DEYLAMĪ, ABŪ MOḤAMMAD ḤASAN

 

DEYLAMĪ, ABŪ MOḤAMMAD ḤASAN b. Abi’l-Ḥasan (b.) Moḥammad b. ʿAlī b. ʿAbd-Allāh (or Moḥammad), Shiʿite author and traditionist. He is described in the biographical sources as a contemporary of ʿAllāma Ḥellī (d. 726/1325), of ʿAllāma’s son Faḵr al-Moḥaqqeqīn (d. 771/1369-70), and of Šahīd-e Awwal Šams-al-Dīn Moḥammad (d. 786/1384), yet all that can be gleaned from his own writings is that he composed his Ḡorar al-aḵbār (see below) about a century after the fall of Baghdad in 656/1258 (cf. al-Ḏarīʿa, XVI, p. 36). The earliest author known to have cited him is Ebn Fahd Ḥellī, in ʿOddat al-dāʿī (completed 16 Jomādā I 801/24 January 1399). ʿAbd-Allāh Efendī (d. 1130/1718), who was perhaps the first to attempt an assessment of Deylamī’s dates, found (pp. 338-40) an apparent inconsistency in the sources: Deylamī cited in his Eršād al-qolūb (pp. 182 ff.) the ketāb of Warrām b. Abī Ferās (d. 605/1208), known as Majmūʿat Warrām, but Kanz al-fawāʾed by Abu’l-Fatḥ Moḥammad b. ʿAlī Karājakī (d. 449/1057) contains citations supposedly from Deylamī’s Ketāb al-tafsīr; furthermore, a work by Deylamī was also cited by Ebn Šahrāšūb (d. 588/1192) in Manāqeb āl Abī Ṭāleb. Āqā Bozorg Ṭehrānī (al-Ḏarīʿa IV, p. 271 no. 1257; 1390/1970, p. 84) attempted to resolve this problem by arguing that the author cited by Karājakī and Ebn Šahrāšūb was distinct from the author of Eršād al-qolūb. In fact, the Deylamī mentioned by Ebn Šahrāšūb was Šīrawayh b. Šahradār (d. 509/1115), and in the available versions of Karājakī’s work there is no reference to any Deylamī. ʿAbd-Allāh Efendī must have taken the abbreviation Kanz in Majlesī’s Beḥār al-anwār as referring to Karājakī’s work, rather than to Kanz jāmeʿ al-fawāʾed by ʿAlam b. Sayf b. Manṣūr Najafī Ḥellī (fl. 937/1530-31; cf. editor’s introduction to Deylamī’s Aʿlām al-dīn, pp. 15-16). Nothing is known about Deylamī’s life, except that he appears to have led a solitary existence (cf. Aʿlām al-dīn, pp. 33, 326).

Deylamī wrote at least five works (the first three cited as sources by Majlesī, pp. 16, 33). Eršād al-qolūb elā’l-ṣawāb al-monjī man ʿamela behe men alīm al-ʿeqāb (ed. Bombay, 1315; ed. Beirut, 1398/1978; Pers. tr. H. Mostarḥemī, Tehran, 1338 Š./1959; ʿA. Rażāʾī, Tehran, 1396-97/1976-77) as known today comprises two volumes, the first dealing with ethics, the second with the virtues (fażāʾel) of ʿAlī. The earliest known manuscript containing both volumes predates 1024/1615 (cf. al-Ḏarīʿa I, pp. 517-18 no. 2527). There are strong indications, however, that the second volume did not originally belong to the Eršād and may not even have been written by Deylamī. First, in his introduction to the first volume he described the work as consisting of fifty-five (in some versions fifty-four) chapters; the number of chapters in that volume is in fact fifty-four, the last of which is called in some versions ḵātema (conclusion). Second, there is a marked difference in the way the sources are treated in the two volumes: In the first Deylamī identified hardly any of his sources, one of the few exceptions being Warrām’s book (see above), whereas the author of the second was careful to identify his. Third, Deylamī’s name does not appear in the second volume. Finally, it makes little sense for a work on ethics to be combined with a work of fażāʾel (cf. ʿAbd-Allāh, p. 340; Ḵᵛānsārī, p. 291). There was an abridgment (talḵīṣ) by Šaraf al-Dīn Yaḥyā b. Ḥosayn Baḥrānī, a student of ʿAlī Karakī (d. 940/1534; al-Ḏarīʿa IV, p. 419 no. 1849), but it is not clear whether it was of one or both volumes.

