BAḤRĀNĪ, AḤMAD B. MOḤAMMAD B. YŪSOF B. ṢĀLEḤ, described as the leading representative in his generation of Imami Shiʿite scholarship in Bahrain. His family descended from the coastal al-Ḵaṭṭ, but he himself was born and brought up in the village of Maqāba, near the northwestern corner of Bahrain (cf. J. G. Lorimer, Gazetteer of the Persian Gulf, ʿOman, and Central Arabia IIA, Calcutta, 1908, p. 224); hence his nesbas Ḵaṭṭī Maqābī. Baḥrānī spent some years in Isfahan, receiving an ejāza from Moḥammad-Bāqer Majlesī (q.v.; d. 1110/1698-99) and joining Moḥammad-Bāqer Sabzavārī (q.v.; d. 1090/1679) for study sessions. He died of the plague in 1102/1690-91, together with his brothers Yūsof and Ḥasan, while on a pilgrimage to Kāẓemayn, and was buried there. He was probably not very old at his death, since his father survived him by one year.
Most of the meager information on Baḥrānī derives from the biographical notices of his pupil Solaymān b. ʿAbd-Allāh Māḥūzī (d. 1121/1709), according to whom Baḥrānī excelled in both oṣūl and forūʿ, possessed an eloquent Arabic style, and was also a fine poet. Of his Ketāb rīāż al-dalāʾel only part of the section on ṭahāra was known to later generations. In addition to further works on feqh, Baḥrānī was also the author of two epistles on logic and of several theological tractates. In the Resāla fī wojūb al-jomʿa ʿaynan (also known as the Resāla fī ʿaynīyat ṣalāt al-jomʿa), written in refutation of an epistle by his pupil Solaymān b. ʿAlī Šāḵūrī (d. 1101/1689-90), Baḥrānī argued that the full Friday service was incumbent on believers even during the occultation of the twelfth imam. None of Baḥrānī’s works has been printed, and at present it is not even clear which (if any) are preserved in manuscript form.
Bibliography:
Yūsof b. Aḥmad Baḥrānī, Loʾloʾat al-baḥrayn, ed. Moḥammad-Ṣādeq Baḥr-al-ʿOlūm, Najaf, 1386/1966, pp. 36-39.
Ḥorr ʿĀmelī, Amal al-āmel, ed. Aḥmad Ḥosaynī, Najaf, 1385/1965, II, pp. 28-29.
ʿAbd-Allāh Efendī, Rīāż al-ʿolamāʾ, Qom, 1401/1980-81, I, pp. 68-69.
Ḵᵛānsārī, Rawżāt al-jannāt, ed. A. Esmāʿīlīān, Qom, 1390-92/1970-73, pp. 87-88.
ʿAbbās Qomī, Fawāʾed al-rażawīya, Tehran, 1367/1947-48, pp. 36-37.
Aʿyān al-šīʿa X, pp. 205-10.
(E. Kohlberg)
Originally Published: December 15, 1988
Last Updated: August 24, 2011
This article is available in print.
Vol. III, Fasc. 5, pp. 527-528
