Mahmud Muhammad Shakir

Abu Fihr Mahmud ibn Muhammad Shakir (1327–1418 AH / 1909–1997) was an Egyptian scholar of Arabic, researcher, editor and writer, author of a 'method of tasting' in literary study, whom his students called 'the shaykh of Arabic'. He was the brother of the hadith scholar Ahmad Muhammad Shakir and a cousin of the editor Abd al-Salam Harun. ^{1 2}

He was born in Alexandria to a family from Tahta and moved to Cairo in his first year, when his father became deputy rector of al-Azhar. His father placed him in the Hanbali riwaq of al-Azhar; he then turned to modern schooling, learned al-Mutanabbi's diwan by heart as a boy, studied science at the Khedivial secondary school, and entered the Arabic department of the Faculty of Arts in 1926. ¹

The article relates that he heard in Taha Husayn's lectures on pre-Islamic poetry a repetition of the orientalist Margoliouth's thesis, left the university in his second year, and went to Jeddah in 1928, where at King Abd al-Aziz's request he founded and ran the Saudi primary school of Jeddah, returning to Cairo in 1929. ¹

Asked by Fuad Sarruf of al-Muqtataf for a study of al-Mutanabbi, he wrote a whole book, published as a special issue of the magazine on 1 January 1936, arguing that the poet was of Alid descent; its new method caused a stir. ¹

Many count him first among editors of Arabic texts; on his title pages he wrote 'read and annotated by'. His editions include sixteen volumes of al-Tabari's Tafsir (1954–1969), Ibn Sallam al-Jumahi's 'Tabaqat Fuhul al-Shu'ara', al-Tabari's 'Tahdhib al-Athar', and Abd al-Qahir al-Jurjani's 'Dala'il al-I'jaz' and 'Asrar al-Balagha'. His own books include 'al-Qaws al-'Adhra', 'Abatil wa Asmar' and 'Risala fi al-Tariq ila Thaqafatina'. ¹

The article tells of two literary controversies: with Taha Husayn after the latter's 'Ma'a al-Mutanabbi' (1938), when Shakir wrote thirteen articles in al-Balagh accusing him of borrowing from his own book; and in 1964 with Louis Awad, after Awad's al-Ahram articles on al-Ma'arri's debt to Greek culture, which Shakir answered in pieces later collected as 'Abatil wa Asmar'. This is the article's account; the museum does not judge between the parties. ¹

He was a member of the Arabic Language Academies of Cairo and Damascus and received the King Faisal Prize for Arabic Language and Literature in 1984. ^{1 3} He died in Cairo on the evening of Thursday 3 Rabi' II 1418 / 7 August 1997. ¹

Wikidata listed articles on him in eight Wikipedia editions on 7 November 2026. ²

• Arabic Wikipedia article, revision of 18 September 2026. ¹

• Wikidata item Q6734388. ²

• King Faisal Prize laureate list, revision of 31 October 2026. ³