al-Shahid al-Awwal
c. 1334 CE–c. 1385 CE · Hilla
Muhammad ibn Makki al-'Amili, known in Twelver Shia tradition as al-Shahid al-Awwal ("the First Martyr"), was a leading jurist of the Ja'fari school — the legal tradition of Twelver Shi'ism — and one of the most influential figures of Jabal 'Amil, the Shia heartland of what is now southern Lebanon. He was born in the village of Jizzin in 734 AH (1333-4 CE), where he first studied under his father.
He is reported to have traveled to Hilla in Iraq, then a major center of Shia learning, where he studied with Fakhr al-Muhaqqiqin, son of the celebrated jurist al-'Allama al-Hilli, receiving authorization (ijaza) to issue independent legal reasoning (ijtihad) while still young. Biographical tradition records extensive journeys for study across Iraq, the Hijaz, Egypt, and Syria, though detailed itineraries are not firmly fixed.
His best-known work, al-Lum'a al-Dimashqiyya ("The Damascene Glimmer"), is a concise manual of Shia law. Tradition holds he composed it in Damascus, reportedly in a single week, for 'Ali ibn Mu'ayyad, the Shia Sarbadar ruler of Khurasan, who had invited him east; political conditions kept him from traveling, so he sent the book instead.
He was tried and executed in Damascus on 9 Jumada I 786 AH (mid-1385 CE) under Mamluk authority, on charges brought by Sunni judges. Twelver tradition venerates him as a martyr; the precise legal and political motives behind his death are debated by historians.
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Hilla
What they did here
Traveled to Hilla in Iraq, then a foremost center of Twelver Shia legal scholarship, where he is reported to have studied under Fakhr al-Muhaqqiqin (son of al-'Allama al-Hilli) and other masters, gaining authorization (ijaza) for ijtihad at a young age. The dating of this stay is given variously in the tradition; biographical sources place it roughly between his mid-teens and early twenties.
About Hilla
Hilla, on the Euphrates in central Iraq, was founded around 1100 and became a leading centre of Twelver Shi'i scholarship in the 13th-14th centuries. The jurists al-Muhaqqiq al-Hilli (d. 1277) and his nephew al-Allama al-Hilli (d. 1325), major systematizers of Twelver law and theology, took their nisba from and worked in the city.
The world in their lifetime
Thinkers, teachers, and rulers whose lives overlapped with al-Shahid al-Awwal’s — a glimpse of the wider world they lived in. Drawn purely from recorded birth and death years.
Islamic world
- Abu Hayyan al-Gharnati· 1256 CE–1344 CE
- al-Dhahabi· 1274 CE–1348 CE
- al-Khazin· 1279 CE–1341 CE
- al-Iji· 1281 CE–1355 CE
- Taqi al-Din al-Subki· 1284 CE–1355 CE
- Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya· 1292 CE–1350 CE
- Ibn Kathir· 1300 CE–1373 CE
- Ibn Battuta· 1304 CE–1369 CE
- Ibn al-Khatib· 1313 CE–1374 CE
- Hafiz of Shiraz· 1315 CE–1390 CE
- Baha al-Din Naqshband· 1318 CE–1389 CE
- al-Taftazani· 1322 CE–1390 CE
- Zayn al-Din al-Iraqi· 1325 CE–1404 CE
- Ibn Khaldun· 1332 CE–1406 CE
- Ibn Abbad al-Rundi· 1333 CE–1390 CE
- Nur al-Din al-Haythami· 1335 CE–1405 CE
- Al-Sharif al-Jurjani· 1340 CE–1413 CE
- Ibn al-Jazari· 1350 CE–1429 CE
- Al-Maqrizi· 1364 CE–1442 CE
- Abd al-Karim al-Jili· 1366 CE–1424 CE
- Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani· 1372 CE–1449 CE
- Al-Kashi· 1380 CE–1429 CE
- al-Shatibi· –1388 CE
- Khalil ibn Ishaq al-Jundi· –1374 CE
Christian world
Jewish world
Luminaries & Explorers world
Scientists
Buddhist world
Rulers world
- Acamapichtli· –1395 CE
- Murad I· 1326 CE–1389 CE
- Hayam Wuruk· 1334 CE–1389 CE
- Hongwu Emperor (Zhu Yuanzhang)· 1328 CE–1398 CE
- Barquq· 1336 CE–1399 CE
- Dmitry Donskoy· 1350 CE–1389 CE
- Firuz Shah Tughlaq· 1309 CE–1388 CE
- Timur (Tamerlane)· 1336 CE–1405 CE
- Taejo of Joseon (Yi Seong-gye)· 1335 CE–1408 CE
- Bayezid I· 1360 CE–1403 CE
- Huitzilihuitl· –1417 CE
- Ashikaga Yoshimitsu· 1358 CE–1408 CE
- Khizr Khan· –1421 CE
- Ashikaga Takauji· 1305 CE–1358 CE
Works
No works attributed in the corpus yet.