For students navigating the vast ocean of traditional Islamic sciences, the question of where to begin—and what path to follow thereafter—has always been central to achieving mastery. Addressing this enduring challenge, a newly launched series of articles and accompanying seminars seeks to provide modern learners with a time-tested framework. Drawn from a comprehensive seminar delivered by Shaykh Talal al-Azem, the series opens by examining why any serious learning journey requires rigorous structure, turning to the classical scholarly heritage for guidance.
The full seminar, titled How to Arrange Your Studies of Islamic Sciences, serves as the foundation for this exploration, offering contemporary students a window into how earlier generations categorized and sequenced their intellectual pursuits. At the heart of this discussion lies the legacy of a towering Ottoman-era scholar whose work on educational methodology remains deeply relevant today.
A Scholar Raised Inside a Family of Knowledge
The historical anchor for this methodological framework is Muhammad ibn Abi Bakr al-Marʿashi al-Hanafi, widely celebrated in scholarly annals as Imam Sajaqlizada. Born into an environment thoroughly immersed in learning, Sajaqlizada was shaped by his father, who served as an imam and educator in Maraş, situated in southern Turkey. Following his foundational years under his father’s tutelage, the young scholar pursued further education in Malatya and Sivas before embarking on repeated journeys to Damascus, which stood at the time as one of the premier capitals of Islamic scholarship.
In Damascus, Sajaqlizada immersed himself in the core disciplines of Quranic exegesis, known as tafsir, and the traditions of the Prophet, known as hadith. Beyond the textual sciences, he dedicated himself to the purification of the heart, or tasawwuf, studying under the renowned Imam Abdul Ghani al-Nabulsi. Demonstrating deep spiritual aptitude, Imam Nabulsi eventually granted him formal authorization, or ijazah, to guide others along the spiritual path within two major mystical traditions: the Qadiri and the Naqshbandi orders. This rich dual formation in both intellectual rigor and spiritual refinement laid the groundwork for a lifetime dedicated to the transmission of knowledge.
A Life Spent Teaching and Writing
Despite his comprehensive training and profound expertise, Imam Sajaqlizada’s career did not follow the conventional trajectory of the Ottoman religious-education hierarchy. Historical records indicate that he never held an official post within the state-sponsored educational establishment, nor is there any evidence that he ever traveled to the imperial capital of Istanbul. Instead, he chose a path mirroring that of his father.
Sajaqlizada served his local community as an imam, taught both the traditional textual disciplines and the rational sciences, and provided personal spiritual guidance to those who sought it. Above all, he was remarkably prolific. Throughout his life, he authored at least thirty distinct works spanning a vast array of subjects, including Quranic exegesis, speculative theology or kalam, logic, dialectical disputation, jurisprudence, spiritual purification, and ethics.
Significantly, his intellectual curiosity extended beyond these specialized fields to encompass the philosophy of education itself, resulting in vital contributions on how to classify and order the various branches of human knowledge. Historians continue to debate the exact year of his death, placing it somewhere between 1145 and 1155 in the Hijri calendar, corresponding roughly to the years 1732 to 1742 in the Common Era. Long after his passing, later generations remembered him by the prestigious honorific Taj al-Murshidin, meaning the Crown of the Spiritual Guides.
A Significant Book on the Ordering of Sciences
The core focus of the current educational series centers on Imam Sajaqlizada’s seminal treatise, Tartib al-ʿUlum, translated as The Ordering of the Sciences, which he completed in 1128 AH, corresponding to 1715 or 1716 CE. The work achieved a notable degree of prominence in the centuries following its composition. Its influence was enduring enough that it was translated into Turkish more than 150 years later, during the Young Turk era, when intellectuals and reformers utilized its structural insights as a compelling argument for modernizing and reforming the Ottoman educational system.
The title of Sajaqlizada’s treatise carries a dual significance that is crucial to understanding its overarching purpose. First, it establishes a hierarchy among academic disciplines. In this view, certain foundational sciences supply the primary principles upon which other, more advanced sciences must necessarily build. This hierarchical relationship of dependency is recognized across intellectual traditions, mirroring concepts described in both the Avicennan and Latin scholastic traditions as subalternation.
Second, the title dictates a strict order of study for the seeker of knowledge. Acknowledging the natural hierarchy of the disciplines, the book addresses the practical question of the sequence in which a student should actually proceed through the curriculum. Sajaqlizada tackles this complex pedagogical problem through a carefully organized structure consisting of a preface, an introduction, two primary parts, a conclusion, and a concise epilogue.
A Direct Word to the Student
Imam Sajaqlizada wastes no time in establishing a personal and direct connection with his readership. He opens his treatise by explicitly naming the specific audience he is addressing—those individuals who find themselves already actively walking the path of seeking knowledge. He grounds their endeavor in a timeless context, reminding them that in every historical era, there has been a dedicated group set apart for the rigorous pursuit of learning. In doing so, he invokes the injunction found in the Quran, which highlights the necessity of a contingent remaining behind within every community to gain a deep understanding of the religion, as referenced in Surah At-Tawbah, verse 122.
However, Sajaqlizada offers a sobering reflection on his own historical moment, lamenting that this dedicated group of scholars and serious seekers had nearly vanished in his time. In their place, he observes a generation of learners whom he critically compares to rabbits among lions—individuals who are physically present and actively moving about, yet entirely lacking the monumental stature, depth, and seriousness of those scholarly giants who came before them.
Through this powerful imagery, the Ottoman scholar issues a timeless reminder to every student, both past and present: a mere passing desire for knowledge amounts to very little unless it is paired with a rigorous, disciplined method for pursuing it. Having established this foundational premise regarding the necessity of structured methodology, Imam Sajaqlizada transitions in his work to explore the intrinsic bond that must connect intellectual knowledge with moral uprightness, setting the stage for the subsequent discussions in Shaykh Talal al-Azem’s seminar series.