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Ziyārāt of Syria in a riḥla of ‘Abd al-Ghanī al-Nābulusī (1050/1641–1143/1731)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 March 2011

Extract

As a leading Ṣūfī shaykh of his age al-Nābulusī's prime purpose in all his travels was to seek mystical experience and gain baraka by contact with the righteous, both living and dead. Consequently, his riḥlas emphasize encounters with spiritual dignitaries and ecstatics and his many ziyārāt to holy tombs and other shrines. These works thus provide a valuable source of information on religious personalities of his day and on Muslim sanctuaries.

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Articles
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 1979

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References

1 Ḥullat al-dhahab, ed. al-Munajjid, S. in Riḥlātan ilā Lubnān, Beirut, 1974Google Scholar; al-Tuḥfa, ed. Busse, H., Beirut, 1971.Google Scholar

2 A summarized version was issued in Cairo in 1902 and the long section on al-Ḥaram al-Sharīf edited by Graf, R. and lithographed at Saalfeld in 1918Google Scholar. The work was described by Gildemeister, J., “Des ‘Abd al-Ghânî al-Nâbulsî Reise von Damascus nach Jerusalem”, ZDMG, XXXVII, 1882, 385400.Google Scholar

3 12 MSS. Printed Damascus 1299/1881–2 and Cairo 1324/1906–7, but copies are rare. An autograph copy of al-Nābulusī's notes on his journey, apparently made prior to the composition of al-Ḥaqīqa, is lodged in the Ẓāhiriyya Lībrary, Damascus. Al-Ḥaqīqa was noted by von Kremer, A., “Des Scheichs ’Abd-ol-Ghanij en-Nabolsî's Reisen in Syrien, Aegypten und Hidschaz”, Sitzungsberichte der Kaiserliche Akademie der Wissenschaften, V, 1850, 313–56, 823–41; VI, 1851, 101–39Google Scholar. Von Kremer's work is essentially an abridged German translation/paraphrase, excluding mention of a number of lesser pilgrimage sites and without annotation. The riḥla was also summarized along with Ḥullat al-dhahab by Flügel, G., “Einige geographische und ethnographische Handschriften der Rifaîja auf der Universitätsbibliothek zu Leipzig”, ZDMG, XVI, 1862, 651709.Google Scholar

4 See Sourdel-Thomine, J., “Les anciens lieux de pèlerinages damascains d'après les sources arabes”, BEO, XIV, 19521954, 75.Google Scholar

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6 See ‘Arafat, W. in EI, second edition, I, 1214.Google Scholar

7 cf. earlier Arab authors on Bāb al-Ṣaghīr Cemetery in al-Munajjid, S., Madīnat Dimashq ‘ind al-jughrāfiyyīn wa-r-raḥḥālīn, Beirut, 1968, 128–9, 159, 178–9, 265–6.Google Scholar

8 See Çelebi, Evliya, Seyahatnāme, Istanbul 1896/18971938, IX, 562.Google Scholar

9 He also records this shaykh in al-Ḥaḍra near Aḥmad al-Sarūjī, nisba from Sarūj in south Turkey.

10 Ibnal-Athīr, , Usud al-ghāba, Bulaq, 18631870, I, 49Google Scholar; Ibnal-Ḥawrānī, , al-Ishārāt ilā amākin al-ziyārāt, Damascus, 19091910, 17Google Scholar; al-Nawawī, , Tahdhīb al-asmā' wa-l-lughāt, Cairo, c. 1970, I, 109–10Google Scholar; see also Sourdel-Thomine, , art. cit. 80, n. 3.Google Scholar

11 Al-Ḥaqīqa, Damascus, Zāhiriyya MS 3226, F12a.

12 Al-Ḥaḍra, Zāhiriyya MS 6844, F12b.

13 See Ibnal-Ḥawrānī, , 17.Google Scholar

14 See Ibnal-Ḥawrānī, , 18ff.Google Scholar for stories concerning Shaykh Arslān and this site. Some extraordinary Christian ideas grew up around it, e.g. the 17th-century French traveller de Thévenot was told that it has been a temple of Serapis and the tomb of St. Simeon Stylites, whose body prevented the mu'adhdhin from calling the faithful to prayer. For a full study of Shaykh Arslān see Haṣriyya, I., Shaykh Arslān al-Dimashqī, Damascus, 1970, where al-Nābulusī's commentary, printed Damascus, 1969, is also discussed.Google Scholar

15 Elisséeff, N., Description de Damas, French translation of Ibn‘Asākir, , Ta'rīkh madīnat Dimashq, Damascus, 1959, p. 152, nn. 4 and 5.Google Scholar

16 Elisséeff, , 303, n. 5.Google Scholar

17 See also Ibnal-Ḥawrānī, , p. 19, on Marj al-Daḥdāḥ and these graves. The accounts are very similar and al-Nābulusī probably borrowed from Ibn al-ḥawrānī without reference.Google Scholar

18 MSS Cairo 2/128; Alexandria Fun. 90. See GAL, II, 345.Google Scholar

19 The tomb of Ibn al-‘Arabī is now protected by a 19th-century silver grille. An ‘imāra was built there in 923/1517 on the orders of Selim I, whence to distribute free food to the poor visiting the tomb. See EI, II, art. “Dimashk”, 288.Google Scholar

