The Disputed Name and Origin of Abū al-Fatḥ al-Karājikī (d. 449/1057)

Abstract

This study examines the various historical attempts to explain the nisbah—the denominal adjectival appellation—al-Karājikī, of Abū al-Fatḥ Muḥammad b. ʿAlī b. ʿUthmān al-Karājikī, well-known Twelver Shiite theologian and jurist who studied under al-Shaykh al-Mufīd (d. 413/1022) and died in 449/1057. Several biographical sources explain that al-Karājikī’s nisbah means “tent-maker” or “tent-seller,” evidently interpreting karājik as a word of non- Arabic origin denoting tents. This view has been generally accepted in studies of Twelver Shiite intellectual history, but a few scholars have noted that al-Karājikī might be connected with a toponym. Abū al-Fatḥ al-Karājikī’s birth date is not known, nor is his native region. His writings and biographical sources demonstrate that he studied in Baghdad and spent most of his life in Syria and Egypt, but he reports in one passage that he was in Mayyāfāriqīn (modern Silvan, in Turkey) in the year 399/1008–9, when he must have been fairly young. This study argues that al-Karājikī is a geographical nisbah that derives from Karacık, a village in what is now the district of Bismil in the province of Diyarbakır, Turkey. It suggests that al-Karājikī was a native of this village and that he studied in Mayyāfāriqīn in his youth, before traveling to Baghdad to undertake advanced studies in Twelver Shiite law and theology.

Keywords

• ulema
• meyyâfârikîn
• mervânîler
• ebu’l-feth el-kerâcikî
• anatolia
• mayyāfāriqīn
• marwanids
• abu al-fath karajiki