Scripture and its sciences

Family: Belief and worship · 620 entries

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• Abdullah ibn Salam

  c. 550 CEA learned rabbi of Banu Qaynuqa' who examined the Prophet, declared him genuine, and became the most famous Jewish convert of Medina — held in Sunni tradition as one promised paradise.

• Waraqa ibn Nawfal

  c. 555 CEKhadija's cousin, an elderly Meccan Christian who had studied the scriptures; the man who first told the shaken Prophet that what had come to him in the cave was prophecy.

• Uthman ibn Affan

  c. 576 CEThird caliph (644–656); the early community married him to two of the Prophet's daughters in succession. Under him the Qur'an was standardized into a single recension; he was killed by rebels in Medina, opening the first civil war.

• Umm Salama (Hind bint Abi Umayya)

  c. 590 (approx.) CEA wife of the Prophet remembered for her counsel at Hudaybiyya and for the hundreds of hadith transmitted on her authority in Sunni tradition.

• Abdullah ibn Mas'ud

  c. 594 CEA shepherd of Mecca among the first converts, remembered as the first man to recite the Qur'an aloud there; in Kufa he became a founding teacher of its school of learning.

• Abu Hurayra

  c. 603 CEA convert of the Khaybar years who became, by far, the most prolific narrator of hadith in the Sunni collections — a fact celebrated by the tradition and debated by scholars.

• Hafsa bint Umar

  c. 605 CEA wife of the Prophet and daughter of Umar ibn al-Khattab, remembered in Sunni tradition as the keeper of the collected Qur'anic codex.

• Zayd ibn Thabit

  c. 611 CEA young Ansari who became the Prophet's scribe of revelation; Abu Bakr set him to gather the Qur'an, and Uthman's committee under him produced the standard recension still read today.

• Sa'd ibn Malik al-Khudri

  c. 612 CEA Companion of the Prophet from the Ansar, of the Khudra clan, who transmitted hadith.

• Aisha bint Abi Bakr

  c. 613 CEA wife of the Prophet and daughter of Abu Bakr; one of the most prolific transmitters of hadith in Sunni tradition, whose role is viewed differently across the traditions.

• Abdullah ibn Abbas

  c. 619 CEThe Prophet's young cousin who grew up in Medina and became the tradition's founding authority on the interpretation of the Qur'an — remembered as the father of tafsir.

• Yazid ibn al-Qa'qa'

  660 CE · 40 AHOne of the ten well-known canonical reciters, from Medina.

• Amr ibn Dinar

  666 CE · 46 AHOne of the senior Successors, and the shaykh of the Meccan sanctuary in his time; among the great transmitters of hadith.

• Sulayman ibn Tarkhan al-Taymi

  666 CE · 46 AHA hadith scholar of Basra who narrated from the Companion Anas ibn Malik and a number of Successors.

• Al-A'mash, Sulayman ibn Mihran

  680 CE · 61 AHA hadith scholar, reciter and expert in inheritance law, nicknamed al-A'mash for weakness of sight. Accounts of his birthplace differ.

• علقمة بن قيس النخعي

• Masruq ibn al-Ajda'

  One of the senior Successors (tabi'un), who transmitted hadith and was known for the Qur'anic readings. Several kunyas are given for him in the sources.

• Abu al-Aswad al-Du'ali, Zalim ibn Amr

  A philologist and transmitter credited with the vowel-pointing of the Qur'an and the founding of Arabic grammar. His lineage goes back to al-Du'al ibn Bakr ibn Kinana.

• عبيدة بن عمرو السلماني

• Abd al-Rahman ibn Ziyad ibn An'am

  694 CE · 75 AHThe scholar, traditionist and judge Abu Khalid Abd al-Rahman ibn Ziyad ibn An'am al-Mu'afiri al-Sha'bani, known in the African East; he transmitted hadith and held judicial office.

• al-Aswad ibn Yazid al-Nakha'i

  One of the Kufan jurists among the Successors: Abu Amr al-Aswad ibn Yazid ibn Qays al-Nakha'i, brother of Abd al-Rahman ibn Yazid and nephew of Alqama; he died in the year 75, and Aisha said there was no man in Iraq more honoured by her than he.

• Al-Awza'i, Abd al-Rahman ibn Amr

  706 CE · 88 AHThe imam and foremost jurist of Syria in his time. Historians differ on the origin of his nisba al-Awza'i.

• Qabisa ibn Dhu'ayb al-Khuza'i

  One of the four Medinan jurists named by Abu al-Zinad, with Sa'id ibn al-Musayyab, Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan and Urwa ibn al-Zubayr, as Shirazi reports.

• Hafs Abu Umar ibn Sulayman

  709 CE · 90 AHWell-known transmitter of the reading of Asim ibn Abi al-Najud and one of the seven canonical readers, reader of Kufa; died 180 AH (796 CE).

• Malik ibn Anas

  c. 711 CE · 93 AHImam of Medina and author of the Muwatta; born in Medina, he studied with its scholars and taught there until his death in 179 AH. The Maliki school of law bears his name.

• Hammad ibn Zayd

  717 CE · 98 AHA hadith scholar of Basra, described as among the most pious and reliable memorizers. He memorized four thousand hadiths and was blind.

• Kharija ibn Zayd ibn Thabit

  Among the jurists of Medina in the second generation; with Talha ibn Abd Allah ibn Awf he was consulted in his time for inheritance and documents, as Shirazi reports.

• Salim ibn Abd Allah ibn Umar

  A jurist of Medina; Rabi'a says the fatwa passed after Sa'id ibn al-Musayyab to al-Qasim and Salim, as Shirazi reports.

• Umar ibn al-Ash'ath al-Taymi

  Named after his grandfather Laja, not his father al-Ash'ath.

• Shahr ibn Hawshab al-Ash'ari

  A Syrian jurist listed by Shirazi among the third generation; Shirazi gives his death as 112 AH and notes Ibn Sa'd's variant.

• Muhammad al-Baqir ibn Ali ibn al-Husayn

  A Medinan Successor jurist listed by Shirazi in the second generation; Mus'ab al-Zubayri says he died in 114 AH.

• Abd al-Rahman ibn Hormoz al-A'raj

  The Successor traditionist Abd al-Rahman ibn Hormoz al-A'raj, who met several Companions and transmitted from them; his best-known kunya is Abu Dawud.

• Abd Allah ibn Dhakwan Abu al-Zinad

  A Medinan jurist of the third generation; Shirazi reports his mission to Hisham ibn Abd al-Malik about the Medina accounts, and that Malik took fiqh from him.

• يحيى بن يحيى الغساني

• Al-Rabi ibn Ziyad al-Bakri al-Khurasani

  Al-Rabi ibn Ziyad al-Bakri al-Khurasani al-Marwazi al-Basri, a figure of the second Islamic century, mentioned by Ibn Sa'd in his biographical classes of the Basrans and Baghdadis; he died in 139 AH.

• Yahya ibn Sa'id al-Ansari

  A Medinan jurist of the third generation who served as qadi for al-Mansur; Hammad ibn Zayd reports Ayyub saying he left no jurist more learned than Yahya ibn Sa'id.

• محمد بن الوليد الزبيدي

• Khalaf ibn Hisham

  767 CE · 150 AHOne of the ten canonical reciters of the Qur'an, from Baghdad. The sources agree that his readings are authoritative.

• Al-Za'farani

  771 CE · 154 AHA Baghdad imam — jurist, hadith scholar and master of eloquence — counted among the transmitters of al-Shafi'i's 'old' (Iraqi) corpus; al-Mawardi called him 'the most flourishing of the qadim transmitters'. He was the reader in al-Shafi'i's circle attended by Ahmad and Abu Thawr: 'when al-Shafi'i came to us none dared read to him but me, and I read him all the books save two he read to me.' He heard Ibn 'Uyayna, 'Ubayda b. Humayd and Yazid b. Harun; the Six-save-Muslim transmitted from him, and al-Nasa'i graded him thiqa. Baghdad's Darb al-Za'faran took its name from him and held the mosque where al-Shirazi taught. He died in Ramadan 260.

• Yunus ibn Yazid al-Ayli

  Yunus ibn Yazid ibn Abi al-Nijad al-Ayli al-Qurashi, Abu Yazid, a client of Mu'awiya ibn Abi Sufyan; the text calls him the trustworthy traditionist, and the collective of hadith compilers recorded for him. He transmitted from Ibn Shihab al-Zuhri, Nafi' the client of Ibn Umar, al-Qasim, Ikrima and others; al-Layth ibn Sa'd, Yahya ibn Ayyub, al-Awza'i, Ibn al-Mubarak, Ibn Wahb and others transmitted from him. The encyclopedia dates his death to 159 AH.

