Abu Ali al-Hassan ibn Masud al-Yusi () (1631–1691) was a Moroccan Sufi writer. He is considered to be the greatest Moroccan scholar of the seventeenth century and was a close associate of the first Alaouite sultan Rashid.Jamil M. Abun-Nasr, A History of the Maghrib in the Islamic Period, Cambridge University Press, 1987, , p. 223
Of his autobiography, Al-Fahrasa (literally: academic journey), only the introduction and first section have survived and these were, until recently, unpublished.Selections are cited in Jacques Berque, Al-Yousi: Problèmes de la culture marocaine au XVIIème siècle (Paris: Mouton, 1958), and in ‘Abd al-Kabīr al-‘Alawī al-Mudghirī, Al-Faqīh Abū ‘Alī al-Yūsī: namūdhaj min al-fikr al-maghribī fī fajr al-dawla al-‘alawiyya (Muhammadiyya, Morocco: Mahba‘at Fahāla, 1989). See al-Fahrasa, mss. in al-Khizāna al-Hasaniyya nos. 1183, 5470, and 5995; and ms. in al-Khizāna al-‘Amma, no. 1234 K. His better known text Al-Muhadrat (Discourses)A second and more famous text, Al-Muhādarāt (Rabat: Mahbū‘āt Dār al-Maghrib li-l-Ta’līf wa-l-Tarjama wa-l-Nashr, 1976) also contains many autobiographical passages. Both texts are remarkable for the author's frank discussions of childhood misdeeds, the pleasures of his conjugal sex life, and other intimate details of his personal life. Al-Yusi's Daliyya (poem of praise) of his Shaikh Muhammad b. Nasir al-Dari of the Zawiya Nasiriyya of Tamegroute, is famous both in Morocco and West Africa.Stefan Sperl, C. Shackle, Qasida Poetry in Islamic Asia and Africa, Brill 1996, , p. 87
Bibliography
Al-Yusi, Rasa'il Abi 'Ali al Yusi (ed. by Fatima Khalil Qabli), 2 vol., Al Yusi's essays, 1981 Al-Yusi, Zahr Al-Akam, 3 vol., Proverbs and famous sayings of al-Yusi, 1981 Al-Yusi, Al-Muhadarat fi al Lugha wa al Adab, (ed. by Muhammad Hajji), Essays and reflections by Al Yusi, 1976 Al-Yusi, Mashrab al-amm wa-al-khass min kalimat al-ikhlas (Silsilat al-Amal al-kamilah lil-Imam al-Hasan al-Yusi fi al-fikr al-Islami) Al-Yusi, Fahrasat Al-Yusi, The 'fahrasa' (academic journey) of Al-Yusi Al Hasan, 2004 Al-Faqih Abu 'Ali al Yusi Al-Mdaghri, a biography of al-Yusi, Abd al Kabir, 1989 Kenneth L. Honerkamp, "Al-Yusi, Abu al-Hassan b. Masud" in: J. Lowry and D. Stewart (ed.) Dictionary of Literary Biography, vol. Arabic Literary Culture 1350-1830, Detroit: Thomson Gale, 2007 Jacques Berque, Al-Yousi: Problèmes de la Culture Marocaine au 17e Siècle, Paris, 2001 (reprint of 1958) Clifford Geertz, Islam Observed: religious development in Morocco and Indonesia, University of Chicago Press, 1971, , p. 29 - 35 H. Munson, Jr., "Geertz on Religion", Religion 16(1986): 19-32 Abdelfattah Kilito, "Speaking to Princes: Al-Yusi and Mawlay Ismail." In the Shadow of the Sultan, ed. Rahma Bourqia and Susan Gilson Miller. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1999. pp. 30–46. (Translation of Abdelfattah Kilito, "Parler au prince: Al-Yousi et Mawlay Ismail.") Paul Rabinow, Symbolic Domination: Cultural Form and Historical Change in Morocco, University of Chicago Press, 1975 Ernest Gellner, Muslim Society (chap. 10), Cambridge University Press, 1981.
Notes
External links Kenneth l. Honerkamp, al-Hassan ibn Mas'ud al-Yusi, in Roger M. A. Allen, Joseph E. Lowry, Terri DeYoung, Devin J. Stewart, Essays in Arabic literary biography, Volume 2, Otto Harrassowitz Verlag, 2009, p. 410-428 Online Google books (retrieved, January 4, 2011) Fatima Ghoulaichi, Of Saints and Sharifian Kings in Morocco: Three Examples of Reimagining History through Reinventing King/Saint Relationship (thesis), 2005, Chapter II "Moulay Ismail and Lyusi: The politics of baraka and sharifism", p. 18-28