Mosque-Mausoleum of Sharaf al-Dīn al-Būsīrī (Alexandria)

Location: In Alexandria's old city centre, near the mosque of Abū l-`Abbās al-Mursī al-Shādhilī (pupil of the famous Maghribi mystic Abū l-Hasan al-Shādhilī himself) and to the south of a great mosque complex currently under construction (including a huge shopping lane underneath the large square which opens between several mosques), lies the small Mosque-Mausoleum of Sharaf al-Dīn Abū `Abdallāh Muhammad b. Sa`īd al-Sanhājī al-Dalāsī al-Būsīrī (608-ca. 694/1212-ca. 1294).

  1  View of the exterior

Historical Background: Little is known about al-Būsīrī“s life, though his name reached immortal fame due to some poems in praise of the Prophet he composed: (a) the lengthy Hamzīya (so called because its rhyme consonant consists of the Arabic letter hamza; more than 400 verses), (b) the short Qasīda al-Mudarīya and, finally, (c) the qasīda called Burdat al-madīh, that is "the Mantle Ode in Praise of the Prophet" (see below). We merely know that al-Būsīrī spent about 10 years in Jerusalem, some time in Mekka and Medina (where the Burda is said to have come into being), and the latter part of his life in Bilbays, a town in the eastern Nile delta. He was making his living by producing calligraphy and reciting the Quran professionally, apart from holding different administrative posts of minor importance. He was fairly acquainted with some members of the nascent Shādhilīya order, most prominent among them his contemporary al-Mursī (d. 686/1287, see above); the later Shādhilīs were therefore also among the most active promoters of his poem Burdat al-madih.

Quite often in secondary literature, for example in Carl Brockelmann“s Geschichte der arabischen Litteratur and in the EI², the common belief is perpetuated that al-Būsīrī died in Alexandria, but was actually buried on the southern cemetery in Cairo near the mausoleum of Imām al-Shāfi`ī. This information is already found in a number of classical Arabic sources and the visit to its tomb in Cairo is attested by more than one visitor to the Qarāfa up to the 11th/17th century. Yet nowadays no tomb of al-Būsīrī is found in Cairo and thus Louis Massignon, being not only widely read but also widely travelled, wrote in his indispensable study on the Cairene cemeteries in regard to the spurious tomb "alors que je l“ai vue a Alexandrie". Be it as it may, today al-Būsīrī's tomb in Alexandria, as presented on this page, is widely known and often visited, although we cannot exclude with certainty that he might be actually buried somewhere else. So if, in this case, pious belief or myth has overcome historical veracity, we should not worry about that because things believed to be true rather than truth itself shape the culture and mentality of a people.

Art and Architecture: Though I could not find any information relevant to the actual building of al-Būsīrī's Mausoleum, it seems to be an Ottoman construction, probably stemming from the 12th/18th century. One enters the mausoleum from the east and reaches a fairly large courtyard in the middle of which there is a vaulted sabīl or mīda“a (fountain) that is needed to perform ablution (picture 2). The entrance to the mosque itself is situated beneath the southern portico whereas the mausoleum (containing the shrine) lies to the right after entering the building. The Mosque-Mausoleum is today primarily visited by women carrying their little children because the baraka of the place, similar to that of Ahmad al-Badawī in Tanta, is believed to descend especially on the family's offspring.

2 View of the courtyard with the ablution fountain

The Shrine of Sharaf al-Dīn al-Būsīrī (see picture 3) is in the middle of a domed mausoleum of about 5x5 m. The walls are on all four sides adorned with a two-line inscription (golden letters on a green background) of al-Busiri's most famous poem, the already mentioned "Mantle Ode in Praise of the Prophet". The local Imām, as many other Arab Muslims, is able to recite the poem by heart and will do so voluntarily if any interest in the sacred place is shown.

  3  The shrine of al-Būsīrī   

Significance: The "Mantle Ode", al-Būsīrī's most famous poem in praise of the Prophet, is about 160 to 165 lines long (there exist different versions). Its appellation "al-Burda", meaning a cloak of woollen cloth in Arabic, refers to another highly esteemed poem in praise of Muhammad which is known after its opening words as "Banat Su“ad" and was composed by Ka`b b. Zuhayr while the Prophet was still alive. After the recitation Ka`b received, as a reward for his poem, the Prophet's mantle. When al-Būsīrī, some 650 years later, suffered a stroke and remained semi-paralysed, the Prophet appeared to him in dream guise, touched him with his hand and threw his mantle over his shoulders. al-Būsīrī was instantly cured and set about to compose his poem called, in reference to this miraculous healing, the "Mantle Poem".