• Al-Jawzajani, Ibrahim ibn Ya'qub

  781 CE · 165 AHA hadith scholar from Jawzjan, named after Bushanj. The biographical dictionaries give him a full entry.

• سعيد بن عبد العزيز التنوخي

• Al-Rabi ibn Sulayman al-Muradi

  790 CE · 174 AHThe muezzin of the congregational mosque of Fustat — al-Shafi'i's own companion and the transmitter of his books, a rock-solid thiqa in his transmission; al-Subki judges his riwaya preferred even over al-Muzani's. Born 174, he attached himself to al-Shafi'i's service and carried much from him; Abu Dawud, al-Nasa'i, Ibn Maja, Abu Zur'a, Abu Hatim, al-Tahawi and others transmitted from him, and Ibn Khuzayma, Ibn Hibban and al-Hakim printed his hadith. Al-Shafi'i said 'no one ever served me as al-Rabi' served me' and 'if I could feed you knowledge I would feed you'; some two hundred men journeyed to him for al-Shafi'i's books. He died on 21 Shawwal 270 and the Amir Khumarawayh ibn Tulun himself prayed over him.

• Abd al-Wahid ibn Zayd

  An ascetic, exemplar and preacher, known as the leading worshipper of Basra. He transmitted from al-Hasan al-Basri and Ata' ibn Abi Rabah.

• Ya'qub ibn Shayba

  798 CE · 182 AHAbu Yusuf al-Sadusi of Basra, settled at Baghdad and Samarra; his Musnad ma'lul remained unfinished despite a staff of forty warraqun lodging in his house and some ten thousand dinars spent — 'had his book been written on doves it would deserve copying'; a Maliki faqih of Baghdad among the senior companions of Ahmad b. al-Mu'adhdhal and al-Harith b. Miskin; when al-Mutawakkil asked Ahmad b. Hanbal who should hold the judgeship and asked about Ya'qub, Ahmad called him an innovator — it was said, because he held the waqf position on the Qur'an.

• Ibn Abi Usama, al-Harith ibn Muhammad

  802 CE · 186 AHA hadith scholar and transmitter of reports from Baghdad, well versed in the Qur'anic readings and described as reliable.

• Said ibn Yahya al-Umawi

  The traditionist and jurist Abu Uthman Said ibn Yahya ibn Said ibn Aban al-Umawi, of Kufan origin who settled in Baghdad; he transmitted hadith from his paternal uncles and from scholars of his time.

• Al-Jawzajani, Musa ibn Sulayman

  From Jawzjan, a great city in Khurasan, and one of the transmitters of hadith.

• Abu Dawud al-Sijistani

  c. 817 CE · 202 AHThe muhaddith of Sijistan, author of the Sunan counted among the six books; he travelled for hadith to Basra, Baghdad, Khurasan, al-Sham and Egypt, and restricted his collection to the reports bearing on rulings, arranged by legal chapter.

• Abd Allah ibn Ayyub al-Taymi

  A hadith scholar of Basra, a client of the Taym Allah clan.

• Al-Tirmidhi, Muhammad ibn Isa

  824 CE · 209 AHA hadith scholar from Tirmidh on the Oxus, author of the Jami' al-Sahih, known as Sunan al-Tirmidhi.

• al-Bazzar Abu Bakr Ahmad ibn Amr

  825 CE · 210 AHWell-known hadith scholar known as al-Bazzar, who narrated hadith in Isfahan, Baghdad, Egypt and Mecca in his later years; died 292 AH (905 CE).

• al-Nasa'i

  c. 830 CE · 215 AHThe muhaddith of Nasa in Khurasan, author of the Sunan counted among the six books; famed for his attention to hidden defects and transmitter criticism, moving late in life to Egypt and then al-Sham where he died.

• Abd Allah ibn Maslama al-Qanabi

  A memorizing, devout and authoritative hadith scholar from Medina.

• Al-Humaydi, Abd Allah ibn al-Zubayr

  A hadith scholar from Mecca of the Asad clan, among the great transmitters of hadith in Mecca and a teacher of al-Bukhari.

• Ibn Khuzayma, Muhammad ibn Ishaq

  838 CE · 223 AHImam of the imams and hadith scholar of Nishapur, author of the Sahih known as Sahih Ibn Khuzayma.

• al-Hammani Abu Zakariyya Yahya ibn Abd al-Hamid

  Travelling hadith memorist who came to Baghdad, first to compile a musnad in Kufa; died 228 AH (842 CE). Tarikh Baghdad (#7483): al-Nasa'i rated him weak and al-Juzjani 'worthless and fickle'; he died Ramadan 228 at the 'Askar — the first of the muhaddithin who had moved to Samarra to die there — and never dyed his hair.

• Abu Awana, Ya'qub ibn Ishaq

  845 CE · 230 AHA hadith scholar, memorizer and jurist from Isfara'in, known for his extract on Sahih Muslim. He was the first to spread the Shafi'i school in Isfara'in.

• Al-Barbahari, al-Hasan ibn Ali

  847 CE · 233 AHA Hanbali, named after barbahar, a drug imported from India.

• Abu Thawr

  A great Baghdad imam among the foremost companions of al-Shafi'i; he transmitted from Sufyan b. 'Uyayna, Ibn 'Uyayna's peers, Waki', 'Abd al-Rahman b. Mahdi and al-Shafi'i himself, and Muslim (outside the Sahih), Abu Dawud, Ibn Maja and al-Baghawi transmitted from him. Ahmad b. Hanbal said 'I have known him for the Sunna for fifty years; in my view he stands in the skin of Sufyan al-Thawri' and would tell questioners 'ask Abu Thawr'; al-Nasa'i called him 'one of the jurists, trustworthy'. Al-Khatib relates that he began in the ra'y method until al-Shafi'i came to Baghdad, whereupon he attached himself to him and turned to hadith. He died in Safar 240.

• Ibn al-A'rabi, Ahmad ibn Muhammad

  861 CE · 246 AHA hadith scholar, memorizer, historian and ascetic Sufi from Basra, learned in hadith and biographical classes.

• Ibn al-Akhram

  864 CE · 250 AHHadith scholar of Nishapur in the fourth century AH.

• Khaythama ibn Sulayman al-Atrabulusi

  864 CE · 250 AHThe traditionist and hafiz Abu al-Hasan Khaythama ibn Sulayman al-Qurashi of Tripoli in Syria, a leading transmitter of Syria in his age; he travelled widely in search of hadith and died at Tripoli.

• Al-Rabi ibn Sulayman al-Jizi

  An Egyptian companion of al-Shafi'i — 'a jurist and a righteous man' — transmitting from al-Shafi'i, 'Abdallah b. Wahb, Ishaq b. Wahb and 'Abdallah b. Yusuf; Abu Dawud, al-Nasa'i, Ibn Abi Dawud and al-Tahawi transmitted from him. It is he who reports from al-Shafi'i that reciting the Qur'an with melodies is disapproved. He died in Dhu'l-Hijja 256, or 257.

• al-Barqi Abu Bakr Ahmad ibn Abd Allah

  Egyptian hadith scholar, historian and jurist known as al-Hafiz al-Barqi; died 270 AH (883 CE).

• Ibn Majah

  The muhaddith of Qazvin, author of the Sunan counted by later scholars as the sixth of the six books; he travelled for hadith to Iraq, the Hijaz, al-Sham and Egypt, and his collection is noted for renunciation and tribulation reports not found in the two Sahihs.

• Abd al-Aziz ibn Abdallah al-Hashimi

  A Hashimi of Baghdad of the line of 'Abdallah b. al-'Abbas b. 'Abd al-Muttalib; he heard Yahya b. 'Abd al-Rahman al-Muqri', Abu Bakr al-Humaydi, 'Abdallah b. Ja'far al-Raqqi and 'Abdallah b. Ibrahim al-Ghifari; his transmitters included 'Abdallah b. Ishaq al-Mada'ini and the judge al-Muhamili; al-Daraqutni said he was trustworthy; he died on 11 Dhu'l-Hijja 275 aged eighty-six, still handsome, his grey hair unchanged.

• Al-Isma'ili, Abu Bakr Ahmad ibn Ibrahim

  890 CE · 277 AHA memorizer and hadith scholar of Jurjan, raised by his father and educated by the scholars of Jurjan.

• al-Bazzar Abu al-Tahir Abd al-Wahid ibn Umar

  891 CE · 278 AHBaghdadi reader and grammarian of the late fourth century AH, who died in 349 AH (961 CE); the sources differ on his birth year.

• Al-Abhari, Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Abd Allah

  901 CE · 289 AHA Maliki jurist who combined the Qur'anic readings, high-grade chains of transmission and sound jurisprudence; from Abhar, between Qazvin and Zanjan.