Aʿlām al-dīn fī ṣefāt al-moʾmenīn (ed. Qom 1408/1987, based on Imam Reżā library, Mašhad, ms. 381) is a work of adab (belles lettres) and mawāʿeẓ (exhortations) dealing with such subjects as God’s unity, the importance of knowledge (ʿelm), the characteristics of the believer, and the need to lead a life of renunciation (zohd); it is interspersed with speeches and supplications of ʿAlī and other imams, as well as poetry and hortatory traditions. All the sources cited and identified by the author were Imami Shiʿite. One of the cited works was Ketāb al-borhān ʿalā ṯobūt al-īmān by Abu’l-Ṣālāḥ Ḥalabī (d. 447/1055-56), which is quoted in its entirety (pp. 44-58); it is not known to have survived independently (cf. Qomī, I, p. 97).

Ḡorar al-aḵbār wa dorar al-āṯār fī manāqeb al-aṭhār consists of fifty chapters on the virtues of ʿAlī and the defects of his opponents. It is fully preserved in manuscript form in the Tehran University library (Fehrest-e . . . Meškāt, pp. 1437-39 no. 1273; for another, incomplete manuscript, see al-Ḏarīʿa XVI, p. 36 no. 156). According to Rudolf Mach and Eric L. Ormsby (p. 60 no. 258), there is also a manuscript in the Princeton University library, but the text in question is a much later work.

The only evidence that Deylamī composed al-Arbaʿūna ḥadīṯan appears to be Āqā Bozorg’s statement (al-Ḏarīʿa, I, p. 414 no. 2144) that a manuscript was in the possession of ʿAlī Akbar Bojnūrdī and was later damaged. As Ḡorar opens with a version of the tradition about the arbaʿūna ḥadīṯan, it is not inconceivable that the text in question was in fact the Ḡorar. The fifth work, Ketāb al-tafsīr, is not known to be extant. A passage from it is cited in Najafī Ḥellī’s Kanz jāmeʿ al-fawāʾed (pp. 798-99); other fragments, cited in the same work either as simply from Deylamī (pp. 77, 93, 144, 197, 256-57, 261, 422, 511-12, 552, 563, 595, 609, 689-90, 710-11) or as from his Ketāb (p. 116), were probably also taken from his work on koranic exegesis.

 

Bibliography:

(For cited works not found in this bibliography and abbreviations found here, see “Short References.”) ʿAbd-Allāh Efendī, Rīāż al-ʿolamāʾ I, ed. A. Ḥosaynī, Qom, 1401/1980-81.

Āqā Bozorg Ṭehrānī, Nawābeḡ al-rowāt fī rābeʿ al-meʾāt, Beirut, 1390/1970.

Idem, al-Ḥaqāʾeq al-rāhena fi’l-meʾa al-ṯāmena, Beirut, 1395/1975, p. 38.

Aʿyān al-šīʿa XX, p. 443; XXIII, pp. 120-26.

Hāšem b. Solaymān Baḥrānī, Ketāb al-borhān fī tafsīr al-Qorʾān, Qom, 1394/1974, I, pp. 294, 499-500; II, pp. 460-63; III, pp. 159, 234; IV, pp. 84, 135, 222, 330, 368.

C. E. Bosworth, Bahāʾ al-Dīn al-ʿĀmilī and His Literary Anthologies, Manchester, 1989, p. 47.

Brockelmann, GAL S II, p. 261. al-Ḏarīʿa II, pp. 238-39 no. 949.

Esmāʿīl Bāšā Baḡdādī, Hadīyat al-ʿārefīn I, Istanbul, 1951, p. 287.

Fehrest-e . . . Meškāt III/3, Tehran, 1335 Š./1956.

Ḥorr ʿĀmelī (Moḥammad b. Ḥasan Mašḡarī), Amal al-āmel II, Najaf, 1385/1965, p. 77.

E. Ḥ. Kantūrī, Kašf al-ḥojob wa’l-astār ʿan aḥwāl al-kotob wa’l-asfār, Calcutta, 1330/1912, pp. 39 no. 171, 53 no. 250, 392 no. 2169.

Moḥammad-Bāqer Ḵᵛānsārī, Rawżāt al-jannāt, ed. ʿA. Esmāʿīlīān, II, Qom, 1392/1972.

R. Mach and E. L. Ormsby, Handlist of Arabic Manuscripts (New Series) in the Princeton University Library, Princeton, N.J., 1987.

Moḥammad-Bāqer Majlesī, Beḥār al-anwār I, Tehran, 1335 Š./1956.

M.-ʿA. Modarres, Rayḥānat al-adab II, Tehran, 1367/1948, pp. 36-37.

ʿAlam b. Sayf Najafī Ḥellī, Kanz jāmeʿ al-fawāʾed, Qom, 1407/1987.

ʿAbbās Qomī, al-Konā wa’l-alqāb II, Najaf, 1376/1956, pp. 216-17.

(Etan Kohlberg)

Originally Published: December 15, 1995

Last Updated: November 22, 2011

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