al-Tanbadhawi al-Bakri al-Siddiqi

Shihab al-Din Ahmad al-Tayyib ibn Shams al-Din al-Tanbadawi al-Bakri al-Siddiqi al-Shafii, Shaykh al-Islam, a learned imam, a man of gnosis, devout and deeply repentant. He was born around the year 870 and studied jurisprudence with al-Nur al-Samhudi, Qadi Ahmad al-Mazjad and others. In his age he stood to the scholars as the sun to the stars. He excelled in logic and in the science of concepts, and he was very firm in matters of religion, speaking the truth without fearing the blame of anyone ².

He used to say to his student Ibn Ziyad: "Ahmad al-Mazjad benefited you, and we benefited from his glance and his speech." Many people took from him, among them Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Ziyad, the hadith master Shihab al-Din Ahmad al-Khazraji, Abd al-Malik ibn al-Naqib and Salih al-Mari. Leadership in issuing fatwas and in teaching came to him, and both the elite and the common people benefited from him ².

His works include well-known fatwas relied upon in Zabid, a commentary on al-Tanbih in four volumes, and a useful gloss on al-Ubab. Shaykh Salih al-Nammari said: "One of the most remarkable things I heard from him is that he said: I studied the whole of al-Idah, the commentary on al-Hawi by al-Nashiri, in a single night. It is two large volumes, and I wrote a note from each chapter. This went beyond the ordinary." Al-Khawlani said: "I heard him say that the notes he wrote that night came to three booklets." He had an exceptional memory and knew al-Irshad by heart ¹.