Kamal al-Din al-Shamakhi al-Baku'i

كمال الدين الشماخي الباكوي

c. 28 March 1523 CE · c. 3 Rabi' I 929 AH

A Shirvani initiatic chain in a craftsman's shop — after Shah Isma'il's fitna he came to Cairo showing no shaykhdom, sat in a stall by Khan al-Khalili fashioning Persian-style caps and coifs 'with beautiful workmanship', while carrying a store of shaykhs' sayings and manners 'missing from many of the turbaned'; died Monday night 3 Rabi' I, aged one hundred and thirteen 1.

Depth

At a glance

Roles
Scholar · Merchant
Counted among
Sunni
Era
The Mongol and Post-Mongol Era
Region
Persia & Central Asia · Egypt & Nile
Review
Draft Completeness 2/5 · Help complete it

Life in time

1400142514501475150015251550157516001625 c. c. c. c. c. c.
The Crusades, Ayyubids and Mamluks · The Gunpowder Empires · The Mongol and Post-Mongol Era Contemporaries: 'Abd al-Haqq al-Sunbati · 'Abd al-Rahman ibn Ziyad, mufti of Zabid · 'Abd Allah al-Fakihi, the grammarian · Abu al-Su'ud Afandi · Abu Numayy II, sharif of Mecca

Spirituality and Sufism

Summary

Kamal al-Din Muhammad ibn Shaykh Ghiyath al-Din Ahmad ibn Shaykh Kamal al-Din al-Shamakhi, originally from Shamakhi, the mother-city of the province of Shirvan, where he was also born, and later of Baku. He studied with Sayyid Yahya ibn Sayyid Baha al-Din al-Shirvani al-Shamakhi 1.

He entered Cairo after the strife of Isma'il Shah, and he did not show himself as a shaykh or as a Sufi, nor did he seek the favour of the powerful. He sat in a shop near the Khan al-Khalili, where he made caps and small leather bottles in the Persian style, with fine craftsmanship and great skill. He knew by heart the sayings of many shaykhs and their manners, character and good conduct, which many leading figures had left behind, and he did not boast or show off 1.

He died on the night of Monday, the third of Rabi al-Awwal, at the age of a hundred and thirteen 1.

People and things also explored

Prophetic adab (proper conduct)· Akhi Baba (title of the guild shaykh and tanners' head)· The angelic and the satanic inspiration (lamma)· Asking people for help (al-masala)· The soul (nafs) and the spirit (ruh)· Tabattul (withdrawal from the world)· Intimacy with God (uns billah)· Certainty and its degrees (yaqin)

Sources

  1. Shadharat al-Dhahab — Ibn al-Imad al-Hanbali , p. 561
Cite this page

islam.museum contributors. “Kamal al-Din al-Shamakhi al-Baku'i”. islam.museum, https://islam.museum/en/person/muhammad-al-shamakhi/. CC BY-SA 4.0. Last updated 2026-10-19.

Improve this page on GitHub · Report an error · JSON

Wing

People

Prophets, companions, scholars, rulers, scientists, poets, travelers: women and men who shaped the story.
Related

Prophetic adab (proper conduct)

The body of proper conduct the believer is commanded in his words, deeds and relations with God and His servants; from the formula 'whoever believes in God and the Last Day' in Abu Hurayra's hadith Ibn Rajab derives that these traits are of the traits of iman and that deeds enter into iman, dividing the hadith's three commands into what belongs to God's rights — speaking good or keeping silent — and what belongs to His servants' rights — honouring the neighbour, withholding harm from him and honouring the guest; he transmits Aswad ibn Asram's report of the Prophet's counsel 'do not say with your tongue except what is good and do not extend your hand except to good', and that the tongue's uprightness is of the traits of iman; Abu Amr ibn al-Salah reports from Abu Muhammad ibn Abi Zayd, the Maliki imam of his time, that the conduct of goodness and all its reins branch from four hadiths: speaking good or keeping silent, leaving what does not concern one, 'do not become angry', and loving for one's brother what one loves for oneself.