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ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Akhḍarī

Savant

ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Muḥammad al-Akhḍarī was born around 1512 in the region of Biskra, in present-day Algeria, and died around 1575. He lived in a family of scholars and was himself a teacher and a prolific poet. The Mukhtaṣar al-Akhḍarī This short treatise begins with the duties of the believer towards God and the correction of his intention, then sets out the rules of purification, ablutions, ritual bathing, prayer and prostrations of reparation, according to the Mālikite school. Its simplicity made it the first fiqh book studied in many Koranic schools and daaras in the Maghreb and West Africa, particularly in Senegal. It is often learned by heart and has been translated into several languages. A scholar of all sciences Al-Akhḍarī also composed didactic poems in other disciplines. Al-Sullam al-murawnaq is a poem on logic, widely studied and commented on. Al-Jawhar al-maknūn deals with rhetoric; al-Durra al-bayḍāʾ, inheritance and calculation; other texts focus on astronomy. Photo: page from a manuscript of an astronomical poem by al-Akhḍarī.