Al-Damiri

Al-Damiri (1341–1405), the common name of Kamal al-Din Muhammad ibn Musa al-Damiri (Arabic: كمال الدين محمد بن موسى الدميري), was a Shafi'i Sunni scholar, jurist, traditionist, theologian, and expert in Arabic from late medieval Cairo. He was best known for his writing on Muslim jurisprudence and natural history. He wrote the first known systematic work on zoological knowledge in Arabic, the Ḥayāt al-ḥayawān al-kubrā, c.1371.

Life

Al-Damiri was born in 1341 (742 AH) in Cairo, where he lived, learned, graduated, and died. His family’s origins go back to the countryside of Lower Egypt, from the village of Damira, close to Samannud on the eastern or Damietta branch of the Nile in the Delta. Since his youth, he worked with his father in a sewing shop, and his love for animals continued to grow with him, along with his passion for science and other knowledge, which prompted his father to direct him to complete his religious studies at Al-Azhar University.

He mastered the sciences of theology, jurisprudence, hadith, Arabic, etc at al-Azhar under the leading scholars of his day, most notably Jamal al-Din al-Isnawi, Bahaā' al-Din al-Subki, Burhan al-Din al-Qirati, Abd Allah ibn Abd al-Rahman ibn Aqil, including the three marvels of his era, Siraj al-Din al-Bulqini, Zain al-Din al-Iraqi, and Ibn al-Mulaqqin.

His brilliance and distinction enabled him to become a professor; at Al-Azhar, he taught lessons on Saturdays; at Rukniyya, where he became the professor of tradition and lectured on hadith studies; at the ibn al-Baqri School in Bab al-Nasr, where he preached to people on Jumu'ah; and at Mosque of al-Zahir Baybars in the al-Husseiniyah neighborhood, where he used to give his lessons after Jumu'ah. He was a mystic, or Ṣūfī, who was renowned for his fasting, prayer, and asceticism. He made Hajj more than six times.