Unfortunately, little is left for us to reconstruct his life story. Although al-MakkÄ« appears in many biographical dictionaries, these reports are in general highly repetitive, and the weight of numbers does not count for a great deal in building up a picture of al-MakkÄ«ās personal life. This section attempts to collate information which is currently scattered across modern research on al-MakkÄ«1 and various į¹abaqÄt works.
The earliest extant book which mentions a personal account about al-Makkī seems to be
TarÄ«kh BaghdÄd (āThe History of Baghdadā) by al-Khaį¹Ä«b al-BaghdÄdÄ« (d. 463/1071).
2 This famous work contains a short but valuable sketch of al-MakkÄ«ās life, which is frequently quoted by later authors. Among other early accounts, al-MakkÄ« is also mentioned in
al-AnsÄb al-muttafiqa (āHomonymous Lineagesā) by Ibn al-QaysarÄnÄ« (d. 507/1113),
3 al-AnsÄb (āLineagesā)by al-Sam
ÄnÄ« (d. 562/1166),
4 al-Muntaam fÄ« tarÄ«kh al-duwal waā
l-umam (āSystematic Arrangement in the History of States and Communitiesā) by Ibn al-JawzÄ« (d. 597/1200)
5 and the
WafayÄt al-ayÄn (āObituaries of Famous Peopleā) by Ibn KhallikÄn (d. 681/1282).
6 The
Tarīkh,
al-Muntaam and the
WafayÄt can be said to be the key early sources for the life of al-MakkÄ«, and their accounts are often cited in later literature. Ibn al-QaysarÄnÄ« uses al-Khaį¹Ä«bās report almost
verbatim and al-Sam
ÄnÄ« copies Ibn al-QaysarÄnÄ«ās account virtually word
for word. Neither of them adds anything new about al-MakkÄ« unlike Ibn al-JawzÄ« and Ibn KhallikÄn.
In the
TarÄ«kh, al-Khaį¹Ä«b al-BaghdÄdÄ« includes al-MakkÄ« among approximately eight thousand figures who had some connection with Baghdad. This famous preacher and
adīth scholar writes in an account of al-Makkī:
7 Mu
ammad b.
Alī b.
Aį¹iyya AbÅ«
Älib is generally known as al-MakkÄ«. He compiled a book entitled
The Nourishment of Hearts in Sufi language, wherein he talked of objectionable and dishonourable (
munkara wa mustashna) matters concerning the attributes [of God]. He learned
adīth from
Alī b. A
mad al-Maį¹£Ä«į¹£Ä«,AbÅ« Bakr al-MufÄ«d and others. Mu
ammad b. al-Mu
affar al-KhayyÄį¹ and
Abd al-
Azīzb.
Alī al-Azjī told me about him. Abū
Ähir Mu
ammad b.
Alī b. al-
AllÄf related to me that AbÅ«
Älib al-MakkÄ« was one of the people of Jabal, brought up in Mecca, entered Basra after the deat...
