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This article examines the career and traits of Sharīf al-Dīn Muḥammad b. As'ad al-Jawwānī (1131-92), an Egyptian genealogist and historian of Ḥusaynid descent, with special reference to his expertise in the genealogy of the Ṭālibids (i. e., sayyids and sharīfs). Al-Jawwānī enjoyed a reputation as an authoritative expert of Ṭālibid and Arab genealogy, and over the course of his career, he served the Fāṭimids as the head (naqīb) of the sharīfs of "Miṣr" and then served sultan Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn as a regular attendant in his court. Available information about his written works shows that his expertise lay in the Ṭālibids' genealogy and history, Arab genealogy more generally, hadith transmission and criticism, and the topography of Cairo. It also reveals that al-Jawwānī identified himself as a Sunni, at least outwardly and most probably already during the Fāṭimid period. In terms of his knowledge of Ṭālibid genealogy, al-Jawwānī can be considered an heir to the founding figures of the discipline of Ṭālibid genealogy in the 10th and the 11th centuries, such as Shaykh al-Sharaf al-'Ubaydalī (from 11th-century Iraq), Abū'l-Ḥasan al-'Umarī (from 11th-century Iraq), and Abū'l-Ghanā'im al-Dimashqī (from 11th-century Syria). This finding contributes to the author's ongoing project to reconstruct the history of the discipline during the 12th to the 15th centuries. This period contrasts with the formative period in the 10th and the 11th centuries in that the later genealogists tended to operate in terms of the local schools of their respective regions (e.g., Iraq, Khurāsān, and Egypt-Syria), rather than in terms of a trans-regional scholarly network, which had enabled the discipline's foundation during the 10th to 11th centuries. Al-Jawwānī's case helps the present author locate the scholarly tradition of Egypt-Syria in this broader context. In addition, this study identifies al-Jawwānī's promotion of tomb visitation in Cairo as a practice that was specifically linked to that genealogist's Cairene background. |
