Abu Tahir Isfahani

Training under Abū Bakr al-Darbandī, Abu-l-Ghanàïm al-Narsí and Kamil ibn Thabit al-Suri is recorded. Abu al-Hajjaj al-Balawi, Al-Sahib ibn Shukr and Ibn Arabi are recorded as having studied under Abu Tahir Isfahani. The recorded working language is Persian and Arabic. The field of work recorded is science of hadith and fiqh. Places of work recorded in the authority are Alexandria.

• Religion — Islam • Occupation — Muhaddith, Scholar, Muslim Jurist, Biographer • Name — Abu Tahir al-Silafi • Title — Shaykh al-Islām Al-Ḥāfiẓ • Born — 478 AH/1085 AD • Birthplace — Isfahan • Died — 576 AH/1180 AD • Place of death — Alexandria, Ayyubid dynasty • Education — Nizamiyya of Baghdad • Denomination — Sunni • Jurisprudence — Shafi'i • Creed — Ash'ari • Main Interests — Hadith, Fiqh, Biographical Evaluation • Influences — Al-Shafi'i Abu Hasan al-Ash'ari Al-Kiya al-Harrasi • Influenced — Ibn Tahir al-Maqdisi Abd al-Ghani al-Maqdisi Al-Mundhiri

The revered hadith transmitter and jurist Abu Tahir al-Silafi left his birth town of Isfahan at a young age and travelled to Baghdad to further his studies. He met with Al-Kiya al-Harrasi, who at the time was the Müderris in the Nizamiyya of Baghdad and studied under him. Soon later, he left and began roaming around the Islamic lands narrating hadiths and writing down biographies of people whom he narrated from. He arrived in Alexandria in 511/117 and made his home there. Al-Silafī ran the second madrasa to be built in Egypt (and the first Shāfi‘ī one there), built in Alexandria in 1149 on the order of Alexandria's then-governor, the Shāfi‘ī al-‘Ādil ibn Salār, vizier to Caliph al-Ẓāfir. It was named ‘Ādiliyya after its founder, but became popularly known as al-Silafiyya after its leading teacher. Probably in 1118, al-Silafī married Sitt al-Ahl bint al-Khalwānī; their daughter Khadīja (d. 1226) married the scholar Abu’l-Ḥarām Makkī b. ‘Abd al-Raḥmān al-Ṭrabulsī, whose son, Abu’l-Qāsim ‘Abd al-Raḥmān (born 1174), also became an important scholar in Alexandria.

Among his popular works is the Mu‘jam al-safar (The Dictionary of Travel), a biographical dictionary: 'covering from 511/1117 to 560/1164, the Mu‘jam can be regarded as a digest of intellectual life in late Fāṭimī Alexandria'. His other famous similar works include: (The Dictionary of the scholars of Isfahan) and (The Dictionary of The Scholars of Baghdad).

• Rizzitano, U. “Akhbār ‘an ba‘ḍ muslimī ṣiqilliya alladhīna tarjama la-hum Abū Ṭāhir al-Silafī,” Annals of the Faculty of Arts, Uni. of ‘Ayn Shams, 3 (1955): pp. 49-112 • ‘Abbās, I. Akhbār wa tarājim Andalusiyya al-mustakhraja min Mu ‘jam al-safar li al-Silafī. Beirut, 1963 • Zaman, S.M. Abū Ṭāhir al-Silafī al-Iṣbahānī. His life and works with an analytical study of his Mu‘jam al-safar. PhD thesis, Harvard Univ., Cambridge (Mass.), 1968 • Ṣāliḥ, Ḥ. The life and times of al-Ḥāfiẓ Abū Ṭāhir al-Silafī accompanied by a critical edition of part of the author’s Mu‘jam al-safar. PhD thesis, Univ. of Cambridge, 1972 • Ma ‘rūf, B. A. “Mu‘jam al-safar li-Abī Ṭāhir al-Silafī,” al-Mawrid, 8 (1979): pp. 379–383 • Zaman, S.M. Mu‘jam al-safar. Islamabad, 1988