Murtada al-Zabidi
Al-Murtaḍá al-Husaynī al-Zabīdī (), or Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad Murtaḍá al-Zabīdī (1732–1790 / 1145–1205 AH), also known as Murtada al-Zabidi, was a prominent Indian Sunni polymath based in Cairo. He was a Hanafi scholar, lexicographer, linguist, a hadith specialist, genealogist, biographer, historian, philologist, mystic and theologian. He was considered one of the leading intellectuals of the 18th century. He was also regarded as the leading hadith scholar of his time. He was the famous student of the prominent and renowned scholar, Shah Waliullah Dehlawi. Biography
Murtaḍá' was born in 1732 (1145AH) in Bilgram, Hardoi, Uttar Pradesh, India. His family originated from Wasit in Iraq, from where his parents had emigrated to the Hadramawt region in the east of Yemenwhere the Husaynī tribe is situated. Murtaḍá earned his nisba 'al-Zabīdī' from Zabīd in the south western coastal plains of Yemen, which was a centre of academic learning where he had spent time studying. He travelled to Hejaz (Jeddah, Mecca and Madinah) and then settled in Egypt. He was renowned in the Islamic world. Rulers from Hejaz, India, Yemen, Levant, Iraq, Morocco, Turkey, Sudan and Algiers corresponded with him; people sent him presents and gifts from everywhere. He was revered and admired so much that some people in Western Africa believed that their Hajj was incomplete if they did not plan to see Murtađa Zabīdī. He died in Cairo during an epidemic plague in the year 1205AH/1790CE. Reception
Al-Kattānī states in his book, Fahris al-Fahāris: "Zabīdī was peerless in his time and age. None after Ibn al-Ĥajar al-Ásqalāni and his students can match Az-Zabīdī in terms of his encyclopaedic knowledge of traditions and its associated sciences; nor in fame or list of students." Zabidi's immense proficiency of diverse sciences and his thriving trade with books as well as with his own writings was described with commendation by one of his Maghribi visitors, Ibn 'Abdal al-Salam al-Nasiri:

Works
Taj al-Arus min Jawahir al-Qamus () 'The Bride's Crown from the Pearls of the Qamus (Dictionary)'; an expansion of Fairuzabadi's Al-Qamoos, the most frequently cited dictionary of Classical Arabic after Lisān al-ʿArab by Ibn Manẓūr. Itḥāf al-sadāh al-muttaqīn bi sharḥ iḥyāʾ ʿulūm al-dīn: A commentary on al-Ghazali's monumental Ihya' Ulum al-Din. Al-Rauḍ al-ǧalī fī ansāb Āl Bā ʻAlawī () (Damascus, Dār Kinān li-ṭ-Ṭibāʻa wa an-Našr wa-t-Tauzī, 2010)

Al-Ūqyānūs al-basīṭ fī tarjamat al-Qāmūs al-muḥīṭ (); (al-Qāhirah, Maṭbaʻat Būlāq, 1834)

References

External links
A short biography and list of works: Imam Sayyid Murtada al-Zabidi
The entire work of Taj al-Arus in pdf format: تاج العروس - الزبيدي

Hanafis
Maturidis
Mujaddid
Arab lexicographers
Sunni Sufis
Indian Sufis
Iraqi Sufis
Naqshbandi order
Yemeni Sufis
Yemeni writers
1732 births
1790 deaths
18th-century lexicographers
18th-century philologists