the printed edition of Cairo 1338 H was not available to Voorhoeve, who cited the work from the Leiden manuscript Cod. Or. 5664.
Source of the Tibjān
Voorhoeve’s identification of the Tamhīd as the principal source of the *Tibjān* is the most original contribution of his 1955 edition. More than a quarter of the text of the Tibjān is translated literally from the Tamhīd — a fact that places the Tibjān, in its first part, as a Malay translation of an eleventh-century Persian Shāfiʿite treatise. The Leiden manuscript of the Tamhīd preserves the very errors of Raniri’s own exemplar — including the strange error “Kubtiyya” (Copts) for al-Muʿattila (the sect that denies all divine attributes) and a lacuna that caused Raniri to announce four groups of the Tanāsuḥiyya while treating only three. Voorhoeve concludes that it was “a very happy accident” that the Leiden manuscript of the Tamhīd preserves a text practically identical with that of Raniri’s own exemplar.
Significance
Abū Shakūr as-Sālimī is, through his *Tamhīd*, the principal source of the *Tibjān* of Raniri. His eleventh-century Persian treatise on the divine unity and the refutation of innovation, transmitted through a Banten manuscript of the early modern period and translated into Malay in Acheh in the seventeenth century by a Gujarati shaikh of the Rifāʿiyya, is one of the most remarkable textual conjunctions in the history of Malay religious literature. The identification of the Tamhīd as the principal source of the Tibjān establishes the textual genealogy of Raniri’s Malay encyclopaedia of religions and sects, and places the Tibjān — despite its Achehnese provenance — within the scholastic tradition of Persian Shāfiʿism.
See Also
- Banten
- C. Snouck Hurgronje
- J. Schacht
- Ma’rifat al-madhahib
- Najm ad-Din an-Nasafi
- P. Voorhoeve
- Raniri
- Tamhid fi bayan at-tawhid
- Tibjan fi ma’rifat al-adyan
Source
Twee Maleise geschriften van Nūruddīn ar-Rānīrī: in facsimile uitgegeven met aantekeningen door P. Voorhoeve. Uitgaven van de Stichting De Goeje, No. 16. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1955. Inleiding §2b (“De bronnen van de Tibjān”), pp. 9–13.
C. Brockelmann, Geschichte der arabischen Litteratur (GAL) I, 419.
H. Kraemer, Een Javaansche Primbon, p. 209, where the Tamhīd is noted.
Abū Shakūr as-Sālimī was a Shāfiʿite theologian of Persia who lived in the second half of the fifth century of the Hegira (eleventh century C.E.). He is the author of the *at-Tamhīd fī bayān at-tawḥīd* (“The Preparation concerning the Exposition of the Divine Unity”), a Shāfiʿite manual of kalām and of the refutation of sectarian deviation. The Tamhīd is identified by Voorhoeve as the principal source of the *Tibjān fī maʿrifat al-adyān* of Nūruddīn ar-Rānīrī: more than a quarter of the text of the Tibjān is translated literally from the Tamhīd, especially from its last chapter, on orthodoxy and the rejection of innovation (bidʿa).
The Tamhīd
The *Tamhīd* is a Persian treatise on the divine unity and on the refutation of the sectarian deviations of Islam. Its last chapter, Fīʾs-sunna waʾl-jamāʿa waʾr-radd ʿalāʾl-bidʿa (“On the Sunna and the Community and the Refutation of Innovation”), supplies the material from which Raniri, working more than five centuries later in Acheh, composed the bulk of his survey of the pre-Muslim religions and the sects of Islam. The work is listed by Brockelmann in GAL I, 419; the printed edition of Cairo 1338 H was not available to Voorhoeve, who cited the work from the Leiden manuscript Cod. Or. 5664.
Source of the Tibjān
Voorhoeve’s identification of the Tamhīd as the principal source of the *Tibjān* is the most original contribution of his 1955 edition. More than a quarter of the text of the Tibjān is translated literally from the Tamhīd — a fact that places the Tibjān, in its first part, as a Malay translation of an eleventh-century Persian Shāfiʿite treatise. The Leiden manuscript of the Tamhīd preserves the very errors of Raniri’s own exemplar — including the strange error “Kubtiyya” (Copts) for al-Muʿattila (the sect that denies all divine attributes) and a lacuna that caused Raniri to announce four groups of the Tanāsuḥiyya while treating only three. Voorhoeve concludes that it was “a very happy accident” that the Leiden manuscript of the Tamhīd preserves a text practically identical with that of Raniri’s own exemplar.
Significance
Abū Shakūr as-Sālimī is, through his *Tamhīd*, the principal source of the *Tibjān* of Raniri. His eleventh-century Persian treatise on the divine unity and the refutation of innovation, transmitted through a Banten manuscript of the early modern period and translated into Malay in Acheh in the seventeenth century by a Gujarati shaikh of the Rifāʿiyya, is one of the most remarkable textual conjunctions in the history of Malay religious literature. The identification of the Tamhīd as the principal source of the Tibjān establishes the textual genealogy of Raniri’s Malay encyclopaedia of religions and sects, and places the Tibjān — despite its Achehnese provenance — within the scholastic tradition of Persian Shāfiʿism.
See Also
- Banten
- C. Snouck Hurgronje
- J. Schacht
- Ma’rifat al-madhahib
- Najm ad-Din an-Nasafi
- P. Voorhoeve
- Raniri
- Tamhid fi bayan at-tawhid
- Tibjan fi ma’rifat al-adyan
Source
Twee Maleise geschriften van Nūruddīn ar-Rānīrī: in facsimile uitgegeven met aantekeningen door P. Voorhoeve. Uitgaven van de Stichting De Goeje, No. 16. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1955. Inleiding §2b (“De bronnen van de Tibjān”), pp. 9–13.
C. Brockelmann, Geschichte der arabischen Litteratur (GAL) I, 419.
H. Kraemer, Een Javaansche Primbon, p. 209, where the Tamhīd is noted.