AMĪNJĪ B. JALĀL, AMĪN-AL-DĪN, eminent Ṭayyebī Ismaʿili jurist from Ahmadabad in India, son of the twenty-fifth dāʿī moṭlaq, Šams-al-dīn Jalāl b. Ḥasan (d. 975/1567). He was fourth in rank in the daʿwa hierarchy in the time of the twenty-sixth dāʿī moṭlaq, Dāʾūd b. ʿAǰabšāh (d. 997/1589 or 999/1591), and third under the succeeding dāʿī, Dāʾūd Borhān-al-dīn b. Qoṭbšāh (d. 1021/1612). In the dispute which resulted in the Dāʾūdī-Solaymānī split of the Ṭayyebī community, he supported Dāʾūd Borhān-al-dīn’s title to the position of dāʿī moṭlaq and wrote a refutation of Solaymān b. Ḥasan’s claim to have been appointed successor by the previous dāʿī. Amīnǰī’s argument was refuted in turn by Solaymān’s son and successor, Jaʿfar. Between Raǰab, 1005/March, 1597, and Moḥarram, 1007/August, 1598, during the dāʿī’s absence from Ahmadabad, Amīnǰī conducted the affairs of the daʿwa. He died at Ahmadabad on 13 Šawwāl 1010/5 April 1602 (Ḵawǰ b. Malek Kapadvanǰī, Maǰmūʿ al-rasāʾel al-sett, MS, p. 47; Qoṭb-al-dīn Borhānpūrī, Montazaʿ al-aḵbar, MS, II, pp. 116, 124, 130, 154-55, 169, 174; Moḥammad-ʿAlī b. Mollā Jīvā, Mawsem-e bahār, Bombay, 1301-11/1883-94, III, pp. 193, 237-38, 252, 257). Among his juridical works extant in manuscripts, Masāʾel Amīnǰī b. Jalāl, also known as Ketāb al-soʾāl wa’l-ǰawāb, and Ketāb al-ḥawāšī, a two-volume commentary on Qāżī Noʿmān’s Daʿāʾem al-Eslām and Moḵtaṣar al-āṯār, are well known in the community (Esmāʿīl al-Maǰdūʿ, Fehrest, ed. ʿA. N. Monzawī, Tehran, 1966, pp. 37-38; A. A. A. Fyzee, Compendium of Fatimid Law, Simla, 1969, pp. xxxii-xxxiv) and are regarded as authoritative. The legal problems and relevant anecdotes discussed in these works are often typically Indian and provide useful material for the social and economic history of the Bohra community. Ketāb al-ḥawāšī contains numerous quotations from Qāżī Noʿmān’s Ketāb al-īżāḥ and Moḵtaṣar al-īżāḥ. The citations from the former deal with ritual purity, prayers, pilgrimage, and wergeld, indicating that a greater portion of the work was available to the author than is now preserved. In Ketāb al-ḥawāšī, Amīnǰī has also reproduced the answers given by the dāʿī Edrīs ʿEmād-al-dīn (d. 872/ 1468) to queries sent to him from India on legal matters. Amīnǰī’s Ḥesāb al-mawārīṯ deals with issues of inheritance. He also wrote commentaries on Qāżī Noʿmān’s al-Orǰūzat al-montaḵaba (on jurisprudence), and another on the latter’s Asās al-taʾwīl and Taʾwīl al-daʿāʾem.
Bibliography:
I. Poonawala, Biobibliography of Ismāʾīlī Literature, Malibu, 1977, pp. 185-86.
(I. Poonawala)
Originally Published: December 15, 1989
Last Updated: August 3, 2011
This article is available in print.
Vol. I, Fasc. 9, p. 956
I. Poonawala, “AMĪNJĪ,” Encyclopædia Iranica, I/9, p. 956, available online at http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/aminji-b (accessed on 30 December 2012).
