“We Have Become the Laughing Stock of All Reasonable People”: On a Little-Studied Tract by al-Dhahabī on the State of Knowledge

The present contribution offers the first full translation of Baydn zayhal al-'ilm, a little-studied tract by the famous Mamluk historian, biographer and hadith expert Shams al-Din al-Dhahabi (d. 748/1348) which reflects the author's pessimistic outlook on the state of knowledge, particularly religious knowledge, in his own period. Quran reciters, hadith scholars, representatives of different schools of law, grammarians, lexicographers, exegetes, scholars of legal methodology and theologians are criticized for their superficial knowledge and their tendency to show off or to abandon scrutiny of the sacred scriptures; the dangers lurking in the ancient disciplines of logic and philosophy and potentially in mathematics and medicine are spelled out, and secular or semi-secular disciplines like epistolary composition, poetry, arithmetic, administrative law, the preparation of notarial documents and finally sermonizing should, to the extent possible, be employed to further the cause of Islam, in the author's view. More than just taking stock of the situation, al-Dhahabi's tract may in fact be a warning of what is bound to happen if the situation is not reversed and appears to reflect his concern about a move away from the traditional towards the rational sciences.