Notes and Brief Communications

Al-ʿUṣūr al-Wusṭā 23 (2015): 126-128

I have recently had the opportunity to examine a remarkable doctoral disser-tation completed in 1979 under the 
supervision of Prof. Charles Pellat and 
now housed at the Bibliothèque Orient - 
Monde arabe of the Université Sorbonne 
Nouvelle - Paris III. Dr.  al-Hafsi’s disser-
tation is, according to his title and intro-
ductions (French and Arabic), a study of 
the “official and private correspondence” 
of Mūḥyī al‐Dīn Abū ʿAlī ʿAbd al‐Raḥīm ibn 
ʿAlī ibn Muḥammad ibn al‐Ḥasan al‐Lakhmī 
al‐Baysānī al‐ʿAsqalānī “al‐Qāḍī al‐Fāḍil” 
(529‐596/1135‐1200), secretary and private 
scribe (kātib al-sirr) for the Fāṭimid caliph, 
Nūr al-Dīn ibn Zankī’s deputy in Egypt, 
and Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn, founder of the Ayyūbid 
Dynasty. Al‐Qāḍī al‐Fāḍil wrote his letters 
in such a florid and intricate style that 
excerpts made their way into medieval 

biographical dictionaries, chronicles, and 
manuals on the secretarial arts. Many of 
al-Qāḍī al‐Fāḍil’s poems and letters also 
survive in dīwān collections, compiled to 
showcase the secretary’s finest literary 
achievements. 

Dr. al-Hafsi undertook the gargantuan 
effort of collecting and collating al-Qāḍī’s 
works. Accordingly, volumes 2-4 of his 
d i s s e r t a t i o n ,  c o m p r i s i n g  1 2 6 5  p a g e s , 
contain some 430 letters and 44 entries 
from al‐Qāḍī’s diary, the Mutajaddidāt–all 
transcribed by hand (!). He also provides 
manuscript sources in the first footnote 
of every document and notes variants in 
the manuscript witnesses, or editions, in 
the case of published texts, in subsequent 
f o o t n o t e s .  T h e  f o o t n o t e s  w e r e  a l s o 
handwritten. Dr. al‐Hafsi actually adds 
eleven additional sources for fragments of 

Can Doctoral Dissertations Disappear? 
A Look at Ibrahim al‐Hafsi’s “Correspondance officielle et privée d’al‐Qāḍī al‐Fāḍil” 

and its Prospects in a Digital Age  

 

Bogdan C. Smarandache*
Centre for Medieval Studies, University of Toronto

 
(bogdan.smarandache@mail.utoronto.ca)

* I thank Mrs. Anne‐Marie Crotty and the staff of Interlibrary Loans at Robarts Library, University of 
Toronto, for their assiduous efforts in processing my request for an interlibrary loan and I thank Mme. Anne 
Cathelineau of the Bibliothèque Orient ‐ Monde arabe, for allowing me to examine Ibrahim al‐Hafsi’s disser-
tation overseas.



127  •  Bogdan C. SmarandaChe

Al-ʿUṣūr al-Wusṭā 23 (2015)

al‐Qāḍī’s letters to Adolph Helbig’s list of 
twenty‐one manuscript sources. In effect, 
he has carried out major steps towards 
completing the desideratum announced 
by Claude Cahen and Carl Brockelmann in 
their 1998 Encyclopaedia of Islam article 
on al-Qāḍī. 

Exceeding the proposed aims of his 
d i s s e r t a t i o n ,  D r .  a l - H a f s i  g e n e r o u s l y 
provides a biography of al‐Qāḍī al‐Fāḍil’s 
life, analyzes his political thought in 
the context of the jihād al-Ifranj (jihād 
against the Franks), and explores his social 
network. More in line with his main focus, 
he devotes a lengthy chapter to an analysis 
of al‐Qāḍī al‐Fāḍil’s writing style, covering 
his use of motifs and a range of literary 
devices. Only in recent years are we 
beginning to appreciate the use of literary 
devices such as tawriyya (double entendre) 
in literature from the Ayyūbid and Mamlūk 
periods, thanks to the perceptive work of 
Thomas Bauer and other experts.