• Uthman ibn Said al-Anmati

  The Baghdadi traditionist Abu al-Qasim Uthman ibn Said ibn Bashshar al-Anmati, named after the anmat (floor coverings and cushions); he died in 288 AH.

• Abu Hafs Ibn Shahin

  c. October 909 CE · Safar 297 AH'Umar b. 'Uthman Abu Hafs the preacher, known as Ibn Shahin (297–385), muhaddith of eastern Baghdad: he first wrote hadith with his own hand at eleven, in 308, and counted thirty-three works to his name — among them a great tafsir of a thousand parts, a Musnad of fifteen hundred, a Tarikh of a hundred and fifty, and a Zuhd of a hundred; he reckoned he had spent seven hundred dirhams on ink. He died 21 Dhu'l-Hijja 385, buried at Bab Harb cemetery.

• Abu al-Faraj Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Shanbudhi al-Muqri'

  c. 912 CE · 300 AHMuhammad ibn Ahmad ibn Ibrahim, Abu al-Faraj the reciter, known as Ghulam al-Shanbudhi, born in 300. He read under Abu al-Hasan Ibn Shanbudh and wrote on the readings. Abu al-Fadl Ubayd Allah ibn Ahmad al-Sayrafi said his standing was great and described his command of the readings and his memory for tafsir; he said, 'I heard him say, I memorised fifty thousand lines of verse as evidence for the Qur'an.' Al-Daraqutni spoke of him both harshly and in praise. He died in Safar 388, though some say 387.

• Al-Jurayri, al-Mu'afa ibn Zakariyya

  917 CE · 305 AHA scholar from Nahrawan, known as al-Jurayri and Ibn Tarar, who wrote on language and hadith.

• Ibn Batta al-Ukbari, Ubayd Allah ibn Muhammad

  917 CE · 304 AHBorn in Ukbara near Baghdad, a Hanbali jurist and hadith scholar.

• Al-Daraqutni

  c. November 918 CE · Dhu al-Qa'da 306 AH'Ali b. 'Umar Abu'l-Hasan al-Daraqutni (306–385), Baghdad's hafiz, singular of his age: the science of transmitted reports, narrators' names and the hidden defects of hadith ended with him; al-Hakim said al-Daraqutni never saw his own like. As a youth at Isma'il al-Saffar's circle he was rebuked for copying while listening — and recited back eighteen dictated hadiths, isnads and texts in order. The Kitab al-'Ilal current under his name was taken down by al-Barqani from his dictation at Abu Mansur b. Hamdan's gatherings. He died Tuesday 7 Dhu'l-Qa'da 385, buried at Maqbarat Ma'ruf.

• Al-Bayakandi, Ahmad ibn Ali

  923 CE · 311 AHA scholar of Bikand, from which he takes his nisba. He died in 404 AH.

• Ibn Akhi Rabi al-Sabbagh al-Kalabi

  A scholar of Cordoba, client of the Umayyads, known as Ibn Akhi Rabi al-Sabbagh, who studied in al-Andalus.

• أبو عبد الله أحمد بن محمد بن دوست البزاز الحافظ

  c. October 935 CE · Safar 323 AH

• Abu Muhammad Abd Allah al-Asili

  936 CE · 324 AHThe Maliki traditionist, jurist and judge Abu Muhammad Abd Allah ibn Ibrahim al-Asili of al-Andalus, one of the leading transmitters and jurists of his time; he grew up at Asila near Tangier before returning to al-Andalus.

• Ibn Bukayr Abu Abd Allah al-Husayn ibn Ahmad

  938 CE · 327 AHBaghdadi hadith memorist known only from reports of his transmission and of his teachers; died 388 AH (998 CE).

• أبو عبد الله الحسين بن أحمد بن بكير الصيرفي

  c. 939 CE · 327 AH

• Abd al-Ghani ibn Sa'id al-Azdi

  c. 941 CE · c. 329 AH†Hadith memoriser of Egypt, from a family known for hadith transmission.

• Abu Nu'aym al-Asbahani, Ahmad ibn Abd Allah

  948 CE · 336 AHA memorizing hadith scholar from Isfahan and a major compiler of hadith; he was distinguished by high-grade narration in the last years of his life.

• Al-Barqani, Ahmad ibn Muhammad

  948 CE · 336 AHA Shafi'i jurist from Khwarazm, known as al-Barqani after the village of Barqan near Kath.

• al-Halimi Abu Abd Allah al-Husayn ibn al-Hasan

  949 CE · 338 AHScholar of the fourth century AH; born 338 AH (949 CE), died 403 AH (1012 CE).

• al-Bashti Abu Hamid Ahmad ibn Muhammad al-Kharazanji

  Scholar of Nishapur, named after the district of Busht and the village of Kharazanj; died 348 AH (959 CE).

• Abu al-Abbas Abd Allah al-Abyani

  A scholar of Ifriqiya in the fourth century AH. Al-Asili and Abu al-Hasan al-Qabisi were among those who narrated from him; his lifetime spanned the late Aghlabid and early Fatimid periods.

• Abd al-Wahhab ibn Ali al-Baghdadi

  973 CE · 362 AHA Maliki jurist, legal theorist, hadith scholar and poet from Baghdad, known as Ibn Nasr.

• al-Abri, Abu al-Hasan

  Hadith scholar, memoriser and historian from Sijistan who travelled to Syria, Khurasan and al-Jazira to hear traditions.

• al-Khalili Abu Ya'la al-Khalil ibn Abd Allah

  c. 980 CE · 370 AHHadith scholar, born about 370 AH (980 CE, estimated) and died 446 AH (1055 CE).

• al-Bayhaqi Abu Bakr Ahmad ibn al-Husayn

  994 CE · 384 AHImam, hadith memorist, legal theorist and jurist Abu Bakr Ahmad ibn al-Husayn al-Bayhaqi of Khusrawjird in Khurasan; born 384 AH (994 CE), died 458 AH (1066 CE).

• Al-Khatib al-Baghdadi, Ahmad ibn Ali

  1002 CE · 392 AHA hadith scholar, historian and memorizer from a village near the Nahr al-Malik, author of the History of Baghdad.

• Abu Ishaq al-Shirazi

  c. 1003 CE · 393 AHA Shafi'i jurist and usulist, author of Tabaqat al-fuqaha and al-Muhadhdhab; born at Firuzabad in 393 AH, studied in Fars, Basra and Baghdad, and became one of the leading Shafi'i jurists of his time; he declined the chief qadiship when the caliph offered it.

• Al-Ansari al-Harawi, Abd Allah ibn Muhammad

  1005 CE · 396 AHA memorizer, historian, hadith scholar, Sufi and Qur'an commentator from Herat, a Hanbali who traced his lineage to Abu Ayyub al-Ansari.

• أبو عبد الله محمد بن إسحاق بن منده الحافظ الأصبهاني

• Ibn al-Bitr Abu al-Khattab Nasr ibn Ahmad

  1007 CE · 398 AHOf Baghdad, named after the Gharba quarter and known as al-Bazzaz; died 494 AH (1100 CE).

• أبو الحسين ابن الرفاء القارئ

• Abu Mas'ud al-Dimashqi Ibrahim ibn Muhammad al-Hafiz

  Ibrahim ibn Muhammad ibn Ubayd, Abu Mas'ud al-Dimashqi the hafiz, travelled widely and heard and wrote down hadith at Baghdad, Kufa, Basra, Wasit, al-Ahwaz, Isfahan and the lands of Khurasan; he took special care with the two Sahihs and composed Atraf al-Sahihayn, being among the first to compile atraf works. He was trustworthy (thiqa), devout, scrupulous and perceptive. He died in Baghdad in 401, having entrusted his affairs to Shaykh Abu Hamid al-Isfara'ini, who led the funeral prayer over him, and he was buried in the cemetery of the Mansur Mosque.

• Al-Baji, Abu al-Walid Sulayman ibn Khalaf

  1012 CE · 403 AHA hadith scholar, jurist, man of letters, poet, theologian and legal theorist from Beja in al-Andalus, a Maliki.

• Abu Ahmad al-Faradi Ubayd Allah ibn Ahmad al-Muqri'

  Ubayd Allah ibn Ahmad ibn Ali ibn Mihran, Abu Ahmad al-Faradi, reciter and transmitter of hadith. He heard the judge al-Muhamili and Yusuf ibn Ya'qub, and attended the majlis of Abu Bakr ibn al-Anbari. He was a trustworthy and pious imam, an ascetic who taught knowledge only for God's sake, in sincerity. Each day he began by teaching Qur'an recitation, then narrated hadith himself until he had spent his capacity. He had dignity and awe, and did not move or fidget with anything in his session. When al-Faradi came to him, Abu Hamid al-Isfarayini would rise from his seat and walk barefoot to the gate of his mosque, in welcome and honour. He died in Baghdad in 406.

