Nur al-Din al-Salimi

Nur al-Dīn al-Sālimī (Arabic: نور الدين السالمي; full name Nur al-Dīn Abū Muḥammad ʿAbd Allāh ibn Ḥumayd ibn Sullūm al-Sālimī, c. 1286-1332 AH/1869-1914 CE) was an Omani historian and scholar noted for his expertise in Ibāḍī Islam.

Biography[]

Al-Sālimī was born near Rustaq, in , and was at first educated mainly by his father, followed by tuition by various Omani scholars, gaining particular expertise in Ibāḍī Islam. Around the age of twelve he became blind.^[1][2]

Al-Sālimī's life was characterised by his work to re-establish the Imamate of Oman, which had been replaced under British imperial influence by the Albusaidi Sultans of Muscat. Al-Sālimī's teachers included men who had secured the election of Oman's only Imām of the nineteenth century, (reigned 1868-71). His early life near Rustaq positioned him at the centre of Ibāḍī resistance to the Sultanate. As the focus of this activism shifted to the province of Sharqiyya, al-Sālimī moved to that region, between around 1886 and 1890. There he studied with Sheikh (1834-96), and, with the support of al-Ḥārithī, settled and began to teach in the village of al-Qābil.^[1][2]

However, Sāliḥ's son, (1874-1946), who succeeded his father in a leadership position among the Hināwī tribe of the Sharqiyya, seems not to have liked al-Sālimī and did not support al-Sālimī's efforts to resurrect the Omani Imamate. Al-Sālimī turned to (1874-1920), a leader of the Ghāfirī Banū Riyām in the Jabal al-Akhdar, asking him to support a former pupil of al-Sālimī's, (1884-1920), to become imam. Despite al-Sālimī's efforts, however, he did not see the re-establishment of the imamate in his lifetime.^[1]

Al-Sālimī died when his donkey stumbled as he travelled to visit one of his former teachers, (c. 1837-1927). The two had fallen into a dispute because al-Sālimī had tried to appropriate charitable endowments intended for visiting graves and reading the Qurʾān for the dead to fund the campaign to re-establish the imamate. He was buried at Tanūf.^[1]

Works[]

Al-Sālimī is thought to have begun writing around the age of seventeen, swiftly gaining fame as a scholar of religion and history.^[2]: xxxix Al-Sālimī composed at least twenty-two works, including Talḳīn al-ṣibyān, a book of instruction for children in Ibāḍī religion.^[1]

History of Oman[]

Although in his own community, al-Sālimī was most important as a religious thinker, he is best known in the West as a historian of Oman,^[1] and especially for his history of Oman, Tuḥfat al-Aʿyān bi-sīrat ahl ʿUmān, completed around 1913, shortly before his death. The work only appeared in print in 1928, edited by Abū Isḥāḳ Ibrāhīm Aṭfayyish, son of al-Sālimī's collaborator Muḥammad ibn Yūsuf Aṭfayyish (1236-1332/1820-1914), a noted Mzābi scholar and activist.^[1][3]

The Tuḥfat al-Aʿyān is noted for bringing together the manuscript sources composed up to al-Sālimī's time, for providing thorough citations and accurate quotations, and for being comprehensive in presenting available information about Oman; at the same time, the work is in the style of traditional Omani history-writing rather than modern history-writing. The work was influential on later scholars.^[2]: xl On the other hand, the history has been seen as promoting al-Sālimī's ibādī politics.^[1]

Biography[]

Al-Sālimī's son Muḥammad continued his father's Tuḥfat al-Aʿyān down to the death of Imām Muḥammad bin ʿAbd Allāh al-Khalīlī in 1954 in a work entitled Nahḍat al-aʿyān bi-ḥurriyyat ʿUmān (published in Cairo), and in this including a long biography of al-Sālimī.^[1]

References[]