25 September 2025: Stefanie Brinkmann, “Between Mamluk Egypt, Mongol Azerbayjan and Anatolia: Traces of a hadith commentator and his editorial efforts”, Toledo

The presentation was given at the workshop “Circulation, Collection, and Cultural Dynamics of Islamic Manuscripts in the Pre-Modern Islamic World (8 – 16^th c.)”, 24 – 26 September, 2025, in Toledo, organised by Bruno de Nicola (Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna) and Ignacio Sánchez (Escuela de Traductores, Toledo).

This presentation focuses on the lesser-known scholar Zayn al-ʿArab, who hailed from Mamluk Egypt and was active in Ilkhanid and post-Ilkhanid Azerbaijan and Anatolia. Through the analysis of manuscripts of his commentary on al-Baghawī's hadith collection Maṣābīḥ al-sunna, as well as a few other works, the presentation traces his movements within the Mongol territories and his editorial work on the Maṣābīḥ al-sunna. The study of the manuscripts includes an analysis of the various prefaces to his commentary, colophons, collation notes, title pages, and more. The prefaces demonstrate Zayn al-ʿArab’s ongoing study of the Maṣābīḥ and his discussions with students, colleagues, and scholars of other schools of thought. In the end, this resulted in three different versions of his commentary. Although Zayn al-ʿArab possibly never returned to Egypt, it was his son, Muḥammad, who transmitted his father's works, as well as al-Baghawī's Maṣābīḥ al-sunna, at the Shaykhūniyya madrasa in Cairo, as it is attested in a few colophons.

See the full programme here