• أبو القاسم هبة الله بن سلامة المفسر الضرير

• أحمد بن موسى بن مردويه أبو بكر الحافظ الأصبهاني

• al-Humaydi Muhammad ibn Futuh

  1029 CE · 420 AHHistorian, man of letters, jurist and hadith scholar who followed the Zahiri school, devoted to learning and asceticism; born 420 AH (1029 CE), died 488 AH (1095 CE).

• Ali ibn Abd al-Ghani al-Fihri

  1029 CE · 420 AHA blind poet and reciter, born in al-Andalus, with the kunya Abu al-Hasan.

• al-Jayyani al-Husayn ibn Muhammad

  1035 CE · 427 AHImam, hadith memorist and traditionist of al-Andalus, named after Jaen where his father lived for a time, of Madinat al-Zahra origin; died 498 AH (1105 CE).

• Husayn ibn Abi al-Abbas al-Ajdabi

  Maliki jurist, reciter and hadith transmitter of Qayrawan, originally from Ajdabiya in Libya, who studied with the masters of the Qayrawan school.

• Al-Baghawi, al-Husayn ibn Muhammad

  1044 CE · 436 AHA hadith scholar and jurist from the town of Baghh in Khurasan, between Marw and Herat. His works include Sharh al-Sunna.

• Muhammad ibn Ali al-Suri the muhaddith

  The muhaddith al-Suri — a latecomer to hadith who became its most zealous collector (eighty lines to a page-side, re-reading to his shaykh), hearing four hundred shaykhs at Kufa where displaying Sunnism nearly cost him his life until the Companions-cursing Alid Abu Talib ibn Umar sheltered him; Ibn al-Tayyuri reports that al-Khatib's books besides Tarikh Baghdad mostly derive from al-Suri's library. He fasted perpetually and left twelve 'adl of books to his niece at Sur. He died at the bimaristan at the end of Jumada II 441 — a physician meant to bleed another man with a poisoned lancet bled him by mistake; past sixty, buried in the Jami' al-Madina cemetery.

• Hibat Allah ibn al-Akfani

  1052 CE · 444 AHThe Damascene traditionist, hafiz, Shafi'i jurist and historian Abu Muhammad Hibat Allah ibn Ahmad, known as Ibn al-Akfani; born at Damascus in 444 AH and famed for his memorization of hadith.

• Al-Ansari al-Saraqusti, Isma'il ibn Khalaf

  A reciter, grammarian and man of letters from Zaragoza in al-Andalus, who moved to Egypt and settled there.

• Qawwam al-Sunna, Isma'il ibn Muhammad

  1064 CE · 457 AHFrom Isfahan and descended from Talha ibn Ubayd Allah. He was learned in tafsir, hadith, jurisprudence, the readings, language and literature.

• al-Azjani, Nasih al-Din

  1068 CE · 460 AHScholar from Arjan in Persia who died in 544 AH.

• Ibn Khumays, al-Husayn ibn Nasr

  1073 CE · 466 AHA hadith scholar and jurist from Mosul, of the Juhayna tribe, born in 466 AH and died in 552 AH.

• Ibn al-Ajdabi, Ibrahim ibn Isma'il

  A jurist from Tripoli in Libya, named after the town of Ajdabiya. The sources give only a brief biography, and his death is given as around 470 AH.

• al-Isfara'ini, Imad al-Din

  Shafi'i scholar from Isfara'in who died in 471 AH.

• al-Azdi al-Qurtubi

  1093 CE · 486 AHAndalusi scholar of Cordoba from whom students took hadith.

• Muhammad ibn Ali al-Ansari al-Jayyani

  1098 CE · 492 AHThe traditionist, Qur'an commentator and reader Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Ali al-Ansari al-Jayyani, born at Jaen in al-Andalus in 492 AH; he travelled east and settled at Damascus, where he taught the Qur'an.

• al-Hulwani al-Nahrawani Sulayman ibn Abd Allah

  Came to Baghdad as a boy, studied grammar with al-Thamanini and philology with Ibn al-Dahhan, and heard hadith; died 493 AH (1100 CE).

• Ibn Bashkuwal, Khalaf ibn Abd al-Malik

  1101 CE · 494 AHAn Andalusian historian and hadith scholar, author of al-Silla, a biographical dictionary of al-Andalus' scholars.

• Ibn Khayr al-Ishbili

  1108 CE · 502 AHAn Andalusian scholar from Seville, a client of Ibrahim ibn Muhammad ibn Ya'mur, and a hadith transmitter known for a well-known index of his transmissions.

• Al-Janabadhi, Abd al-Aziz ibn Mahmud

  1129 CE · 524 AHA hadith scholar and jurist of Baghdad, of the Janabadh family, known for learning in Baghdad.

• Mus'ab al-Khushani

  1139 CE · 535 AHAbu Dharr al-Khushani Mus'ab b. Muhammad b. Mas'ud al-Jiyani, grammarian, philologist and Maliki jurist, also known as Ibn Abi Rakab; author and bearer of Arabic's banner in al-Andalus — Seville's khatib, then qadi of Jaen, finally Fez where his works travelled with the caravans; he died at Fez in 604 aged seventy. He studied under Abd al-Haqq al-Ishbili at Bejaia.

• Ibn al-Athir al-Jazri

  1149 CE · 544 AHThe hadith scholar and jurist Majd al-Din Abu al-Sa'adat al-Mubarak ibn Muhammad al-Jazari al-Shaybani, the eldest of the three Ibn al-Athir brothers; he served the chanceries of the Jazira and Mosul, and after gout crippled him he produced most of his works by dictation, among them 'al-Nihaya fi Gharib al-Hadith' and 'Jami' al-Usul'.

• Ibn Khalil al-Dimashqi Abu al-Hajjaj Yusuf

  1160 CE · 555 AHShams al-Din Abu al-Hajjaj Yusuf ibn Khalil of Damascus and later Aleppo; born 555 AH (1160 CE) and died 648 AH (1250 CE).

• Ali ibn Isma'il al-Abyari

  1161 CE · 557 AHFrom Abyar in the Gharbiya province of Egypt; born in 557 AH and died in 616 AH. The biographical dictionaries record him in works on homonymous names.

• Al-Baydawi, Abd Allah ibn Umar

  1172 CE · 568 AHA jurist, Qur'an commentator, theologian and legal theorist, author of Anwar al-Tanzil.

• al-Thaqafi al-Jayyani Muhammad ibn al-Hasan

  1174 CE · 570 AHPreacher, reader, hadith scholar and man of letters of Jaen in al-Andalus, who travelled through the southern cities; died 663 AH (1264 CE).

• al-Irbili, Abu al-Fadl

  1179 CE · 575 AHShafi'i jurist of Mosul who studied the religious sciences in the Zengid period.

• Ibn al-Salah

  1181 CE · 577 AHThe hadith master Abu Amr ibn al-Salah; author of the dictation 'al-Ahadith al-Kulliyya', twenty-six comprehensive hadiths on which al-Nawawi built his 'Arba'un'.

• Salim ibn Fadl Ba'afdal

  A scholar from Tarim in Hadramawt, descended from Sa'd al-Ashira. He died in 581 AH.

• Al-Irbili, Ahmad ibn al-Husayn

  1193 CE · 589 AHA scholar from Irbil, one of the learned men of the seventh century AH.

• Ibn Abi al-Ahwas, al-Husayn ibn Abd al-Aziz

  1206 CE · 603 AHA reciter, Qur'an commentator, hadith scholar and Arabic grammarian. Born in Jaen and settled in Granada; known as Ibn al-Nazir.

• Ibn al-Tayn, Abd al-Wahid ibn Umar

  A scholar from Sfax in Tunisia, known as Ibn al-Tin.

• Ibn Khumayr, Ali ibn Ahmad

  An Umayyad scholar from Ceuta, known as Ibn Khumayr.

• Al-Abraqawhi, Ahmad ibn Ishaq

  1218 CE · 615 AHJudge of Abarquh and a Shafi'i scholar, hadith transmitter and Sufi; born in Abarquh in Fars and died in Egypt.

• Rukn al-Din al-Amidi al-Samarkandi (Hanafi lawyer, d. 615/1218)

  Rukn al-Din Abu Hamid Muhammad b. Muhammad al-Samarkandi al-Amidi, a Hanafi lawyer famous for dialectics, died at Bukhara on 9 Jumada II 615/3 September 1218. His works include al-Irshad and al-Tariqa al-'Amidiyya fi l-khilaf wa l-jadal, and his name is linked with an Arabic version of an Indian work on yoga.

