Sa'd al-Din ibn 'Iraq

سعد الدين بن عراق

c. 1501 CE · 907 AH – c. 1555 CE · 963 AH

Sa'd al-Din b. 'Iraq — b. 907 on Beirut's coast aboard the 'Iraqi ship; Qur'an memorized at five in two years, a khatma every Friday for six; a deaf man of the deepest learning, khatib of Medina — and the man who made coffee famous at Damascus, whence its shops multiplied — his own father had denounced it and destroyed its house in Mecca 1.

Depth

At a glance

Roles
Scholar · Jurist · teacher
Counted among
Sunni
Era
The Gunpowder Empires
Region
Arabia · Levant & Iraq
Review
Draft Completeness 2/5 · Help complete it

Life in time

1475150015251550157516001625 c. c. c. c. c.
The Crusades, Ayyubids and Mamluks · The Gunpowder Empires · The Mongol and Post-Mongol Era Contemporaries: 'Abd al-Rahman ibn Ziyad, mufti of Zabid · 'Abd Allah al-Fakihi, the grammarian · Abu al-Su'ud Afandi · al-Sha'rani · Baba Shah Esfahani

Scripture and its sciencesEducation

Summary

Sa'd al-Din Ali ibn Muhammad ibn Ali ibn Abd al-Rahman ibn Iraq, the jurist and Qur'an reader, a Shami and Hijazi Shafi'i. According to his father, as he recorded in the Iraqi ship, he was born in 907 AH on the coast of Beirut. He memorised the Qur'an by the age of five, in two years. He stayed with his father for six years, reading one full recitation every Friday, and God's blessing came upon him, so that he memorised many books in various disciplines. 2.

Knowledge and posts

He took the readings from the pupil of his father, Shaykh Ahmad ibn Abd al-Wahhab, preacher of the village of Majdal Mughush. He had a firm standing in jurisprudence, hadith and the readings, good participation in other fields, and an interest in the inheritance rules, arithmetic and astronomy, and a power in composing outstanding verse. He had calm and dignity, but he was severely deaf. He held the preaching post of the al-Niri mosque, and on his journey to Rum he entered Damascus and Aleppo. Ibn Tulun said that he had told him that Sa'd al-Din composed a commentary on Sahih Muslim following the arrangement of al-Qastallani's commentary on Sahih al-Bukhari, and began a commentary on al-Ubab in Shafi'i jurisprudence. 1.

Coffee in Damascus

On his return from Rum, he left Damascus to visit Jerusalem on Thursday, the third of Jumada al-Akhira 949 AH. He recorded that during his stay in Damascus he used to visit the grave of Ibn al-Arabi and spend the night there, and that he made the drinking of coffee known in Damascus, so that its shops multiplied from that day. It is remarkable that his father had denounced it, and ruined its house in Mecca. He died in the illuminated city of Medina, where he was its preacher and imam, in 963 AH. 3.

People and things also explored

Ibn al-Athir al-Jazri· al-Attarine Madrasa, Fez· The seven ahruf· Hadith· Experience versus service, and self-development· Scientific matn (condensed school text)· Reading and culture (al-qira'a wa-l-thaqafa)· Shama'il Muhammadiyya

Sources

  1. Shadharat al-Dhahab — Ibn al-Imad al-Hanbali , p. 337-338
  2. Shadharat al-Dhahab — Ibn al-Imad al-Hanbali , p. 337
  3. Shadharat al-Dhahab — Ibn al-Imad al-Hanbali , p. 338
Cite this page

islam.museum contributors. “Sa'd al-Din ibn 'Iraq”. islam.museum, https://islam.museum/en/person/saad-al-din-ibn-iraq/. CC BY-SA 4.0. Last updated 2026-10-19.

Improve this page on GitHub · Report an error · JSON

Wing

People

Prophets, companions, scholars, rulers, scientists, poets, travelers: women and men who shaped the story.
Related

Ibn al-Athir al-Jazri

The hadith scholar and jurist Majd al-Din Abu al-Sa'adat al-Mubarak ibn Muhammad al-Jazari al-Shaybani, the eldest of the three Ibn al-Athir brothers; he served the chanceries of the Jazira and Mosul, and after gout crippled him he produced most of his works by dictation, among them 'al-Nihaya fi Gharib al-Hadith' and 'Jami' al-Usul'.