Al-Hasan al-Yusi

Abu Ali al-Hassan ibn Masud al-Yusi (Arabic: أبو علي الحسن اليوسي) (1631–1691) was a Moroccan Sufi writer.^[1] He is considered to be the greatest Moroccan scholar of the seventeenth century and was a close associate of the first Alaouite sultan Rashid.^[2]

Of his autobiography, Al-Fahrasa (literally: academic journey), only the introduction and first section have survived and these were, until recently, unpublished.^[3] His better known text Al-Muhadrat (Conferences)^[4] also contains many autobiographical passages.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.^[5]

^ Head, Gretchen (2016). "Space, Identity, and Exile in Seventeenth-Century Morocco: The Case of Abū ʿAlī al-Ḥasan al-Yūsī". Journal of Arabic Literature. 47 (3): 231–259. ISSN 0085-2376.
^ Jamil M. Abun-Nasr, A History of the Maghrib in the Islamic Period, Cambridge University Press, 1987, ISBN 0-521-33767-4, p. 223
^ 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.
^ 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)
^ Stefan Sperl, C. Shackle, Qasida Poetry in Islamic Asia and Africa, Brill 1996, ISBN 90-04-03587-7, p. 87

[:4-1] Head, Gretchen (2016). "Space, Identity, and Exile in Seventeenth-Century Morocco: The Case of Abū ʿAlī al-Ḥasan al-Yūsī". Journal of Arabic Literature. 47 (3): 231–259. ISSN 0085-2376.

[2] Jamil M. Abun-Nasr, A History of the Maghrib in the Islamic Period, Cambridge University Press, 1987, ISBN 0-521-33767-4, p. 223

[3] 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.

[4] 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)

[5] Stefan Sperl, C. Shackle, Qasida Poetry in Islamic Asia and Africa, Brill 1996, ISBN 90-04-03587-7, p. 87

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