Zayn bin Abdullah bin Abd al-Rahman Jamal al-Layl was a Ba Alawi figure whose life connected Hadramawt, India and the Hijaz. Al-Mashra al-Rawi records that he was born in Rawgha in Hadramawt and was raised in part by his maternal grandfather, Aqil bin Muhammad Ba Hasan. As a young man he travelled to India and reached Surat, where he studied with Muhammad bin Abdullah al-Aydarus.
The source says that Zayn performed Hajj in 1017 AH and later returned to India. He subsequently made another journey to the Hijaz, studied with scholars there and settled in Medina. The account remembers him particularly for charitable support and mediation on behalf of others, while its devotional praise is best read within the conventions of traditional manaqib literature.
Zayn died in 1058 AH and was buried in al-Baqi Cemetery in Medina. A later biography in Khulasat al-Athar preserves the same full Jamal al-Layl lineage, identifies him as a resident of Medina, records his travels through Surat and the Hijaz, and gives the same death year.
Lineage and source note
Primary source: Al-Mashra al-Rawi fi Manaqib al-Sada al-Kiram Al Abi Alawi, volume 2. The mapped biography records Zayn’s Jamal al-Layl lineage, birth in Rawgha, travel to Surat, study with Muhammad bin Abdullah al-Aydarus, journeys to the Hijaz, settlement in Medina and burial in al-Baqi. Khulasat al-Athar, as preserved in a modern biographical index, independently gives the same identity and death in 1058 AH. Devotional descriptions are treated as source tradition rather than independent historical fact.