• Ibn al-Athir Izz al-Din

  The historian and hadith scholar Izz al-Din Abu al-Hasan Ali ibn Muhammad al-Jazari al-Shaybani; author of 'al-Kamil fi al-Tarikh', the annalistic chronicle from the creation to his own day, 'Asad al-Ghaba fi Ma'rifat al-Sahaba' and 'al-Lubab fi Tahdhib al-Ansab', living retired for scholarship at Mosul.

• al-Burjini

  Maliki jurist from Tunisia, among the notable Maliki jurists of his age, who studied with a pupil of al-Mazari at Mahdiya; died 630 AH.

• Imam al-Nawawi

  c. October 1233 CE · Muharram 631 AHThe jurist and ascetic Imam Abu Zakariyya Yahya al-Nawawi; compiler of the 'Arba'un', forty-two concise hadiths built on Ibn al-Salah's twenty-six, which became one of the most memorised and commented collections in Islam.

• Ibn Jama'a, Badr al-Din Muhammad ibn Ibrahim

  1241 CE · 639 AHA Shafi'i jurist, hadith scholar and grammarian, among the leading scholars of Cairo and Damascus in his time.

• al-Ju'bari Abu Ishaq Ibrahim ibn Umar

  1242 CE · 640 AHReader of the Qur'an known in Baghdad as Taqi al-Din and elsewhere as Burhan al-Din; died 732 AH (1332 CE).

• al-Akhsikathi, Husam al-Din

  Scholar from Akhsikath in the Fergana valley who died in 644 AH.

• Al-Astarabadhi, al-Hasan ibn Muhammad

  1247 CE · 645 AHFrom Astarabad in Mazandaran; born in 645 AH and died in 715 AH.

• Ali ibn Ahmad al-Asbahi

  1247 CE · 644 AHA Yemeni jurist and hadith scholar from Ta'izz who excelled in Islamic jurisprudence, studied hadith, and was trained in fiqh by several teachers of his age.

• Ibn al-Jazari, Muhammad ibn Ibrahim

  1259 CE · 658 AHOriginally from Jazirat Ibn Umar, one of the leading authorities on the readings and hadith of his time.

• Ibn Barri Ali ibn Muhammad

  c. 1261 CE · 660 AHMaghrebi reader, jurist, grammarian and writer from Taza who headed the chancery at Fez under the Marinid sultan Abu Sa'id, taught readings at the Qarawiyyin, and influenced the science of recitation through his poem al-Durar al-Lawami.

• al-Halabi Qutb al-Din Abd al-Karim ibn Abd al-Nur

  1266 CE · 664 AHHadith memorist of celebrated standing, of Aleppine origin who settled in Egypt; born 664 AH (1266 CE), died 735 AH (1335 CE).

• al-Tujibi al-Sabti Abu al-Qasim ibn Yusuf

  1267 CE · 666 AHScholar of Valencian origin, born in Ceuta in 666 AH (1267 CE) and raised there; died 730 AH (1329 CE).

• Ibn Balban Ala al-Din Ali

  1276 CE · 675 AHScholar known as al-Farisi, born 675 AH (1276 CE) and died 739 AH (1339 CE).

• al-Irbili, Abu al-Ma'ali

  1287 CE · 686 AHScholar of Mosul in the eighth century AH, active in religious learning and letters.

• al-Bukhari, Ala al-Din

  Hanafi jurist from Bukhara; died 1331 CE (the printed Hijri year does not match and is not recorded).

• Ibn Rajab al-Hanbali

  c. 1335 CE · Rabi' I 736 AHThe Hanbali hadith master and jurist Zayn al-Din Abu al-Faraj Abd al-Rahman ibn Ahmad, known as Ibn Rajab after his grandfather Rajab; born in Baghdad in 736 AH, moved to Damascus in 744, travelled for learning to Egypt, the Hijaz and Jerusalem, and died in Damascus in 795 AH. Author of 'Jami' al-Ulum wal-Hikam'.

• Al-Abbi, Muhammad ibn Khalfa

  c. 1344 CE · c. 745 AH†A Maliki usuli scholar from the Maghrib, known for the rational sciences, memorization and rigorous editing; named after the village of Abba in Tunisia.

• Ibrahim al-Ghafiqi al-Ishbili

  A Qur'an reader and grammarian from Seville who memorized the Qur'an with its readings in Ceuta, after his family moved there, and studied Arabic grammar under Ibn Abi al-Rabi'.

• Shams al-Din Ibn al-Jazari

  c. 26 December 1350 CE · 25 Ramadan 751 AHThe hafiz Ibn al-Jazari (b. Damascus 25 Ramadan 751) — 'reciter of the Islamic realms,' founder of the Dar al-Qur'an; fled a vizier's threat to Bayezid's Rum in 798 where the land learned qira'at from him, witnessed the Ankara battle at Bayezid's side, was honoured by Timur himself and given Shiraz's judiciary; author of al-Hisn al-Hasin, al-Nashr on the ten readings, the Tayyiba poem and a dhayl on al-Dhahabi's Tabaqat al-Qurra'; died at Shiraz Rabi' I 833, buried at his own madrasa.

• Zayn al-Din Ibn 'Ayyash

  c. October 1370 CE · Rabi' I 772 AHIbn 'Ayyash (b. Damascus Rabi' I 772) — Mecca's daily reciter of the ten qira'at at the Haram, equal to his father in height of isnad through Ibn Hajar's own reading; mujawir of Medina as well for years, 'the destination of his age's travellers'; died at Mecca 853.

• Nur al-Din Ibn Bisal

  c. 1372 CE · 773 AHIbn Bisal of Alexandria (b. 773) — Ibn Hajar's own twenty-year companion in his dictation sessions ('he attended my imla' some twenty years'); copied much of Ibn al-Mulaqqin's corpus in his own hand; died end of Wednesday 13 Jumada I 847.

• Shihab al-Din Ibn Ruslan

  c. 1372 CE · 773 AHIbn Ruslan (b. Ramla 773) — the Jerusalem saint-jurist author of the Zubd rhymed Shafi'i manual (composed, tradition says, then cast into the sea and returned unharmed); taught under the Ba'uni's licence then turned wholly to the 'sound Sufi path,' becoming 'a beacon for wayfarers'; commentaries on Sunan Abi Dawud, the Minhaj, the Alfiyya and sixty rhymed sciences; died Jerusalem Monday 8 Ramadan 844 aged 71 — 'the world shuddered at his death and the land saw none like him after'.

• Shams al-Din Ibn Nasir al-Din al-Dimashqi

  c. August 1375 CE · Muharram 777 AHIbn Nasir al-Din (b. Damascus mid-Muharram 777), 'hafiz of Syria without rival' — pupil of Ibn al-Muhibb and the Baniyasi, teacher of and taught by Ibn Hajar himself; author of Tawdih Mushtabih al-Dhahab, the Tibyan, 'Uqud al-Durar on hadith sciences, Kashf al-Qina' on false Companion-claims, the great three-volume mawlid Jami' al-Athar, and dozens more; died Damascus Friday night 16 Rabi' II 842, buried at Bab al-Faradis.

• al-Ardabili, Jamal al-Din

  Shafi'i jurist from Ardabil in Azerbaijan who died in 779 AH.

• al-Babarti Akmal al-Din

  Hanafi jurist and theologian who worked in Cairo under the Mamluk sultans; died 786 AH.

• Abd al-Rahman al-Tha'alibi

  1385 CE · 786 AHAn Algerian scholar linked to the Tha'aliba tribe, who lived on the Mitija plain.

• al-Tabbani Jalal al-Din ibn Ahmad

  Scholar of Cairo, named al-Tabbani after his residence outside the city; died 793 AH (1391 CE).

• Al-Biqa'i, Ibrahim ibn Umar

  1406 CE · 809 AHA Shafi'i scholar and hadith specialist from the Biqa' valley, born in 809 AH and died in 885 AH. Among his works is Nazm al-Durar on the coherence of the verses and suras.

• Al-Tanasi, Muhammad ibn Abd Allah

  1417 CE · 820 AHA memorizing scholar from Tlemcen, probably born in Madin.

• Ali ibn Muhammad al-Ashmuni

  c. 1435 CE · c. 838 AH†A Shafi'i jurist of Cairo who memorized al-Nawawi's Minhaj, al-Subki's Jam' al-Jawami' and Ibn Malik's Alfiyya, and studied with many scholars of his age.

• al-Busayli Abu al-Abbas Ahmad ibn Muhammad

  Scholar from Algeria who settled and was buried in Tunis, and is linked with the transmission of Ibn Arafa's commentary; died 1437 CE.