20 Al-Ḥaqīqa, F15b. Cf. al-Murādī's, account, Silk al-durar, Baghdad, c. 1966, III, 32.Google Scholar

21 See Sourdel-Thomine, , art. cit. pp. 71–2Google Scholar on the maqām of Ibrāhīm at Barza. Earliest Arabic descriptions are by IbnJubayr, , Riḥla, Beirut 1964, 275Google Scholar; Harawī, , Kitāb al-ziyārāt, Damascus, 1953, 11Google Scholar; Yāqūt, , Mu'jam al-buldān, Leipzig, 1866Google Scholar, repr. Tehran, , 1965, I, 563. None antedates the 6th/12th century.Google Scholar

22 On Qutham's death at Samarqand and his tomb there see Bosworth's, C. E. translation of al-Tha‘ālibī, , Laṭā’if al-ma ‘ārif, p. 88, 96 and n. 41.Google Scholar

23 Porter, J. L., Five years in Damascus, I, London, 1855, 349.Google Scholar

24 On shrines of al-Khidr see Canaan, T., Mohammadan saints and sanctuaries in Palestine, London, 1927, 120ff.Google Scholar

25 Tahdhīb, Al-Nawawī, I, 214Google Scholar; Ibn‘Abd al-Barr, , al-Istī’ āb, II, 544–5.Google Scholar

26 See Sourdel-Thomine, al-Harawī trans., Guide, 20, n. 5.Google Scholar

27 End of Jumādā, I, 1103/mid-February, 1692Google Scholar. See also al-Murādī, , I, 77.Google Scholar

28 The present building dates only from A.D. 1908, when the old structure was pulled down. See art. “Ḥimṣ” in EI, second edition, III, 401–2Google Scholar; Herzfeld, E., “Damascus, studies in architecture”, in AI, X, 1943, 6670.Google Scholar

29 Al-Ḥaqīqa, F37a.

30 See Dickie, J., “Appendix on the tomb of ‘Umar b. ‘Abd al-‘Azīz” in IQ, XVI, 1972, 80.Google Scholar

31 Al-Ḥaqīqa, F31b.

32 idem, F37b.

33 Generally on Abū Yazīd al-Bisṭāmī see Arberry, A. J., Revelation and reason in Islam, 90103Google Scholar; Massignon, L., Essai sur les origines du lexique technique de la mystique musulmane, 243–56Google Scholar; Ritter, H., art. EI, second edition, I, 162–3.Google Scholar

34 Al-Ḥaqīqa, F43b.

35 See al-Murādī, , III, 22.Google Scholar

36 On the shrine see Gaulmier, J., “Pèlerinages populaires à Ḥamā”, BEO, I, 1931, 147Google Scholar, who mentions that sick children would be placed there during the Friday prayer. On the mosque see Elisséeff, , BEO, XIII, 19491951, 31Google Scholar; Herzfeld, E., AI, X, 1943, 42Google Scholar and Fig. 67, also described by IbnJubayr, in Riḥla, p. 247.Google Scholar

37 See Flügel, G., “Einige geographische und ethnographische Handschriften”, ZDMG, XVI, 1862, 654–5Google Scholar on al-Nābulusī's visit to this site on the fourth day of the journey recorded in Ḥullat al-dhahab. See also Busse, H., “Abd al-Ghani's Reisen im Libanon”, Islam, XLIV, 1968, 101Google Scholar, where he remarks on the mosque there built by Pasha, Muḥammad, Grand Vizier of Sultan Ibrāhīm, Al-Harawī trans. Sourdel-Thomine, , Guide, 23, n. 4Google Scholar remarks that the shrine continues to be venerated, cf. accounts by al-Harawī, , 10Google Scholar, IbnJubayr, , 253Google Scholar and Çelebi, Evliya, IX, 552. Another legendary grave of Shīth is on Mt. Qubays near Mecca.Google Scholar

38 Seyahatnāme, IX, 399.Google Scholar

39 See Canaan, , Mohammadan saints and sanctuaries, 290ff. on these shrines of the Forty in general, and specific sites of this kind in Palestine.Google Scholar

40 Al-Ḥaqīqa, F50a.

41 Maundrell, Henry, A journey from Aleppo to Jerusalem in 1697, Beirut, 1963, 1219Google Scholar. On possible places of Ibrāhīm b. Adham's death and burial see art. by Jones, Russell in EI, second edition, III, 985–6.Google Scholar

42 See Arberry, A. J., Muslim saints and mysties, 78, translation from Tadhkirat al-awliyā’ of Farīd al-dīn ‘Aṭṭār.Google Scholar

43 cf. Evliya Çelebi's account of the site about 20 years earlier in Seyahatnāme, IX, 391. He calls Ibn Hānī “Mes'ud Ummehani”.Google Scholar

44 idem, IX, 391.

45 Al-Ḥaqīqa, F55a.

46 Seyahatnāme, IX, 391.Google Scholar

47 On such sites and their origins in south Lebanon and Palestine see Abel, F.-M., “Le Culte de Jonas en Palestine”, JPOS, II, 1922, 175–83.Google Scholar