Ahmad ibn Mubarak al-Lamti

Abu al-Abbas Ahmad ibn Mubarak al-Sijilmasi al-Lamti (1090–1156 AH / 1679–1743 CE) was a Moroccan Maliki jurist from Sijilmasa.¹² He moved with his family to Fez in 1698, studied at al-Qarawiyyin and received his ijaza, then became the disciple and close companion of the Sufi master Abd al-Aziz al-Dabbagh and collected his words in the al-Ibriz, his most famous work.²¹

Al-Lamti was born at Sijilmasa in 1679 and moved with his family to Fez in 1698 to further his education; there he studied at the University of al-Qarawiyyin, adopted the Maliki school of thought and received an ijaza certifying him as a scholar of Fez.² The Arabic article names his five teachers: Muhammad ibn Abd al-Qadir al-Fasi, Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Qusantini, Ahmad ibn Ali al-Jarandi al-Andalusi al-Fasi, the qadi Abd al-Qadir Bukhariṣ al-Kamili, and Ali ibn Ahmad al-Harishi.¹

Al-Lamti withdrew to the outskirts of Fez and met the Sufi mystic Abd al-Aziz al-Dabbagh, becoming his disciple and student and learning the doctrines and disciplines of Sufism under him.² When al-Dabbagh died in 1718–1719, al-Lamti wrote the al-Ibriz min Kalam al-'Arif bi-Allah Sayyidi 'Abd al-'Aziz al-Dabbagh, "The Pure Gold in the Words of Sayyidi Abd al-Aziz al-Dabbagh", compiling his teacher's lectures, narrations and the miracles he had witnessed; the work spread widely and its influence reached Indonesia, where it was adapted into a Qur'an commentary for Javanese audiences.²¹

Besides the al-Ibriz, the Arabic article lists his Kashf al-labs 'an al-masa'il al-khams, Inarat al-afham, a commentary on al-Mahalli's commentary on the Jam' al-jawami', Radd al-tashdid fi mas'alat al-taqlid, Tahrir mas'alat al-qabul, Maqalat al-sawab on the people of the Mzab, and al-Maqala al-wafiya on the Daliyya ode.¹ His students included Ahmad ibn Hamdun al-Tahiri, al-Hasan ibn Rahhal al-Ma'dani and Muhammad ibn al-Talib ibn Suda al-Tawudi.¹

He lived an ascetic life in his final years, critical of worldly life and of rulers, and died on the night of Friday, 19 Jumada I 1156 AH — the English article gives the year 1742 — and was buried in the Bab al-Futuh cemetery in eastern Fez beside his teacher al-Dabbagh, under a pyramidal-roofed mausoleum that became a place of pilgrimage.¹²