al-Sha'rani

Abd al-Wahhab ibn Ahmad al-Sha'rani al-Shafi'i. In his biographical dictionary, Abd al-Ra'uf al-Munawi said of him: he is our shaykh, the diligent imam, the worshipper, the ascetic, jurist, hadith scholar, expert in the foundations of law, Sufi and guide on the path, and a descendant of Muhammad ibn al-Hanafiyya. ².

He was born in his town, and his father died while he was still a child. He memorised the Qur'an and the Abu Shuja' primer and the Ajurrumiyya when he was about seven or eight years old. Then he moved to Egypt in 911 AH and settled at the mosque of al-Ghuri. He memorised al-Minhaj, the Alfiyya, al-Tawdih, al-Tanqih, al-Shatibiyya and the rules of Ibn Hisham, and indeed he memorised al-Rawd up to the chapter on judgeship. He read the six books of hadith with Amin al-Din, the imam of the mosque of al-Ghuri, and took from al-Dawakhili, al-Mahalli, al-Qastallani, al-Ashmuni, the judge Zakariyya and Shihab al-Din al-Ramli. ².

He then turned to the Sufi path and remained for years without lying down on the ground. At night he tied a rope to the ceiling of his cell and placed it around his neck so that he would not fall. He broke his fast on an ounce of bread, and gathered rags from rubbish collectors and made them his clothing, until his spirituality grew so strong that he would fly from the prayer niche of the mosque of al-Ghuri to its roof. He then took up writing and composed works, among them an abridgement of al-Futuhat, the Grand Sunan of al-Bayhaqi, an abridgement of al-Qurtubi's Tadhkira, al-Mizan, al-Bahr al-Mawrud on covenants and pledges, Kashf al-Ghumma on the whole community, al-Manhaj al-Mubin on the proofs of the mujtahids, al-Badr al-Munir on the strange hadiths of the bringer of good news and the warner, Mashariq al-Anwar al-Qudsiyya on the Muhammadan covenants, Lawaqih al-Anwar, al-Yawaqit wal-Jawahir on the creed of the great, al-Jawhar al-Masun, Tabaqat Thalath, Mufhim al-Akbad on the sources of ijtihad, Hadd al-Hissam against those who made acting on inspiration obligatory, al-Buraq al-Khatif for the sight of whoever acts on the voices, a Risala al-Anwar, and Kashf al-Ran on the questions of the jinn. ¹.

Groups of opponents envied him. They spread against him phrases whose outward sense contradicts the law, and deviant creeds, so he was reviled and abused. ³.