# الكواكب الدرّيّة في تراجم السادة الصوفيّة



## Jabir

Hello to all!

I found this book title, but I'm unable to translate it from latin alphabet. Can someone please transcript it to the Arabic alphabet and provide me with translation?

Thank you very much,

Jabir


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## إسكندراني

الكواكب الدرّيّة في تراجم السادة الصوفيّة


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## Jabir

I'm still unable to translate 

can someone please tell me the meaning?

thanks

Jabir


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## إسكندراني

All it means to me is 'the pearly stars in the works of the sufi masters'


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## cherine

The word تراجم (taraajim) is biographies. This is a book about the Sufi masters/leaders/saints.


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## Jabir

Thank you both for the answers... 

By the way, do you know about the book and anyone can tell me about it, please?


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## GoldBug

My version of this title:

*"The Twinkling Planets (i.e. The Stars) as Interpreted by the Sufi Masters"
*
Undoubtedly a mystical explanation of the origin and meaning of the stars by selected Sufi practitioners.


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## إسكندراني

GoldBug said:


> My version of this title:
> 
> *"The Twinkling Planets (i.e. The Stars) as Interpreted by the Sufi Masters"
> *
> Undoubtedly a mystical explanation of the origin and meaning of the stars by selected Sufi practitioners.


تراجم definitely means biographies, I suspected it did but chose to be safe, then cherine confirmed that it means biographies. It can't mean interpretation.
As for the first segment of the title, it's almost certainly fluffy decoration. I doubt it's actually about astronomy.


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## rayloom

GoldBug said:


> My version of this title:
> 
> *"The Twinkling Planets (i.e. The Stars) as Interpreted by the Sufi Masters"
> *
> Undoubtedly a mystical explanation of the origin and meaning of the stars by selected Sufi practitioners.



Actually taraajim here isn't used to mean interpretation or anything of ths sort. As Cherine said, it meas biographies.
As for the seemingly strange name of the book, it was a habit of medieval Islamic authors to come up with fancy rhyming names for their books (even purely scientific books!). 
الصواعق المحرقة في الرد علي أهل البدع والزندقة
نزهة المشتاق في اختراق الآفاق
الروض العاطر في نزهة الخاطر
...etc. 
You shouldn't read too much into the book's name I guess 




Jabir said:


> Thank you both for the answers...
> 
> By the way, do you know about the book and anyone can tell me about it, please?



I haven't read it, but I think it would follow the usualy style of Arabic taraajim. They would contain multiple biographies in the same book.


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## Abu Talha

rayloom said:


> As for the seemingly strange name of the book, it was a habit of medieval Islamic authors to come up with fancy rhyming names for their books (even purely scientific books!).
> الصواعق المحرقة في الرد علي أهل البدع والزندقة
> نزهة المشتاق في اختراق الآفاق
> الروض العاطر في نزهة الخاطر
> ...etc.
> You shouldn't read too much into the book's name I guess


I had a little chuckle at reading your post because I frequently used to wonder why on earth did _all_ authors come up with such fancy titles!

Then I learnt to ignore the meaning of the first part of the title. As you all have already shown, I think you can sometimes glean some basic information from the title. If there is a في in the title, the part before it can be translated to "The best work in ..." and the part after the في gives the topic of the book.

That isn't to say that the part before the في is useless. In fact, it serves as a short (often unique) identifier for the book when referring to it. 

All in all, it is quite a useful system!


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## cherine

Jabir said:


> Thank you both for the answers...
> 
> By the way, do you know about the book and anyone can tell me about it, please?


The Library of Alexandria have the book online, but unfortunately only 5% of it is available for reading from outside the library. The good thing is that the introduction is part of that 5%, and it has an explanation of what كتب التراجم are. I copy this part:
كتب التراجم من المؤلفات العربية التي تضم الكثير من المعلومات عن الأحوال السياسية والاجتماعية والأدبية التي سادت العالم الإسلامي، ويُطلق عليها أيضًا اسم كتب الطبقات. وهي تتألف من سير طائفة معينة من طوائف الفقهاء أو العلماء أو الأدباء أو الصوفية أو غيرهم جيلاً بعد جيل. وهي تعتبر من المؤلفات التاريخية بل هي أثبت صور التعبير التاريخي وأشهرها حيث كانت سيرة الرسول صلى الله عليه وسلم منبعًا ومصدرًا لكتابة سير الخلفاء والولاء والعلماء، وتدوين حياتهم وصفاتهم وخبراتهم، وبذلك أصبح التاريخ في أذهان الكثيرين مرادفًا تقريبًا للتراجم وسير الرجال.



GoldBug said:


> My version of this title:
> 
> *"The Twinkling Planets (i.e. The Stars) as Interpreted by the Sufi Masters"
> *
> Undoubtedly a mystical explanation of the origin and meaning of the stars by selected Sufi practitioners.


I'm sorry I have to repeat what the others have said: your interpretation of the title is unfortunately mistaken. You focussed too much on the words, probably because you're not aware of this style of book titles, which was _the norm_ in classical and even some modern Arabic books.

And to erase any doubts, here's another quote from the introduction, about the content of the book:
فرغ الإمام المناوي من تأليف هذه الموسوعة سنة 1011هـ، وصدّرها بمقدمة في الكرامات، ثم أتبع ذلك بأبواب في سيرة الرسول صلى الله عليه وسلم ثم الخلفاء الراشدين، تتلوها تراجم السادة الصوفية، مُفْرِدًا طبقات كل قرن على حِدَة حسب سني وفياتهم ومُرتَّبة على حروف المعجم، فجاءت إحدى عشرة طبقة، وبلغت في مجموعها 902 ترجمة، وقد حوت هذه التراجم نشأة من ترجم لهم، وتربيتهم وشيوخهم وتلاميذهم وأسفارهم ومؤلفاتهم، وتاريخ وفاتهم، وتوَّج كل سيرة بطائفة من أقوال صاحبها وكراماته.


