ʿABDALLĀH, MAWLĀNĀ QAVĀM-AL-DĪN ABU’L-BAQĀʾ B. MAḤMŪD B. ḤASAN ŠĪRĀZĪ, 14th century theologian and faqīh of Shiraz (d. 772/1370). He received his elementary education from his father Mawlānā Naǰm-al-dīn, a famous scholar and Sufi of his time, and later learned the seven readings of the Koran from Moḥebb-al-dīn Mawṣelī, whose daughter he took as wife (Moʿīn-al-dīn Jonayd Šīrāzī, Šadd al-ezār, ed. M. Qazvīnī and ʿA. Eqbāl, Tehran, 1328 Š./1949, pp. 84-87). Besides delivering sermons at the ʿAtīq Mosque of Shiraz, he also held classes which were attended by scholars as well as the famous poet Ḥāfeẓ, according to the compiler of Ḥāfeẓ’ Dīvān (ed. M. Qazvīnī and Q. Ḡanī, Tehran, 1320 Š./1941, pp. cvii, 397). The Mozaffarid king Shah Šoǰāʿ is also said to have occasionally attended his lectures (Ḥabīb al-sīar, Tehran, III, p. 315). Serāǰ-al-dīn Abū Ḥafṣ ʿOmar ʿAbd-al-Raḥmān, one of his pupils who studied Zamaḵšarī’s Kaššāf with him, afterwards collected the master’s lectures and edited them in a book named Kašf al-kaššāf, which was received with much attention and which Ḥāfeẓ makes a passing reference to in one of his ḡazals.
Qawām-al-dīn was also the author of al-Basṭ which his blindness forced him to leave unfinished after he had completed the first two volumes in two years. It is also said that the collecting of the Dīvān of Ḥāfeẓ was due to his encouragement. He died in 772/1370 and was buried beside his father in the cemetery of ʿAbdallāh b. Ḵafīf in Shiraz.
Bibliography:
See also Raḥmatallāh Mehrāz, Bozorgān-e Šīrāz, Tehran, 1348 Š./1969, p. 282.
ʿA. Ḥ. Zarrīnkūb, Az kūča-ye rendān, Tehran, 1349 Š./1970, pp. 12, 27, 62.
(T. Kuroyanagi)
Originally Published: December 15, 1982
Last Updated: July 15, 2011
This article is available in print.
Vol. I, Fasc. 2, p. 177
T. Kuroyanagi, “Abdallah, Qavam-Al-Din,” Encyclopædia Iranica, I/2, p. 177; an updated version is available online at http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/abdallah-mawlana-qavam-al-din-14th-century-theologian-d-1370 (accessed on 21 January 2014).
