Abū l-Ḍawʾ Sirāj ibn Aḥmad ibn Rajāʾ (Arabic: أبو الضوء) (fl. 1123–c.1145) was a Sicilian Muslim administrator and Arabic poet in the Norman county of Sicily. He worked closely with Count (later King) Roger II as a secretary and later wrote a poem on the death of one of Roger's sons.
Abū l-Ḍawʾ is a nickname meaning "father of light", his birth name being Sirāj. His father was Aḥmad and his grandfather Rajāʾ. He was born into a prominent Muslim family from Palermo, the Banū Rajā. Four members of three generations of the Banū Rajā held the office of al-shaykh al-faqīh al-qāḍī of Palermo with jurisdiction over the local Muslim community between 1123 and 1161.[1][2]
- ^ Johns 2002, p. 89, Table 3.1, contains a family tree.
- ^ Metcalfe 2009, pp. 129–30.