Abdullah al-Samahiji

ʿAbdullāh ibn Ṣāliḥ al-Samāhījī (1675–1722) (Arabic: عبد الله بن صالح السماهيجي) was a Bahraini Shia Islamic scholar who lived during the Safavid period. He was born in the village of Samaheej on Muharraq Island, and like many of his Bahraini contemporaries, he was a follower of the Akhbari theological school—although his father was a pure Usuli who detested Akhbaris.[1] Among his teachers was Sulaymān ibn ʿAbdullāh al Maḥūdhī.[2]

After the 1717 Omani invasion of Bahrain, as Samāhijī fled to Isfahan where he briefly served as the Sheikh ul-Islam.[3] He then settled in Behbehan where he died in 1722.

Among his works is Munyat al Mumārisīn in Arabic, which includes an examination of the Akhbari-Usuli dispute.

  1. ^ Juan Cole, Sacred Space and Holy War, IB Tauris, 2007 p53
  2. ^ Schmidtke, Sabine. "The ijaza from 'Abd Allah b. Salih al-Samahiji to Nasir al-Jarudi al-Qatifi: A Source for the Twelver Shi'i Scholarly Tradition of Bahrayn." Madelung, Wilferd, Farhad Daftar and W Josef Meri. Culture and Memory in Medieval Islam. I.B.Tauris, 2003. 66.
  3. ^ Andrew J. Newman, The Nature of the Akhbārī/Uṣūlī Dispute in Late Ṣafawid Iran. Part 1: 'Abdallāh al-Samāhijī's "Munyat al-Mumārisīn Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, Vol. 55, No. 1 (1992), pp. 22-51