Abd al-Rahman ibn Hasan al-Jabarti (Arabic:عبد الرحمن بن حسن الجبرتي,romanized: ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Ḥasan al-Jabartī; 1753–1825) was an Egyptian-Somali Islamic scholar and historian who spent most of his life inCairo.^[2][3]

Al-Jabarti may have been born in the village of Tell al-Gabarti in the northernDelta province ofBeheira, Egypt.^[4] Abdulkader Saleh asserts that al-Jabarti was instead born inCairo.^[5] Al-Jabarti was born into a prominent family ofUlama^[6] with ties to theEgyptian scholarly and political elite. Al-Jabarti's father,Hassan ibn Ibrahim, was a learned and highly venerated man in Cairo.^[7] It is believed that Hassan Al-Jabarti travelled fromZeila to Cairo during the mid-18th century, and was of aSomali ethnic background.^{[2][8][9][10]} According to his writings, his name comes from his "seventh-degree grandfather," Abd al-Rahman, who was the earliest member of his family known to him.^[11] The older Abd al-Rahman was fromJabarah (located in theHorn of Africa).^[7]

Abd al-Rahman visited theriwaqs of the Jabarti communities inMecca andMedina before making it back to Egypt, where he becameshaykh of theriwaq there. Al-Jabarti's father was aHanafi religious scholar and served as the director of the al-Jabarti residence hall for students at al-Azhar University, a title al-Jabarti inherited following his father's death in 1774.^[12] As a result, al-Jabarti was trained as a Sheikh at theal-Azhar University in Cairo. Through his family ties, al-Jabarti gained access to prominent scholars al-Muradi and al-Murtada, both of whom influenced his decision to write about Egyptian history.^[13]

He began keeping a monthly chronicle of local events, from which he compiled his three most famous works. The last and lengthiest of these documents, inArabicAja'ib al-athar fi al-tarajim wal-akhbar, which is generally known in English simply asAl-Jabarti's History of Egypt, and sometimes asThe Marvellous Compositions of Biographies and Events, became a world-famous historical text by virtue of its eyewitness accounts ofNapoleon'sinvasion andMuhammad Ali's rise to power. The entries from his chronicle dealing with the French expedition and occupation have been excerpted and compiled in English as a separate volume entitledNapoleon in Egypt. He was one of the first Muslims to realise the significance of the wave ofmodernity that accompanied theFrench occupation, and the gulf that existed between Western and Islamic knowledge "shocked him profoundly".^[14]

Jabarti maintained a strict, puritanical tone in his reaction to his witnessing of the advanced military technology, material sciences and cultural values of theFrench occupiers. He abhorred theRepublican ideas of theFrench Revolution such asegalitarianism,liberty andequality; insisting on the supremacy ofWahy (Islamic Revelation) overEuropean rationalism. Although he had acknowledged the advances made byEuropeans in certain fields, Jabarti firmly believed in the eventual triumph of Islam over theWest and advocated the restoration of Islamic prowess through his works.^[15] Expressing a strong revulsion against the French occupiers in his writings, Jabarti famously prayed for God to:

"strike their tongues with dumbness … confound their intelligence, and cause their breath to cease"^[16]

Al-Jabarti is known for three works:Tarikh muddat al-faransis bi-misr(The History of the Period of the French Occupation in Egypt), completed in late 1798;Mazhar al-taqdis bi-zawal dawlat al-faransis(Demonstration of Piety in the Demise of French Society), completed in December 1801; and‘Aja’ib al-athar fi’t-tarajim wa’l-akhbar(The Marvellous Compositions of Biographies and Events), which was much longer and comprised elements from his first two works.^[17]The History of the French Occupation in Egypt chronicles the first seven months of the three-yearoccupation of Egypt by the French. In this work, in addition to chronicling factual events, al-Jabarti criticises the social and moral depravity of the French, embarks on an extensive correction of the grammar in the French Proclamation, and expresses general feelings of anger towards the invasion. His second work,Demonstration of Piety in the Demise of French Society, is much less well known than his other two.The Marvellous Compositions of Biographies and Events is by far al-Jabarti's most famous work, as well as his longest. This work covers the history of Egypt from 1688 to 1821 but was banned in Egypt in 1870 due to its critical views aboutMuhammad Ali Pasha's reforms, among other controversial criticisms.^[12] Towards the end of the 1870s the ban on his book was lifted, and it was printed in part in 1878 by the press ofAlexandria newspaperMisr, and in full in 1880 by the Bulak printing press.^[12]

• Karabell, Zachary (2003).Parting the desert: the creation of the Suez Canal. Alfred A. Knopf.ISBN 0-375-40883-5.
• Jabartī, ʻabd al-Raḥmān; Al-Jabarti, Sheik (1798).Napoleon in Egypt: Al-Jabarti's Chronicle of the French Occupation. Translated by Shmuel Moreh.ISBN 1-55876-070-9.{{cite book}}:ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)

• Napoleon in Egypt : Al-Jabartī's chronicle of the French occupation, 1798, Markus Wiener Publishers, 2006
• Aja'ib al-athar fi'l-tarajim wa'l-akhbar (in Arabic)
• "Jabarti, Abd al-Rahman al-" in Oxford Dictionary of Islam

• 1756 births
• 1825 deaths
• Somalian historians
• Somalian Sunni Muslim scholars of Islam
• Egyptian Sunni Muslim scholars of Islam
• Egyptian people of Somali descent
• Al-Azhar University alumni
• Writers from Cairo
• 18th-century Egyptian people
• 18th-century historians
• 19th-century Egyptian writers
• 19th-century historians
• 18th-century Somali people
• 19th-century Somali writers
• Somalian scholars
• Egyptian historians of Islam
• Scholars of precolonial Africa

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