IF one were to ask a passerby on the street: What's the difference between Michael Jackson and Michael Jordan or one Bollywood superstar and another, chances are they would say ‘duh', roll their eyes and easily come up with the career graphs of the celebrities involved – complete with a list of their top 10 hits – or at the very least, correctly identify them. However, ask the same man/woman/teen on the street the names of some of the lesser known Companions of the Prophet (peace be upon him) or their Followers (Tabi'een) or the later scholars of Islam, and one may encounter a blank face accompanied by an apologetic or sheepish shrug. Does this mean that people don't find Muslim personalities from the past fascinating? Or does it mean that there isn't enough information circulating about them? Actually, neither. Not just academics and students of knowledge, even ordinary people find the lives of Muslim luminaries extremely interesting and inspiring, and fortunately, there is no dearth of books on the stories of their lives. Perhaps the reason why they are not very well known is that unlike modern celebrities, these personalities didn't employ the services of media outlets to popularize them by making them seem larger than life. The most inane details of their lives weren't plastered all over the press or on TV, they didn't give sensational tell-all interviews to tabloids, pose for air-brushed pictures, sign million dollar autobiography deals or hire image consultants to make them look better than what they really were. They lived in an age which was far removed from the corrupting glare of spotlights, secure in the knowledge that their every action was observed by their Lord. It is this spirit of Ikhlas (sincerity) and Ihsan (excellence) that sets them apart, and makes the details of their lives awe-inspiring and spiritually uplifting even today. 10-year-old khateeb, the principal's son Most people who read Islamic literature or listen to live lectures or tapes have at least a nodding acquaintance with the much-quoted author and scholar, best known by his nickname – Ibn Al-Qayyim, ‘the principal's son' – Shams Ad-Deen Muhammad Ibn Abi Bakr. Born in 1292 CE in Al-Zur'i, a small village in the suburbs of Damascus, he acquired his famous agnomen because his father was the principal of Madrasah Al-Jawziyyah, a centre devoted to the study of Hanbali fiqh in Damascus. Ibn Al-Qayyim completed his elementary education under the guidance of his father at this seminary, before joining the circles of some of the more eclectic teachers in Damascus. What is not so well known though, is that this Madrasah Al-Jawziyyah got its name from another legendary Muslim scholar: Abul Faraj Ibn Al-Jawzi. Ibn Al-Jawzi was a jurist, traditionist, historian, preacher, whose ancestry goes back to the first Caliph, Abu Bakr, may Allah be pleased with him. Orphaned at the age of three, Ibn Al-Jawzi was an extraordinary child prodigy, who began learning the Qur'an and Prophetic traditions (Hadith) at the age of six under the tutelage of his paternal uncle. He studied with more than 90 teachers (three of them women) and gave his first public lecture to an audience of 50,000 people at the age of 10! He later went on to become one of the most influential scholars of Baghdad during the 12th century CE. It was Ibn Al-Jawzi's youngest, most promising son, Muhiy-ud-Deen Yusuf, who founded the Madrasah Al-Jawziyyah in Damascus on the pattern of the Al-Mustansiriyya institute in Baghdad, after having taken responsibility for the ‘Ministry of Commanding Virtues and Forbidding Evil'. Muhiy-ud-Deen was killed, along with the Caliph at the hands of the Tatars upon Hulagu Khan's invasion of Baghdad, leaving his father bereft. It is said, that Ibn Al-Jawzi was unable to read Surah Yusuf in the Qur'an without being overwhelmed by tears shed in his son's memory! One final interesting tidbit: between 1312 CE and 1326 CE, Ibn Al-Qayyim worked as a teacher and Imam at the very same Jawziyyah school, where he had acquired his name and his early education! It seems fitting that these two scholars – whose names are often confused for each other – were connected across a century by an institution of learning. Islamic history is full of such fascinating connections and discovering them is as pleasurable and addictive as solving an intricate jigsaw puzzle.
