Muḥammad ibn Qāsim al-Anṣārī (d. 650/1252) was a Valencian belletrist, Qur’an and Hadith scholar with family origins in Calatayud. He adopted a life of asceticism devoting himself to teaching Qur’anic exegesis, Hadith, and Sufi mysticism. He is the author of two treatises on the art of preaching, Nasīm al-ṣaba fī l-wa‘ẓ (The breeze of the eastern wind on hortatory preaching), which was compared to the famous hortatory preaching manual of the celebrated Iraqi preacher, Ibn al-Jawzi (d. 596/1200), and Bughyat al-nufūs al-zakiyya fī l-khuṭab al-wa‘ẓiyya (The object of desire of the pure souls on liturgical hortatory sermons). Both works appear to be lost. He briefly served as liturgical preacher of Valencia following the defeat of the Almohads by the army of James I of Aragon in before emigrating to Xátiva.
Bibliography:
- Muḥammad b. ‘Abd Allāh Ibn al-Abbār, al-Takmila li-Kitāb al-Ṣila, ed. Bashshār ‘Awwād Ma’ruf, 4 vols. (Tunis: Dar al-Gharb al-Islami, 2011)