• Husayn ibn Siddiq al-Ahdal

  1446 CE · 850 AHThe Yemeni scholar Husayn ibn Siddiq al-Ahdal, born at Bayat in 850 AH and died in 903 AH; he left manuscript works.

• al-Qastallani Shihab al-Din

  c. 25 January 1448 CE · 12 Dhu al-Qa'da 851 AHThe hafiz of Bukhari's greatest sharh — b. Cairo 12 Dhu'l-Qa'da 851, he read the Sahih on al-Sakhawi in five sessions, held the Harrar maqam mashyakha and preached at the Ghuri mosque 'without peer'. Works: Irshad al-Sari in ten large volumes ('perhaps the most complete and finest of Bukhari's commentaries'), al-Mawahib al-Ladunniyya, sharhs on the Shatibiyya and the Burda (al-Anwar al-Mudiyya), al-Rawd al-Zahir on 'Abd al-Qadir's manaqib. Al-Suyuti accused him of unattributed borrowing; Qastallani walked barefoot and bare-headed to Suyuti's Rawda door to soothe him — 'my heart is soothed,' said Suyuti, and never opened the door. News of Ibrahim b. 'Ata' Allah al-Makki's beheading struck him off his mount; he died days later, Thursday night 7 Muharram 923.

• Wajih al-Din al-Shaybani al-Zabidi

  c. 16 December 1460 CE · 4 Muharram 865 AHZabid's musnid — 'shaykh al-Islam, musnid of the world, amir al-mu'minin in hadith, seal of the verifiers who joins the last generation to the first'; b. Thursday 4 Muharram 865, raised by his maternal grandfather; teacher of Ibn Ziyad, al-Ahdal and al-Muzjaji; works include Taysir al-Wusul ila Jami' al-Usul, Baghyat al-Mustafid on Zabid's history and Qurrat al-'Uyun on Yemen's history; died Friday 26 Rajab [944].

• al-Tayyib al-Makhrama al-'Adani

  c. 8 January 1466 CE · 12 Rabi' II 870 AHAden's mufti — b. Sunday eve 12 Rabi' II 870, 'the soundest mind, the brightest spark' of the city: 'I teach fourteen sciences', author of a sharh of Sahih Muslim, Asma' Rijal Muslim, and a long history ordered by tabaqat from the first hijra year; died 6 Muharram [947], buried in Shaykh Jawhar's qubba.

• Ibrahim al-Biqa'i the Sufi

  c. July 1479 CE · Rabi' I 885 AHThe speed-reader mystic — read all of Sahih al-Bukhari on al-Badr al-Ghazzi in six days and Sahih Muslim in five sittings within twenty days; al-Ghazzi wrote him up as 'one of the saints who do not know themselves'; martyred by dysentery Tuesday 11 Sha'ban 935.

• Ahmad al-Bukhari al-Makki

  c. October 1480 CE · Safar 883 AHThe Bukharan-born Meccan — b. Safar 803; he read Abu Dawud and the Shifa' on al-Sakhawi, heard al-Dimyati and al-Suyuti in Cairo, wore the khirqa, held qadi, imama and mashyakha posts; died at Jeddah Saturday 10 Rabi' II [948], carried to Mecca and buried at Ma'la.

• al-Sha'rani

  c. 1492 CE · c. 898 AHAl-Sha'rani — of Muhammad b. al-Hanafiyya's line; orphaned a child, he memorized the Qur'an by about seven and the Rawd to the qadi-book; at the Ghuri mosque he took the Six Books on Amin al-Din and read on al-Qastallani, al-Ashmuni, Zakariyya and al-Ramli; years of a rope hung from his cell's roof so he would not lie down, breaking his fast on an ounce of bread, clothing himself from scavenged rags — then 'he would fly from the Ghuri mosque's mihrab to its roof'; his works: Mukhtasar al-Futuhat, al-Mizan, Kashf al-Ghumma, Lawaqih al-Anwar, al-Yawaqit wa'l-Jawahir, three Tabaqat — while envious rivals forged words into his books to smear him.

• al-Sayyid al-Safawi al-Husayni

  c. 1495 CE · 900 AHThe Iji grandson — b. 900, grandson of Safi al-Din al-Iji the mufassir; trained at Delhi's majalis under Sultan Ibrahim b. Sikandar Shah, licensed by Jalal al-Din al-Dawani, then six years of mujawara at Mecca; at Damascus he taught the Radi Kafiya, received Sulayman's fifty uthmani pension, gave Ibn al-Hanbali the khirqa at Aleppo, settled in Cairo; works: a short Kafiya sharh, the Ghurra sharh, the Diya'iyya sharh, a half-size Mukhtasar of Ibn al-Athir's Nihaya, a tafsir from sura 'Amma; 'one of the marvels of the age'.

• Manla-zada al-Samarqandi

  A Samarqandi Shafi'i imam and muqri' of high isnad — four men between him and al-Shatibi; travelled Arabia, Aleppo and Damascus whose scholars took from him; among his works a compendium of the Hidaya and the Muharrar and a commentary on Hidayat al-Hikma; al-Ghazzi lists the Shaykh al-Islam 'the grandfather' and Aleppo's mufti al-Suyufi among his pupils; he marvelled 'how can one who memorizes something forget it?'; d. ~901.

• Khatib-zada al-Rumi

  Born in Kastamonu, known by the title Khatib-zada.

• Isma'il ibn 'Abdallah al-Salihi

  The God-intoxicated saint of the Salihiyya — 'his brain dried up from overmuch recitation of the Qur'an in the Abu 'Umar madrasa and his reason departed, or, it was said, he loved and was consumed'; in his rapture he recited constantly and spoke fine words, and all people held him in deep regard, keeping to the New Mosque and the Afram mosque; Ibn Tulun heard him declaim the verse 'he who casts off worldly hopes is rich though he die of hunger'; d. 19 Ramadan 901.

• Badr al-Din al-Ghazzi, shaykh al-Islam of Damascus

  c. 12 June 1499 CE · 14 Dhu al-Qa'da 904 AHBadr al-Din al-Ghazzi — Damascus's shaykh al-Islam; given the khirqa and a full ijaza by Abu al-Fath al-Mizzi before he was two, teaching from seventeen; holder of the Umayyad qurra' mashyakha and six madrasa chairs, who let qadis and na'ibs wait at his door and closed the gift-door absolutely; 115 works including the great verse tafsir in 180,000 verses; died Wednesday 16 Shawwal 984, buried at Shaykh Arslan's turba.

• Akhi-zade Yusuf Efendi

  An Ottoman scholar, also known as Akhi Qalbi, who died at the start of the tenth century AH.

• Sa'd al-Din ibn 'Iraq

  c. 1501 CE · 907 AHSa'd al-Din b. 'Iraq — b. 907 on Beirut's coast aboard the 'Iraqi ship; Qur'an memorized at five in two years, a khatma every Friday for six; a deaf man of the deepest learning, khatib of Medina — and the man who made coffee famous at Damascus, whence its shops multiplied — his own father had denounced it and destroyed its house in Mecca.

• Ibn Hajar al-Haytami

  c. December 1503 CE · Rajab 909 AHIbn Hajar al-Haytami — b. Rajab 909 at Abu al-Haytham in Gharbiyya, orphaned young and fostered by Ibn Abi al-Jamayil and al-Shinnawi, licensed to teach before twenty; from 940 a Meccan mujawir teaching, issuing fatwas and writing: Sharh al-Mishkat, Sharh al-Minhaj, al-Sawa'iq al-Muhriqa, Kaff al-Ri'a', al-Zawajir; 'shaykh al-Islam, seal of the scholars, imam of the two Harams'; died at Mecca in Rajab 973, buried at Ma'la.

• Radwan al-Junawi

  1505 CE · 912 AHA memorizer and transmitter of hadith in Fez, one of the scholars of the Maghrib in the tenth century AH.

• Malik al-Muhaddithin, hadith master of Gujarat

  c. 1507 CE · 913 AHMalik al-Muhaddithin of Gujarat — 'firmly rooted in hadith,' teacher and mufti, a follower of the Mahdawi creed; martyred Wednesday 6 Shawwal 986 aged seventy-three.

• al-Hafiz al-Tahir ibn al-Ahdal, Yemen's musnid

  c. 1508 CE · 914 AHAl-Tahir b. al-Ahdal — b. 914 at al-Marawi'a, Ibn al-Dibba''s successor in hadith-riyasa at Zabid; after a Meccan mujawara he became 'musnid al-dunya,' teacher of al-Yazzaz, al-Sabuni and Ibn Ja'man; died Wednesday 17 Rabi' I 998 at Zabid.

