Guardian of the Cloak: In defence of al-Busiri's Ode al-Burda
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Translator
Amjad Mahmood
Description
About The Book
Loving and praising the Messenger Muhammad [may Allah bless him and give him peace] is an essential cornerstone of every believer’s faith. This core facet of the faith has manifested itself in the form of beautiful poetic eulogy from his own time until today. For centuries, the Qasidah al-Burdah [The ode of the cloak] of al-Buṣiri (d. ca. 696 AH) has been arguably the most popular eulogising ode of this kind. As such, it has been passed down ever since by successive and countless Muslim communities, by both layperson and authoritative scholar alike.
Recent history, however, has witnessed grave accusations emerge against the poem, with claims that some of its lines contain polytheism (shirk) and disbelief (kufr). This treatise, Guardian of the Cloak, is a thorough and scholarly response to such charges.
About the Contributor(s)
About the author
Dawud ibn Sulayman al-Baghdadi: Shaykh Dawud ibn Sulayman al-Baghdadi al-Naqshabandi al-Khalidi al-Shafi'i rahimahullah (1815-1882) was a 19th-century scholar of Baghdad who dedicated much of his scholarly life to defending traditional Sunni orthodoxy. A follower of the Naqshbandi-Khalidi order, he adhered to the Shafi'i school of jurisprudence. His travels took him extensively through the central regions of the Muslim world, including the Hejaz, Syro-Palestine, and Egypt, where he engaged with scholars and composed polemical and devotional works. Among his writings are a defense of the legitimacy of all four Sunni schools of Islamic law, a pointed refutation of the Wahhabi movement and of the Hanafi scholar Mahmud al-Alusi, and 'Guardian of the Cloak,' his defense of Imam al-Busiri's celebrated Qasida al-Burda. He died in 1882, leaving behind a body of work that continues to be valued within traditional Sunni scholarship.
About the translator
Amjad Mahmood: Amjad Mahmood is a contemporary translator and annotator of classical Islamic texts, working chiefly with Heritage Press in the United Kingdom. His renderings give English readers careful access to works of Sufism and Hanafi law, with attention to footnoting, source references, and the Qurʾan and Sunna citations embedded in the original texts. Among his best known works is The Refinement of Souls, a translation of Taj al-ʿArus al-Hawi li-Tahdhib al-Nufus by Ibn ʿAtaʾ Allah al-Iskandari, the Shadhili master. The book gathers spiritual instructions, aphorisms, and intimate discourses with the Divine, treating themes such as repentance, the effects of sin, the struggle against the lower self, envy, and reliance on divine planning. Mahmood has also translated devotional and juristic primers, notably the "A Believer's Guide" series on prayer, fasting, and zakat, which render treatises by scholars including Muhammad Hisham Burhani and Ahmad ibn Zayni Dahlan, and he has worked on creedal material associated with the Hanafi and Maturidi tradition. Working from within the traditional Sunni scholarly current, his translations are valued for plain, faithful English and useful annotation rather than paraphrase. Detailed biographical information about him is not widely published; he is known primarily through his body of translation work.
Specifications
EAN 13 / ISBN
9780957693784
Publisher
Heritage Press
Author
Dawud ibn Sulayman al-Baghdadi
Pages
132
Translator
Amjad Mahmood
Year Published
2015
Size
W- | H- | D-
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