al-Shahid al-Thani
1506 CE–1558 CE · Karak Nuh (Beqaa)
Zayn al-Din ibn 'Ali al-Juba'i al-'Amili (born 13 Shawwal 911 AH / 1506 CE in the village of Juba' in Jabal 'Amil, today in southern Lebanon) was a leading jurist of Twelver Shia Islam — the branch that recognizes twelve Imams from the Prophet's family. He is remembered in Shia tradition as al-Shahid al-Thani, "the Second Martyr," after an earlier jurist of the same region given the title al-Shahid al-Awwal ("the First Martyr").
He is reported to have studied widely, deliberately attending both Shia and Sunni teachers. After early studies in Jabal 'Amil and Karak Nuh, his travels for learning took him to Damascus, to Cairo (where he is said to have studied jurisprudence, logic, medicine and astronomy), and on pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina. Sources record a journey to Constantinople (Istanbul) around 949 AH, after which he was appointed to teach at the Nuriyya school in Baalbek — by tradition lecturing according to several legal schools. He later visited the shrines of the Imams in Iraq before settling again in Juba' to teach and write.
His best-known work is al-Rawda al-Bahiyya, a commentary on al-Shahid al-Awwal's legal manual al-Lum'a al-Dimashqiyya, still studied in Shia seminaries. He was seized by Ottoman authorities and executed around 965 AH / 1558 CE; the exact circumstances are recounted differently across sources. Whether his death is best described as political or strictly religious persecution is presented in the tradition rather than settled by neutral evidence.
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Karak Nuh (Beqaa)
What they did here
Reported to have studied c. 933-934 AH at Karak Nuh under al-Sayyid Badr al-Din Hasan al-A'raji (kalam, usul al-fiqh, grammar). From the manaqib/biographical tradition. (Karak Nuh is not in the gazetteer.)
About Karak Nuh (Beqaa)
Karak Nuh, a village in the Beqaa Valley of modern Lebanon, is traditionally associated with a tomb identified as that of the prophet Noah. It was a place of study for Jabal Amil scholars; the Twelver jurist al-Shahid al-Thani (Zayn al-Din al-Amili, d. 1558) studied there in his youth, and the jurist al-Muhaqqiq al-Karaki (d. 1534) took his nisba al-Karaki from it. [NOTE: al-Shahid al-Thani was born in Juba', not Karak Nuh; he studied at Karak Nuh.]
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