• Najm al-Din al-Ghayti, Egypt's shaykh al-Islam

  c. 1510 CE · c. 916 AH†Najm al-Din al-Ghayti — Alexandria-born musnid of Egypt, 'the Bukhari of his age' per qadi Muhibb al-Din; holder of the Salahiyya mashyakha and Siryaqusiyya khanqah unsought, an unafraid enjoiner of right before amirs; his Mi'raj book read at the Azhar every Rajab.

• Shams al-Din Ibn al-Qiyal

  The merchant who left trade for hadith — took it from Muwaffaq al-Din al-Misri and read widely on Nur al-Din 'Ali al-Maqdisi, taught hadith at the Hammadiyya by the Umayyad mosque's nawaba, 'devoted to hadith and set it out in Arabic order'; d. about 930.

• Karim al-Din al-Ja'bari

  The celebrated muqri' — author of the famous sharh on al-Shatibi's Shatibiyya; came to Damascus in 932 where Shihab al-Din al-Taybi took hadith and Ibn al-Jazari's works from him; d. about 939.

• Ibn Kamal Pasha

  Ibn Kamal Pasha — 'the unique, verifying polymath'; his grandfather an Ottoman amir, he began in the army until the sight of the shabby Molla Lutfi outranking a great amir ('the learned are honoured for their learning') turned him to scholarship; mufti of Constantinople after 'Ali al-Jamali until his death. Near a hundred rasail on knotty questions, a nearly finished tafsir, glosses on the Kashshaf, Hidaya, Miftah, Talwih and Khwaja-zada's Tahafut; d. 940.

• Shams al-Din al-Shami

  The celibate of the Barquqiyya turba — compiler of the famous Sira 'gathered from a thousand books' that readers rushed to copy on a pattern no one had preceded; he cooked for his own guests, advanced the stipends of dead students' orphans before the qadi, took nothing from rulers' money; his works include 'Uqud al-Juman on Abu Hanifa's virtues, the two Mi'raj compilations, 'Ayn al-Isaba fi ma'rifat al-Sahaba, and his teacher al-Suyuti's Nukat; died Monday 14 Sha'ban [942].

• Shihab al-Din ibn 'Abd al-Haqq al-Sunbati

  The Azhar's greatest preacher — son of the Meccan mujawir 'Abd al-Haqq, he preached in the Haram in his father's lifetime and prayed over him at his death; 'we never saw the crowds flock to a preacher like him', men fighting over him when he stepped down; a Sunni champion famous from Syria to Yemen and Rum, holder of the Khushabiyya chair, first a coffee-prohibitionist 'then ijma' settled on its permissibility'; Egypt went dark at his death in late Safar [950] — the largest funeral al-Sha'rani ever saw bar al-Ramli's.

• Muhyi al-Din al-Qujawi

  The recluse of the fifteen uthmani — 'ten is enough for me'; he gave up teaching for his house and mosque, where townsfolk gathered to hear his tafsir and seek baraka in his breath; his method: 'when I doubt a verse I turn to God — my breast widens to the world's size, two moons rise in it, then a light guides me to the Preserved Tablet from which I draw the meaning'; Taskoprulizade's own teacher who counselled him into the qadiship; works: a digest gloss on Baydawi, sharhs of the Wiqaya, the Sirajiyya fara'id, al-Sakkaki's Miftah and the Burda.

• Baha' al-Din al-'Amili (al-Bahai, 953–1030/1547–1621)

  1547 CE · 953 AHBaha' al-Din al-'Amili, Muhammad b. Husayn, known as al-Bahai (953-1030 AH, 1547-1621 CE). From Jabal 'Amila in Syria, he moved to Persia and obtained an honoured place at the court of Shah 'Abbas. His best-known work is the anthology al-Kashkul, and he also wrote a Persian exposition of Shi'i fiqh, the Jami'-i 'Abbasi.

• al-Tajuri Abd al-Rahman ibn Muhammad

  Scholar from Tajura near Tripoli in Libya, after which he is named; died 960 AH (1553 CE).

• al-Sharbi al-Miknasi, Medina's shaykh al-qurra'

  Al-Sharbi al-Miknasi — shaykh al-qurra' of Medina, a Maliki polymath: Minhaj al-Wusul and Majma' al-Salik in usul al-din, a verse-ification of al-Suyuti's Jawahir in tafsir, Durar al-Usul, plus works on jadal, balagha, sarf, nahw, hisab and mantiq; he toured Jerusalem, Damascus and Aleppo and died at Medina [964].

• Nasir al-Din al-Tablawi

  Al-Tablawi — Egypt's encyclopedist and al-Sha'rani's companion of fifty years; licensed by Muhammad al-Bayluni in writing (892), his chain running through Zakariyya, al-Suyuti and Ibn al-Jazari's Damiettan student; 'famous in Egypt for the frequency of his dreams of the Prophet' until a saint advised concealment; holder of the Khushabiyya chair and 'the most learned of all his peers and the humblest'; died 10 Jumada II [966] near a hundred years old, buried in Imam al-Shafi'i's hawsh.

• 'Ali al-Muttaqi al-Hindi

  'Ali al-Muttaqi al-Hindi — a scholar of works and one of the righteous, on a great side of scrupulosity, piety and striving in worship; many works to his name and frequent karamat; he died at Mecca after a long mujawara.

• Taqi al-Din al-Futuhi, author of al-Muntaha

  Taqi al-Din al-Futuhi the Hanbali — author of al-Muntaha and al-Muntaqa on Musnad Ahmad; Ibn Hajar drew on and supplemented him heavily in al-Matalib al-'Aliya and al-Muntaha/al-Insaf.

• Molla Asad al-Shirazi, Shafi'i mufti of Damascus

  Molla Asad al-Shirazi — the Persian Shafi'i mufti of Damascus after al-Nabulsi; arrived 964 with munshi Shah Quli, lived in Shaykh Ruslan's mosque in zuhd and seclusion, never eating waqf food or taking gifts; handsome and awe-inspiring; died Jumada II 998.

• al-Buhuti Mansur ibn Yunus

  1591 CE · 1000 AHHanbali jurist, shaykh of the Hanbalis in Egypt in his time, named after Buhut in the Gharbiyya province; wrote extensively on Hanbali law and also on exegesis, legal theory and inheritance; born 1000 AH (1591 CE), died 1051 AH (1641 CE).

• al-Asadi, Ahmad al-Sammaki

  1625 CE · 1035 AHMeccan scholar of the eleventh century AH who grew up in Mecca.

• Burtuqiz

  1681 CE · 1092 AHHanafi jurist from Zaghwan in Tunisia, versed in legal theory and known for glosses and verse.

• al-Bulaydi Abu Abd Allah Muhammad ibn Muhammad

  1685 CE · 1096 AHScholar born in Algeria who moved between the Maghrib, al-Andalus and Tunisia, named after the town of Bulayda; died 1763 CE.

• Ahmad ibn Hamallah al-Tishiti

  1695 CE · 1107 AHA Mauritanian scholar known by the nisba of his homeland, Tishit, and descended from the Sharif Ahmad.

• Ibn Hamadush, Abd al-Razzaq ibn Muhammad

  1695 CE · 1107 AHAn Algerian scholar known for his interest in the sciences, who left a well-known autobiography.

• Ibrahim Haqqi al-Erzurumi

  1703 CE · 1115 AHAn Ottoman scholar from Erzurum. He returned there after his father's death to complete his education, then served one of his teachers at Nilüfer.

• Ahmad ibn Abdallah al-Asabi al-Salami

  A scholar of Zabid in Yemen, named after Dhu Asab near Zabid, who studied his sciences in Zabid under Shaykh Abdallah al-Mizjaji.

• Sulayman ibn Umar al-Ahdal

  1725 CE · 1137 AHThe Yemeni traditionist Abu al-Mahasin Sulayman ibn Umar al-Ahdal al-Zabidi, born at Zabid in 1137 AH and known as the traditionist of Yemen; he wrote works including a commentary on a versified treatise on hadith terminology.

• Sulayman al-Hawwat

  1747 CE · 1160 AHFrom a noble family of Fez, one of the scholars of the Maghrib in the thirteenth century AH.

• Sidi ibn al-Mukhtar al-Abyiri

  c. 1760 CE · c. 1173 AH†A Mauritanian scholar from a learned family, born near Btalmit. He studied the Qur'an, grammar, rhetoric, logic and creed, then travelled widely in pursuit of learning.

• Al-Banani, Abd al-Rahman ibn Jad Allah

  Named after Bannan, a village in Syria. A scholar of Syria.

• Yusuf al-Asir

  1817 CE · 1232 AHFrom a family of Sidon known by the nickname al-Asir. He grew up in Sidon, memorized the Qur'an and went to Damascus in 1832 to study.