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## Jabir

Oh, Cherine, thank you for providing the contents of the book! Buuut... hehehe... I cannot understand it... my Arabic is still little... I'm looking forward to buy these books to have something to read and practice along with the studies. 

What it is about?

Thank you


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## cherine

Jabir said:


> Oh, Cherine, thank you for providing the contents of the book! Buuut... hehehe... I cannot understand it... my Arabic is still little... I'm looking forward to buy these books to have something to read and practice along with the studies.
> 
> What it is about?
> 
> Thank you


You're welcome, Jabir 

But if you find this (the introduction) difficult, then I guess you'll need to choose easier books to learn and practice. But here's a rough translation anyway:

كتب التراجم من المؤلفات العربية التي تضم الكثير من المعلومات عن الأحوال السياسية والاجتماعية والأدبية التي سادت العالم الإسلامي، ويُطلق عليها أيضًا اسم كتب الطبقات. وهي تتألف من سير طائفة معينة من طوائف الفقهاء أو العلماء أو الأدباء أو الصوفية أو غيرهم جيلاً بعد جيل. وهي تعتبر من المؤلفات التاريخية بل هي أثبت صور التعبير التاريخي وأشهرها حيث كانت سيرة الرسول صلى الله عليه وسلم منبعًا ومصدرًا لكتابة سير الخلفاء والولاة والعلماء، وتدوين حياتهم وصفاتهم وخبراتهم، وبذلك أصبح التاريخ في أذهان الكثيرين مرادفًا تقريبًا للتراجم وسير الرجال.
The Arabic books of "tarajim" contain loads of information about the political, social and literary conditions of the Muslim world. They're also called books of "Tabaqat" (i.e. classes). They consist of the stories or biographies of different generations of certain groups of faqihs, scolars, men of literature or sufis. These books are considered history books, they're actually the most precise and famous forms of history writing. Writing about the life of the Prophet (PBUH) was the source and the beginning of the writing about the biographies of the Kaliphs (his successors), walis (rulers and governors) and the scolars, and about their lives, attributes and experiences. Thus, History has become -in the minds of many- almost the equivalent of biography.

فرغ الإمام المناوي من تأليف هذه الموسوعة سنة 1011هـ، وصدّرها بمقدمة في الكرامات، ثم أتبع ذلك بأبواب في سيرة الرسول صلى الله عليه وسلم ثم الخلفاء الراشدين، تتلوها تراجم السادة الصوفية، مُفْرِدًا طبقات كل قرن على حِدَة حسب سني وفياتهم ومُرتَّبة على حروف المعجم، فجاءت إحدى عشرة طبقة، وبلغت في مجموعها 902 ترجمة، وقد حوت هذه التراجم نشأة من ترجم لهم، وتربيتهم وشيوخهم وتلاميذهم وأسفارهم ومؤلفاتهم، وتاريخ وفاتهم، وتوَّج كل سيرة بطائفة من أقوال صاحبها وكراماته.
Imam Manawi finished writing this encyclopedia in 1011 A.H approximately. His started it with an introduction about "karaamaat" (miracles (?) of the sufi masters), and followed it by chapters about the life of the Prophet (PBUH), then the Kalifs, and then the biographies of the sufi masters. He presented the classes of each century in a chapter, following the order of the years of their death and alphabetically. They came in 11 classes, with a total of 902 biographies. The biographies include the early life of the persons presented, their education, professors, students, travels, writings and the date of their death. He ended each biography with quotes from the person presented and some of his "karaamaat".


Note that in Classical Arabic books, the date of the death is the important one and sometimes also the only one presented. It's not often to find the date of birth mentioned.


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## Jabir

OK, Cherine, thank you once more for providing me the translation.

I won't buy the book hehehe, seems boring. I will go with Layla alf wa Layla...

I do prefer to start with "harder" books, even though I'm still unable to translate a paragraph. 

thank you again


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## GoldBug

_*Cherine:  I'm sorry I have to repeat what the others have said: your interpretation of the title is unfortunately mistaken. You focussed too much on the words, probably because you're not aware of this style of book titles, which was the norm in classical and even some modern Arabic books.

*_Thank you very much, Cherine, for your thorough and scholarly explanation of this type of literature.  It was very instructive.  

You're right:  I did what I always tell people not to do: do a word for word translation and assume that what it "says" is what it "means". 

Now that we know that  الكواكب الدرّيّة   refers to the (lives of the) Sufi Masters and not to the heavenly bodies we see every night, we still have to come up with a realistic English translation.  Taking a few liberties, I propose the following:

*"Illuminating Exemplars in the Lives of the Sufi Masters"
*
or

*"Dazzling Lights in the Lives of the Sufi Masters"
*
*الــخ 
*


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## Ali Smith

What about the word ترجمة as used in such books of hadith as صحيح البخاري? What does al-Bukhari mean when he uses this word? Does he mean "biography"?

قال البخاري: صنفت الجامع من ستمائة ألف حديث في ست عشرة سنة، وجعلته حجة فيما بيني وبين الله، وكان يكتب تراجمه بين قبر النبي -عليه الصلاة والسلام- ومنبره، ويُصلّي ركعتين لِكُل ترجمة


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