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The Mutawakkili of As-Suyuti – Translation of the Arabic Text with Introduction, Notes, and Indices by WILLIAM Y BELL

فيما ورد في القرآن باللغة الحبشية والفارسية والهندية والتركية والزنجية والنبطية والقبطية والسريانية والعبرانية والرومية والبربرية

THE MUTAWAKKILI OF AS-SUYUTI

Book introduction.

Abû ‘l-Fadi ‘Abd ar-Raḥmân ibn Abî Bakr ibn Muḥammad ibn Abi Bakr Julâl ad-dîn as-Suyûļî al-Khudairî ash-Shafi’i, eminent scholar and one of the most prolific writers of all time, is a character so well known to students of Muslim literature that it is hardly necessary to enter here upon a detailed narrative of his life.

He was born at Suyût (Usyût) in Upper Egypt, Sunday i Rajab, 849 (October 3rd, 1445), and died 18 Jumâdâ 1,911 (October 17th, 1505).

While the extensiveness of his writings has subjected him to serious charges of plagiarism in many instances, yet it is certain that he is deserving of the high ésteem in which he is held, both as a thorough and painstaking scholar and as a safe and reliable traditionist. His attainments cover a wide range of learning in Koranic Exegesis, Traditions, Law, Philosophy, Philology, Rhetoric, etc.

The titles to more than five hundred works attributed to him testify to his indefatigable labors as an author. Of highest rank among these are the Itqan, on Koranic interpretation, a work of great merit the Tafsir al-Jalâlain, begün by Jalâl ad-dîn al-Mahallî, and completed by as-Suyûţi;

the Muzhir, on philology; the. Husn muḥādara, on Old and New Cairo; and the Tarikh al-Khulafā, History of the Caliphs.

Frequent references to the Itqan will be noted throughout this dissertation (1).

This as-Suyûtî is the author of the treatise which is the subject of our study, and by him entitled al- Matawakkili in honor of the patron and Caliph who ordered its composition (I), viz., al-Mutawakkil ‘abd al-Aziz, known as Mutawkkil III (d. 945/1536), the last of the Abbâsid quasi-Caliphs, servants of the Mamlûk rulers. of Egypt (2).

Weak, dissolute, and unprincipled opportunist as he was, al-Mutawakkil yet pretended to religious sincerity and it is not improbable that in this pretension we may find the explanation of his instruction to as-Suyûțî to prepare the book which bears his name Al-Mutawakkili (3) is a treatise on foreign words in the Qorân.

It embraces the study of 108 such words which, according to as-Suyûțî, have their origin in the Aethiopic, Persian, Greek, Indian, Syriac, Hebrew, Aramaic, Coptic, Turkish, the Blacks’, and the Berber languages. Together, I think, with the Chapter in his Itqan (4) devoted to a similar study and comprising 118 words, including, with few exceptions, those treated here, (5) this edition is an extract from a more extensive work by the author entitled, al-Masālik (6).

In these treatises, as-Suyûțî follows the method of treatment accepted as the norm by Muslim savants, viz., the rule of citing eminent authorities for his conclusions without attempting anything like a scientific treatment, as modern scholars would apply that term. Beyond this, he would not pause to consider it either necessary nor