The Burdat al-madih has been translated repeatedly into European languages since two centuries: into Latin (as Carmen Mysticum Borda Dictum, 1761), into English by J.W. Redhouse (Glasgow 1881), Faizlullah-Bhai (Bombay 1893), Arthur Jefferey (1962) and, recently, Stefan Sperl (1996), into French by de Sacy (1822), Rene Basset (1894) and Hamza Boubakeur (1980), into Italian by Giuseppe Gabrieli (1901) and, finally, into German by Vincenz von Rosenzweig-Schwanau (1824), C.A. Ralfs (1860) and Uwe Topper (1991). The actual title of the poem, however, is not Burdat al-madih, but "al-Kawākib al-durrīya fī madh khayr al-barīya" which, in Jan Knappert's translation, runs "The scintillating stars in praise of the Best of Mankind". The poem was soon to become extremely popular and we know of at least a hundred commentaries, recensions, enlargements etc. Among its commentators, there are many famous scholars, poets and men of letters, e.g. Ibn Abī Hajala al-Tilimsānī (d. 776 AH), Ibn Marzūq al-Tilimsānī (d. in Cairo 781 AH), Badr al-Dīn al-Zarkashī (d. in Cairo 794 AH), Jalāl al-Dīn al-Mahallī (d. in Cairo 864 AH), al-Jalāl al-Suyūtī (d. in Cairo 911 AH), Shihāb al-Dīn al-Qastallānī (d. in Cairo 923 AH), Zakarīyā“ al-Ansārī (d. in Cairo 926 AH), Ibn Hajar al-Haytamī (d. in Mecca 974 AH), `Abd al-Qādir b. al-`Aydarūs (d. in Ahmadābād 1038 AH) and Nūr al-Dīn al-Halabī (d. in Cairo 1044/1635). It has been translated into all the major Islamic languages, ranging from Turkish and Persian to Urdu, Malay and Swahili; in many a palace of the Ottoman period (e.g. in the Cairene Bayt al-Suhaymī), verses of the poem were inscribed on the walls. Today the Burda is recitated, according to custom in different regions, during the Prophet“s birthday celebrations (mawlid), on certain occasions in Ramadān or while washing the body of the dead. Many magical usages are connected to almost each of its verses, as explained in detail by the 13th/19th century commentator Ibrāhīm al-Bājūrī al-Azharī (d. 1277 AH). The contemporary Islamist critique of such practices will lead eventually to the extinction of this kind of religious magic, at least in the case of al-Būsīrī. Earlier in this century, the Burdat al-madīh found a modern counterpart when the poet Ahmad Shawqī (1868-1932) composed the (neoclassical) qasida Nahj al-Burda which was partly set in music and performed by Umm Kulthūm in the year 1948.

The last picture shows the first, very beautifully executed page of a 8th/14th century manuscript (dated 1379, today conserved at the Oriental Institute St. Petersburg) which contains on 29 folios the Burdat al-madīh of al-Būsīrī. The line in large letters above is the conventional opening "In the name of God the Merciful the Benevolent", whereas the line in large letters below contains the first line of the poem itself. The text in between, in smaller characters, names the author and tells, in form of a brief story, the miraculous origin of the poem which was shortly exposed in the upper paragraph.

4 The first page of a 8th/14th century manuscript of al-Būsīrī“s Burda

This page cannot end but by stressing again the immense spiritual value al-Būsīrī“s Burda has attained in Islam since centuries. An incident, related in the dictionary of mainly Yemenite scholars of the 10th/16th century written bei al-`Aydarūsī and entitled al-Nūr al-sāfir, will illustrate this point: One day, the mystic Muhammad b. `Alī al-Kinānī al-Shāfi`ī (d. 933 AH) was sitting beneath a tree when he suddenly remembered the line of al-Būsīrī's poem al-Burda which runs: High mountains of gold lured the Prophet to turn against himself, but, yeah, what haughtiness he showed them. Musing about this verse, Muhammad thought these mountains of gold of little worth considering the exalted rank of the Prophet, but he had not yet finished meditating when the very tree whose shadow he was enjoying transformed itself into solid gold. He rose up frightened and started imploring God until the tree returned to its former condition. Bewildered in awe by God's power and recognising the vanity of his musings, Muhammad began to compose an `aqīda, a confessional text rather similar to a catechism, which soon became widely known.

Photographs: (1-3) april 1999 © Marco Schöller, (4) © Von Baghdad bis Isfahan. Buchmalerei und Schriftkunst des Vorderen Orients (8.-18.Jh) aus dem Institut für Orientalistik, St. Petersburg, Lugano: ARCH-Foundation/Russ. Akad. d. Wiss. 1995, p. 183. The image shows a manuscript in possession of the Oriental Institute, St. Petersburg/Russia.

Last update: 05 april 2001

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