Muhammad al-Tahir ibn Ashur

Muhammad al-Tahir ibn Ashur (1879–1973) was a Tunisian scholar, Qur'an exegete, jurist and linguist, one of the senior teachers of the Zaytuna and its rector, author of the commentary al-Tahrir wa'l-Tanwir and of Maqasid al-Shari'ah al-Islamiyyah.¹²

He was born in Tunis in 1296 AH / 1879 into a scholarly family of Andalusi origin, descended from the Idrisid sharifs and settled in Tunisia after the persecution of Andalusi Muslims.¹ He studied at the Zaytuna, became one of its senior teachers, and taught there all his life.¹² He met Muhammad Abduh when the latter visited Tunisia in 1903, and was influenced by the reform calls of Abduh, Jamal al-Din al-Afghani and Muhammad Rashid Rida.¹²

He was appointed a judge on the mixed council in 1909, then a Maliki qadi in 1911, rose to the rank of mufti, and in 1932 was chosen for the post of Maliki Shaykh al-Islam.¹ The French article gives the sequence in more detail: qadi from 1913 to 1923, Maliki mufti in 1923, Maliki bach mufti in 1927, and first Maliki Shaykh al-Islam in 1932, describing the bach mufti post as the highest religious dignity of the Maliki rite.³ When the scientific inspectorate was abolished he became the first Shaykh of Zaytuna University, was removed from it for political reasons, and later returned.¹

He is famous for rejecting President Habib Bourguiba's request for a fatwa justifying the abandonment of the Ramadan fast on the claim that it harmed productivity, replying that fasting is prescribed by the Qur'an's text; he was dismissed from his post as a result.² He called for ijtihad as a collective duty of the community, criticised the confinement of jurisprudence to methodological technicalities, and held that the higher purposes (maqasid) of the shari'a are the way to renew the law and connect it to the needs of the age.²

His best-known works are his Qur'an commentary al-Tahrir wa'l-Tanwir, his Maqasid al-Shari'ah al-Islamiyyah, published in 1946, and A laysa al-subh bi-qarib, on the reform of education.²

He died at La Marsa on 13 Rajab 1393 AH / 12 August 1973, aged about ninety-four.¹³⁴

• Arabic Wikipedia, "Muhammad al-Tahir ibn Ashur".¹
• English Wikipedia, "Ibn Ashur".²
• French Wikipedia, "Mohamed Tahar Ben Achour".³
• Urdu Wikipedia, "Muhammad al-Tahir ibn Ashur".⁵
• Wikidata, Q3318841.⁴