Late authorship and innovation: the case of al-Suyūṭī

The study focuses on the case of the Egyptian polygraph al-Suyūṭī, who lived at the end of the Mamlūk period. That time was characterized by an enormous scholarly output; the disciplines of the Arab-Islamic encyclopedia were already stabilized and there seemed to be virtually no possibility of further development. As a scholar, al-Suyūṭī felt the responsibility of preserving the knowledge inherited by his predecessors, but, at the same time, he was also eager to show his individual, innovative contribution to the sciences in which he was an expert. Delving into al-Suyūṭī’s own particularly significant corpus with this in mind, the article tries to see how he stands in comparison with his predecessors and how he proudly conceives of himself and of his work in terms of originality and innovation.