Since Adolph Helbig’s pioneering work, 
only one dissertation and one monograph 
on the life of al‐Qāḍī have appeared, 
both written by Hadia Dajani‐Shakeel. 

Her dissertation was completed at the 
University of Michigan in 1972 under the 
supervision of Profs. James A. Bellamy and 
Andrew S. Ehrenkreutz. Her monograph is 
entitled Al‐Qādī al‐Fāḍil ʿAbdar‐Raḥīm al‐
Bīsānī al‐ʻAsqalānī (526‐596 h, 1131‐1199 
m): dauruhu at‐tah̲ṭīṭī fī daulat Ṣalāḥ‐ad‐
Dīn wa‐futūḥatih (Al‐Qādī al‐Fāḍil: His Role 
and Administration in the State of Ṣalāḥ 
al‐Dīn and his Conquests). Dajani‐Shakeel’s 
w o r k s  a r e  t h e  m o s t  c o m p r e h e n s i v e 
and authoritative studies of al‐Qāḍī to 
date but no corresponding study of the 
secretary’s works is available to students 
and scholars. The editing and publication 
of al‐Hafsi’s monumental dissertation 
would undoubtedly fill this gap. It is hoped 
that in the meantime his dissertation will 
be digitized and made more accessible to 
historians of the Ayyūbids and Mamlūks, 
literary historians, and historical linguists. 
On a final note, although the multilingual 
marginalia scattered throughout the 
dissertation may be of historical interest 
one day, the digitization of the thesis 
would also ensure its preservation.

Bibliography*

Helbig, Adolph H. 1908 Al‐Qāḍī al‐Fāḍil, der Wezir Saladins. Leipzig.

Al-Hafsi, Ibrahim 1979 Correspondance officielle et priveé d’al-Qāḍī al-Fāḍil, Ph.D. 
Dissertation, Université de Paris IV-Sorbonne.

Bauer, Thomas 2013 “ʿAyna hādhā min al‐Mutanabbī!’ Toward an Aesthetics of Mamluk   
Literature,” Mamlūk Studies Review 17: 6‐7, 12.

Bauer, Thomas 2007 “In Search of Post‐Classical Literature: A Review Article,” Mamluk 
Studies Review 11: 146, 166‐7.

Brockelmann, Carl, Claude Cahen 1998 “al‐Qadi al‐Fāḍil,” Encyclopaedia of Islam, New  
Edition. 12 vols. Ed. by Bernard Lewis et al. Leiden. IV: 376-7.



Al-ʿUṣūr al-Wusṭā 23 (2015)

 Can Doctoral Dissertations Disappear?  •  128

Dajani‐Shakeel, Hadia 1972 Al‐Qāḍı ̄al‐Fāḍil: His Life and Political Career, Ph.D. Disserttion, 
Near Eastern Languages & Literatures, University of Michigan.

Dajani‐Shakeel, Hadia 1993 Al‐Qādī al‐Fāḍil ʻAbd‐ar‐Raḥīm al‐Bīsānī al‐ʻAsqalānī: (526 ‐ 596 
h, 1131 ‐ 1199 m): dauruhu at‐tah̲ṭīṭī fī daulat Ṣalāḥ‐ad‐Dīn wa‐futūḥatihi. Beirut.

Note: at present a project of editing and publishing the letters of al‐Qāḍī is being headed 
under the supervision of Prof. Stefan Leder, Dr. Sabine Dorpmüller, and Dr. Muhammad 
Helmy at the Orient Institut Beirut: “Chancery and Diplomatics Exemplified by the 
Correspondence of al‐Qadi al‐Fāḍil”, Current Projects, Orient Institut Beirut. Accessed June 
2015. www.orient‐institut.org/index.php?id=93.

* I thank Mrs. Anne‐Marie Crotty and the staff of Interlibrary Loans at Robarts 
Library, University of Toronto, for their assiduous efforts in processing my request for an 
interlibrary loan and I thank Mme. Anne Cathelineau of the Bibliothèque Orient ‐ Monde 
arabe, for allowing me to examine Ibrahim al‐Hafsi’s dissertation overseas.