Ḥusayn b. ʿAbd al-Ṣamad al-ʿĀmilī’s Flight from Lebanon to Iraq

Abstract

This study presents an annotated translation and analysis of a recently discovered travel account by sixteenth-century Shiʿite scholar Ḥusayn b. ʿAbd al-Ṣamad al-ʿĀmilī (918-984/1512-1576). In it, Ḥusayn briefly recounts his flight from the Biqāʿ Valley in what is now northern Lebanon to Karbala in southern Iraq. Though undated, the text suggests that Ḥusayn’s journey took place in the winter of 1548-49 and that Ḥusayn was concerned to escape detection by authorities. He left Baalbek soon after his teacher Zayn al-Dīn al-ʿĀmilī, later famous as al-Shahīd al-Thānī (911-965/1506-1558), left that town, probably as a consequence of the same incident or problem that caused Zayn al-Dīn to give up his position as professor of law at the Nūriyya Madrasa there. Ḥusayn evidently already had the intention to seek safety in Safavid Iran, even though he ended up staying in Iraq for an extended period and only entered Iran about five years later, in 961/1554.