EBN FAHD ḤELLĪ, ABU’L-ʿABBĀS JAMĀL-AL-DĪN AḤMAD b. Šams-al-Dīn Moḥammad (756 or 757-841/1355-1437), Imami scholar and jurist. A native of Ḥella, he spent most of his life there, where he taught at the Zaynīya school, and in Karbalāʾ, where he died and was buried. His teachers included ʿAlī b. Ḵāzen Ḥāʾerī, Meqdād Soyūrī, Ebn al-Motawwaj Baḥrānī, all former students of Moḥammad b. Makkī Šahīd-e Awwal, and Jamāl-al-Dīn b. Aʿraj ʿAmīdī, from whom he obtained the ejāza. He also visited Jezzīn in Jabal ʿĀmel, where in Moḥarram 824/January 1421 he received an ejāza from Żīāʾ-al-Dīn Abu’l-Ḥasan ʿAlī ʿĀmelī, son of Šahīd-e Awwal. His numerous works include a commentary on Moḥaqqeq Ḥellī’s al-Nāfeʿ, entitled al-Mohaḏḏab al-bāreʿ, completed in 803/1401 (ed. M. ʿErāqī, 2 vols., Qom, 1407-11/1986-90); the ʿOddat al-dāʿī wa najāḥ al-sāʿī, on the rules of prayer, written in 801/1399 (Tehran, 1274/1857, reprs. in Qom and Beirut; al-Ḏarīʿa XV, p. 228); al-Taḥṣīn fī ṣefāt al-ʿārefīn (Qom, 1406/1985), on mystical seclusion (ʿozla); and several other treatises and commentaries, mainly on the ritual prayer and the ʿebādāt (in al-Rasāʾel al-ʿašar, ed. M. Rajāʾī, Qom, 1409/1988).
Among his students were the celebrated Kobrawī Sufi Sayyed Moḥammad Nūrbaḵš and the famous Moḥammad b. Falāḥ Mūsawī, the founder of the Mošaʿšaʿ doctrine and dynasty, though when the latter began his extremist religious propaganda, Ebn Fahd declared the takfīr against him.
Generally praised for his knowledge and piety, his Sufi inclinations brought upon him the criticism of later scholars, such as Yūsof Baḥrānī (1966, p. 156).
Bibliography: (For cited works not given in detail, see “Short References.”)
ʿAbd-Allāh Afandī, Rīāż al-ʿolamāʾ, Qom, 1401/1981, I, pp. 64-66.
Ḥ. Anṣārī, “Ebn-e Fahd Ḥellī” in DMBE 4, p. 431.
Aʿyān al-šīʿa X, pp. 60-61 (complete list of his works).
Yūsof b. Aḥmad Baḥrānī, Loʾloʾat al-Baḥrayn, ed. S. M. Ṣadīq, Najaf, n.d. [1966?], pp. 155-57.
Brockelmann, GAL, S II, p. 210.
Moḥammad b. Ḥasan Ḥorr ʿĀmelī, Amal al-āmel, ed. A. Ḥosaynī, Beirut, 1403/1983, II, p. 21. Kaḥḥāla, II, p. 144.
M.-B. Ḵᵛānsārī, Rawżāt al-jannāt I, Tehran, 1390/1970, pp. 71-75.
P. Luft, “Mushaʿshaʿ” in EI ² VII, pp. 672-75.
H. Modarresi Tabātabāʾi, An Introduction to Shīʿī Law. A Bibliographical Study, London, 1984, pp. 78-79, 104, 119, 133-34, 152, 162-63, 189.
(Marco Salami)
Originally Published: December 15, 1997
Last Updated: December 6, 2011
This article is available in print.
Vol. VIII, Fasc. 1, p. 23
