The al-Alusi family of Baghdad

The family takes its name from Alus, a place on the west bank of the Euphrates between Abu Kamal and Ramadi. Its ancestors, who traced their descent to al-Hasan and al-Husayn, are said by family tradition to have fled there from the Mongol conqueror Hulagu; their descendants returned to Baghdad only in the 11th/17th century. ¹

The leading figure of the early 19th century was Abu l-Thana' Mahmud Shihab al-Din (1217-70/1802-54), mufti of Baghdad and an outstanding professor and polemicist, whose main work is the commentary Ruh al-ma'ani on the Qur'an (Bulaq, 1301-10/1883-92, nine volumes). After his dismissal from the mufti's post he went on a voyage to Istanbul in 1851-2 and described it in three works. His brothers and sons included a khatib of Baghdad, called "the Ibn al-Jawzi of his age", a professor and preacher, and several qadis, including Ahmad Shakir, qadi of Basra. ¹

The best known member is Mahmud Shukri al-Alusi-zadeh (1857-1924), who wrote about fifty works on history, fiqh, biography, lexicography, rhetoric and doctrinal controversy. His Bulugh al-arab fi ma'rifat ahwal al-'Arab (1896) is a history of the Arabs of the pre-Islamic period, and al-Misk al-adhar (1930) is on the scholars of Baghdad of the 12th and 13th centuries. He wrote violent polemics against Shi'ism and the Rifa'iyya order, and supported a neo-Hanbalite reform of the law. He is counted among the leaders of the Salafiyya movement. ¹