BAḤRĀNĪ, HĀŠEM

 

BAḤRĀNĪ, HĀŠEM B. SOLAYMĀN B. ESMĀʿĪL B. ʿABD-AL-JAWĀD B. ʿALĪ B. SOLAYMĀN B. NĀṢER ḤOSAYNĪ KATKĀNĪ TŪBLĪ, Imami scholar and author. He was a sayyed descended from the Šarīf Mortażā and Imam Mūsā al-Kāẓem and came from the village of Katkān in Tūblī on the main island of Bahrain. He also referred to himself as Qārūnī Baḥrānī. Since the date of completion of one of his books is mentioned to be 1070/1659-60, he was most likely born not later than about 1050/1640. His studies took him to Mašhad, where he received the general ejāza of Sayyed ʿAbd-al-ʿAẓīm b. ʿAbbās Astarābādī, an Aḵbārī scholar and pupil of Shaikh Bahāʾ-al-Dīn ʿĀmelī. This was before 1074/1664 since he used Shaikh Ṭūsī’s Tahḏīb with ʿAbd-al-ʿAẓīm’s ejāza in writing his Tartīb al-tahḏīb begun in or before that year. In Najaf he received the ejāza of Faḵr-al-Dīn b. Moḥammad b. Ṭarīh Rammāḥī Najafī (d. 1087/1676). After the death of Shaikh Moḥammad b. Mājed Māḥūzī in 1105/1693-94, he was put by the Safavid authorities in charge of the judgeship and censorship of public morals (omūr ḥesbīya) in Bahrain. He died in 1107/1695-96 or 1109/1697-98 in the village of Noʿaym in the house of his wife’s family. He was buried in Tūblī, where his tomb remained well known. Among his students and transmitters of his works are mentioned his son ʿĪsā, ʿAlī b. ʿAbd-Allāh b. Rāšed Baḥrānī Maqābī, and Solaymān b. ʿAbd-Allāh Setrāwī Māḥūzī.

The number of his books and treatises is said to have approached seventy-five, most of them on religious subjects. Some were, however, in the possession of those for whom they were composed and thus available only in Bahrain. Most of his books were compilations quoting a wide range of Shiʿite sources some of which had not been available to Majlesī for his encyclopedia Beḥār al-anwār. Yūsof Baḥrānī admits not having seen a single work containing a fatwā of his. Mīrzā ʿAbd-Allāh Efandī, however, mentions a large Ketāb al-tanbīhāt (apparently lost) containing his deductions of legal rules in all chapters of feqh. The following of his works have been published: 1. Al-Borhān fī tafsīr al-Qorʾān, a commentary on the Koran dedicated to the Safavid Shah Solaymān and completed in 1097/1686. It consists mostly of relevant quotations of the imams and occasionally of Sunnite sources favorable to the Shiʿite point of view without any interpretations of the author (al-Ḏarīʿa III, p. 94). 2. Tartīb al-tahḏīb, a rearrangement of the legal traditions contained in Ṭūsī’s Tahḏīb al-aḥkām according to subject matter with some corrections of the esnāds in five volumes completed in 1079/1669 (al-Ḏarīʿa IV, pp. 64-65). 3. Maʿālem al-zolfā fī maʿāref al-našʾa al-ūlā wa’l-oḵrā, on the states of men in this world, death, the grave, the resurrection, paradise, and hell (al-Ḏarīʿa XXI, pp. 199-200). 4. Nozhat al-abrār wa-manār al-afkār fī ḵalq al-janna wa’l-nār, containing 251 traditions which confirm that paradise and hell are already created (al-Ḏarīʿa XXIV, p. 107). 5. Manāqeb Amīr al-Moʾmenīn, on the merits of ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭāleb quoting Sunnite sources with some explanatory comments. The identity of the author, concealed in the book, is known through the quotations of Aḥmad b. Solaymān Baḥrānī in his ʿEqd al-leʾāl fī manāqeb al-nabī wa’l-āl (al-Ḏarīʿa XXII pp. 322-23). 6. Madīnat maʿājez al-aʾemma al-eṯnay ʿašar wa dalāʾel al-ḥojaj ʿala ’l-bašar, on the miracles of the twelve imams. Completed in 1090/1679 (al-Ḏarīʿa XX, p. 253). 7. Ḡāyat al-marām wa ḥojjat al-ḵeṣām fī taʿyīn al-emām men ṭarīq al-ḵāṣṣ wa’l-ʿāmm, containing Shiʿite and Sunnite traditions about the virtues of ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭāleb and the imams and texts supporting their imamate. Completed in 1103/1692. A Persian translation entitled Kefāyat al-ḵeṣām fī fażāʾel al-emām, containing some additional traditions, was prepared on the order of Nāṣer-al-Dīn Shah by the Mollābāšī Moḥammad-Taqī b. ʿAlī Dezfūlī and was published in 1277/1860-61 (al-Ḏarīʿa XVI, pp. 21-22). 8. Tabṣerat al-walī fī man raʾā al-mahdī ʿalayh al-salām fī zamān abīh aw fī ḡaybateh al-ṣogrā aw al-kobrā, about 76 persons who saw the Twelfth Imam down to the year 664/1265-66. Completed in 1099/1688 (al-Ḏarīʿa III, pp. 326). 9. Al-Maḥajja fī mā nazal men al-Qorʾān fi’l-qāʾem al-ḥojja, about 120 verses of the Koran alluding to the twelfth imam. Completed in 1097/1686 (al-Ḏarīʿa XX, p. 144).

 

Bibliography:

Ḥorr ʿĀmelī, Amal al-āmel, ed. Sayyed Aḥmad Ḥosaynī, Baghdad, 1385/1965, II, p. 341.

Mīrzā ʿAbd-Allāh Effendī, Rīāż al-ʿolamāʾ, ed. Sayyed Aḥmad Ḥosaynī, Qom, 1401/1980-81, V, pp. 298-304.

Yūsof Baḥrānī, Loʾloʾat al-Baḥrayn, ed. Moḥammad-Ṣādeq Baḥr-al-ʿOlūm, Najaf, 1386/1966, pp. 63-66.

Ḵᵛānsārī, Rawżāt al-jannāt, n.p., 1347/1928-29, pp. 736-37.

ʿAlī b. Ḥasan Baḥrānī, Anwār al-badrayn, Najaf, 1377/1957-58, pp. 136-40.

Edition of Hāšem b. Solaymān, Ketāb al-borhān, Qom, 1394/1974, IV, pp. 552-56.

Brockelmann, GAL, S. II, pp. 506, 533.

 

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 بحرانی، هاشم bahrani hashem  bahraany hashem  bahraani haashem

 

(W. Madelung)

Originally Published: December 15, 1988

Last Updated: August 24, 2011

This article is available in print.
Vol. III, Fasc. 5, pp. 528-529