Sayyid Ash Sharaf Ar Razi The compiler of Nahjul Balagah His Life and Work By: Dr. Sayyid Muhammad Mahdi Ja'fari Translated by Mahdi Chamanzar from Imamreza.net
The life of Sayyid Razi who was born in 359 AH/970 CE in Baghdad and died in the year 406/1015 in his hometown, coincided with the era of the Buyid dynasty (334-447/946-1056) which had reduced the Abbasid caliphs to mere nominal rulers. It was the golden age of Arabic literature and among his contemporaries mention could be made of the great poets Al-Mutinabbi and Abual-'Ala'Mu'arri. Sayyid Razi was born in a prominent household directly descended from the Prophet (pbuh), as is clear from the epithets of 'Sayyid' and 'Sharif, by which he was referred. His father Abu Ahmad Husayn bin Musa was fifth in line of descent from the 7th Imam, Musa al-Kazim (a.s.), and held the prestigious position of the Naqib al-Nuqaba ' of Iraq, a responsibility which required the managing of affairs of the Sadats (Prophet's descendants). He was given the title of 'Tahir Awhad Dhu al-Manaqib' and died in 396 and was buried in the shrine of Imam Husayn (A.S.) in Karbala'. At his death, Sayyid Razi, who had been acting as his father's deputy since 381, officially became the Naqib al-Nuqaba' and held the position till his own death in 406/1015. His father's genealogy reads: Husayn bin Musa bin Muhammad bin Musa bin Ibrahim Mujab bin Imam Musa al-Kazim ( a.s.). Sayyid Razi's mother Fatimah also traced her lineage to the Prophet (pbuh) and was the daughter of Husayn bin Abu Muhammad al- Hasan al-Utrush bin 'Ali bin Hasan bin 'Umar al-Ashraf the son of the 4th Infallible Imam, 'Ali ibn al-Husayn Zayn al-'Abidin (a.s.). She was a pious and noble lady, and was held in high esteem by scholars and other notables. At her request, the great scholar Shaykh Mufid compiled the book Ahkam al-Nisa' which contains the fiqhi rules for women. Her family had carved out an independent principality in Tabaristan on the southern coasts of the Caspian Sea. She died in Baghdad in 385 AH. There is an interesting story how Sayyid Razi and his elder brother 'Ali Abual-Kasim Sayyid Murtaza started their formal Islamic education. According to Ibn Abi al-Hadid in Sharh Nahj al-Balaghah, Shaykh Mufid saw a dream that a lady appearing to be the Prophet's daughter Hazrat Fatimah Zahra' ('a) entered his mosque in the Karkh locality of Baghdad with two small boys and asked him to teach them fiqh. The Shaykh woke up in a rather perplexed state of mind in view of his own paucity of knowledge when compared to Imam Hasan (a.s.) and Imam Husayn (a.s.). But the next day when Fatimah, the wife of the Naqib al-Nuqaba ', entered the mosque with her two sons and requested him to teach them Islamic sciences, he understood the purport of his dream and accepted her request with great honour. The two brothers together soon mastered different branches of Islamic sciences under Shaykh Mufid and other leading scholars of Baghdad, but unlike Sayyid Razi who was more inclined towards politics and literature, Sayyid Mortaza was deeply interested in fiqh. Sayyid Murtaza, who acquired the epithet of 'Alam al-Huda, was four years older than his brother and died at the age of 81 years in 436/ 1044. He served as Naqib al-Nuqaba' after the death of Sayyid Razi and was considered a master of kalam, fiqh, usul al- fiqh, literature, grammar, poetry and other fields of knowledge. His divan or poetical composition runs into more than 20,000 verses. He authored several books such as al-Shafi fl al-Imamah, al- Dhakh'irah fi Usul al-Fiqh, al-Ghurar wa al-Durar, and al-Tanzih.
All Shi'ia and Sunni scholars acknowledge that Sayyid
Murtaza was the greatest scholar of his era and groomed many
outstanding 'ulama' including the famous Shaykh al-Ta'ifah
Abu Ja'far al-Tusi, the founder of the celebrated
theological Centre of Najaf. Sayyid Razi's only son Abu Ahmad 'Adnan was also a prominent scholar of his time and after the death of his uncle Sayyid Murtaza, he was entrusted with the post of Naqib al- Nuqaba'. He was given the title of his grandfather 'Taher Dhu al- Manaqeb' by the Buhid ruler and was highly respected for his knowledge and nobility of character. 'Adnan died issueless in 449 and with his death the physical line of Sayyid Razi came to an end. However, Sayyid Razi was destined for lasting fame in view of his valuable works, especially the compilation of the sermons, letters, and maxims of Imam Ali ( 'a) under the title Nahj al-Balaghah. Sayyid Razi's genius flowered in early youth under the celebrated Abi 'Abdullah Muhammad bin Muhammad bin Nu'man known popularly as Shaykh Mufid. Among his other teachers, mention could be made of the Malikite jurist Abu Ishaq Ibrahim bin Ahmad Tabari, the grammarian Abu 'Ali Hasan bin Ahmad 'Abd al-Ghaffar al-Farsi, Abu Sa'id Hasan bin 'Abdullah bin Marzban al-Baghdadi who was known as Qazi Sirafi, the Mu'tazalite scholar Abu al-Hasan Qazi 'Abd al-Jabbar bin Ahmad al-Baghdadi, and many more.
Sayyid Razi, personally administered the school, student affairs
and the library. He constantly sought to meet the welfare
needs of the students, so that they could go about their
studies with a clear mind. As a result, a great number of
intellectuals graduated from his school, which had become
popular throughout the Islamic lands including Iran and
Egypt.
Needless to say, these graduates in turn taught and
transferred their knowledge acquired through Sayyid Razi to
other generations.
Sayyid Razi was an outstanding Arabic poet and a literary
genius, and his aesthetic taste could be evinced from his
works. Abd al-Latif Shararah says of him: |
