Ethical Dimensions of al-Qāḍī ʿIyāḍ’s al-Shifā

In modern scholarship, one frequently encounters impressive accolades attributed to ʿIyāḍ ibn Mūsā al-Yaḥṣubī’s (al-Qāḍī ʿIyāḍ, d. 544/1149) Kitāb al-Shifā bi-Taʿrīf Ḥuqūq al-Muṣṭafā (“The Cure in Knowing the Rights of the Chosen One”) and its significance within Islamic history. In her classic study, And Muhammad is His Messenger: The Veneration of the Prophet in Islamic Piety, Annemarie Schimmel described al-Shifā as “perhaps the most frequently used and commented-upon handbook in which the Prophet’s life, his qualities, and his miracles are described in every detail” (Schimmel 1985, 33). More recently, Camilo Gomez-Rivas has similarly noted that “the book became so famous that it was accorded a kind of sacredness of its own, reputedly bestowing the gift of protection upon any house in which it was found” (Gomez-Rivas 2013, 331). Of unknown provenance, a popular North African proverb expresses simultaneously the significance of al-Qāḍī ʿIyāḍ and his most famous work: “Were it not for ʿIyāḍ, the Maghrib would not have been mentioned. Were it not for al-Shifā, ʿIyāḍ would not have been mentioned” (Albarran 2015, 39; Kassas 1988, 49). There is little question that al-Shifā succeeded in presenting a vision of the Prophet Muḥammad which achieved a kind of canonical significance across much of the Islamic world.

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Published in: Key Classical Works on Islamic Ethics
License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
See chapter on publisher's website: https://dx.doi.org/10.1163/9789004459472_011