• Shihab al-Din al-Halawani, Ahmad ibn Ahmad

  1833 CE · 1249 AHA Shafi'i and Khalwati scholar from Egypt.

• Ahmad al-Hamlawi

  1856 CE · 1273 AHBorn in a village of the Belbeis district of the Sharqiyya governorate, and graduated from Dar al-Ulum in Cairo.

• Mahmud Shukri al-Alusi

  1856 CE · 1273 AHThe Baghdadi scholar Mahmud Shukri ibn Abd Allah al-Alusi, of a Baghdad family of scholars; he devoted himself to editing and publishing the classical heritage, and his grandfather was the author of the tafsir 'Ruh al-Ma'ani'.

• Al-Janadari, Ahmad ibn Abd Allah

  1862 CE · 1279 AHA Yemeni scholar, known as al-Janadari after the town of al-Janad.

• Ba Kathir

  1867 CE · 1283 AHScholar from the Ba Kathir family of Hadramawt, a family known for its learning and for mosques at Tarim and Seiyun.

• Tantawi Jawhari

  1870 CE · 1287 AHAn Egyptian Islamic scholar with contributions to Qur'anic commentary and the natural sciences.

• Muhammad al-Amin al-Mithqab

  1875 CE · 1292 AHA Mauritanian scholar and teacher from a learned family.

• Muhammad al-Amin al-Shinqiti

  1875 CE · 1292 AHA Mauritanian scholar from a learned family, known for his teaching and learning in the Shinqit region.

• Husayn ibn Abd Allah Basalama

  1881 CE · 1299 AHA scholar from Mecca, born there in 1299 AH, who memorized the Qur'an in one of its kuttab schools.

• Abd al-Hamid ibn Badis

  1889 CE · 1307 AHAn Algerian scholar and leader of the reform movement, born in Constantine in 1889 and died in 1940.

• Muhammad ibn Abd Allah Bulayhid

  1892 CE · 1310 AHA Saudi scholar born in 1310 AH from the Bulayhid family of Najd, recorded in modern biographical sources.

• al-Tawwati Muhammad al-Bashir ibn Muhammad al-Tahir

  Scholar of Bejaia origin raised in Tunis, named al-Tawwati after a pious man of Tuwat with whom he was associated; died 1311 AH (1893 CE).

• Muhammad Sa'id Ramadan al-Buti

  1894 CE · 1311 AHA prominent Muslim scholar: a legal theorist, jurist, reformer, philologist and editor, born in Damascus into an old family.

• Amin al-Khuli

  1895 CE · 1313 AHBorn in Sharshay, a village in the Minufiya province of Egypt.

• Ibn Baz, Abd al-Aziz ibn Abd Allah

  1912 CE · 1330 AHA Saudi scholar born in Riyadh in 1330 AH. He lost his sight during his early studies.

• Al-Albani, Muhammad Nasir al-Din

  1914 CE · 1333 AHA well-known hadith scholar of Albanian origin and Syrian nationality, distinguished in the authentication and grading of hadiths and in hadith jurisprudence.

• Jad al-Haqq ibn Ali Jad al-Haqq

  1917 CE · 1335 AHJurist of legal theory and judge, forty-second Grand Imam of al-Azhar; born in Dakahlia province in 1335 AH (1917 CE) and died 1416 AH (1995 CE).

• Abdallah Bin Bayyah

  1935 CE · 1354 AHMauritanian jurist (born 1935 in Timbedra), a former minister of education and of justice and vice-president of Mauritania, who now chairs the UAE Council for Fatwa, presides over the Forum for Promoting Peace in Muslim Societies, and teaches at King Abdulaziz University in Jeddah.

• Shawki Allam

  12 August 1961 CE · 1381 AHEgyptian jurist (born 12 August 1961 in Beheira Governorate), professor of jurisprudence at Al-Azhar University, who served as Grand Mufti of Egypt from 2013 until 11 August 2024, succeeding Ali Gomaa and succeeded by Nazir Ayyad; since 2025 he has been dean of the Higher Institute of Islamic Studies and a member of the Egyptian Senate.

• Umar bin Hafiz

  27 May 1963 CE · 1383 AHYemeni teacher (born 27 May 1963 in Tarim, Hadhramaut) of the Ba 'Alawi tradition, founder of Dar al-Mustafa in Tarim, ranked first in The Muslim 500's 2024 edition.

• Habib Ali al-Jifri

  16 April 1971 CE · 1391 AHYemeni scholar (born 16 April 1971 in Jeddah) of the Ba 'Alawi tradition, a student of Umar bin Hafiz in Tarim, based in Cairo; founder of the Tabah Foundation and a recipient of the Eugen Biser Award for his work on A Common Word.

• Abd al-Aziz ibn Abi Hazim

  Abd al-Aziz ibn Abi Hazim Salama ibn Dinar, Abu Tammam al-Madani, a jurist and hadith scholar of Medina (d. 184 AH). Ahmad ibn Hanbal said that after Malik no one in Medina was more learned in law than him; Ibn Hibban counted him among the trustworthy.

• Abd al-Aziz ibn Abi Salama al-Umari

  A Qurashi 'Umari of Medina, descended from 'Umar b. al-Khattab; he settled in Baghdad and transmitted there from Ibrahim b. Sa'd al-Zuhri, Abu Uways 'Abdallah b. 'Abdallah and Muhammad b. 'Awn; his students included Muhammad b. Ishaq al-Saghani, Abu Zur'a al-Razi and Musa b. Harun the hafiz; al-Bukhari noted him and al-Daraqutni found no fault in him.

• Abd al-Rahman ibn Usayla al-Sunabihi

  One of the jurists among the Successors in Egypt. Al-Shirazi mentioned him together with Abu Tamim Abd Allah ibn Malik al-Jayshani, and said that both were companions of Umar. Al-Shirazi does not give the date of his death on these pages.

• Abd al-Rahman ibn Zayd ibn al-Khattab

  Abd al-Rahman ibn Zayd ibn al-Khattab, nephew of Umar ibn al-Khattab and of unusually full build. Abu Lubaba brought him to the Prophet, who put a date on his palate, rubbed his head and prayed for his blessing. He narrated from his father and others, and his son Abd al-Hamid narrated from him.

• Abdallah ibn Malik al-Jayshani

  One of the jurists among the Successors in Egypt. Al-Shirazi mentions him together with Abd al-Rahman ibn Usayla al-Sunabihi and says that both were among the companions of Umar. Al-Shirazi does not give his date of death on these pages.

• Abd Allah ibn Qurt

  Abd Allah ibn Qurt al-Thumali al-Azdi, a Companion who was governor of Homs under Abu Ubayda. He narrated from the Prophet, from Khalid ibn al-Walid and from Amr ibn Sa'id ibn al-As; Abu Amir Abd Allah ibn Yahya al-Hawzani and Abd Allah ibn Mahsan narrated from him. Ibn Yunus said he was killed as a martyr in Byzantine land; the page gives 56 AH.

• Abd Allah ibn Yazid al-Khatmi

  Abd Allah ibn Yazid ibn Zayd al-Ansari al-Khatmi, Abu Musa, a Companion who as a young man witnessed Hudaybiyya, fought with Ali at the Camel and Siffin, and was his governor in Kufa. He narrated from the Prophet, Abu Ayyub, Abu Mas'ud and Zayd ibn Thabit; his son Musa, al-Sha'bi and Muhammad ibn Sirin narrated from him. The page gives his death as about 70 AH.

• Abdallah ibn Bahina

  Abdallah ibn Malik ibn al-Qashib ibn Jundab, Abu Muhammad, a Companion known as Ibn Bahina. He related from the Prophet, and al-A'raj and Ata' ibn Yasar related from him. The jurists cite him in the rules of ihram on cupping. The entry gives no firm date of death.

• Abdullah ibn Amr ibn al-As

  A Companion of Banu Sahm, a prolific transmitter of hadith who used to write; Abu Hurayra said none had more hadith than he except Abdullah ibn Amr, because he wrote; he embraced Islam before his father, and the two collections tell his story of fasting by day and praying by night.

• Abdullah ibn Umar ibn al-Khattab

  The son of the caliph Umar ibn al-Khattab and Zaynab bint Maz'un; he embraced Islam young with his father and emigrated, was presented to the Prophet at Badr and Uhud and turned back as too young, and was accepted at al-Khandaq; he is one of the great narrators of hadith and was known for following the Prophet's footsteps; he died in 73 AH on the majority view, some say 74 AH.

• Abu al-Darda' (Uwaymir)

  Uwaymir al-Ansari al-Khazraji, known by his kunya; it is said he embraced Islam the day of Badr, he fought well at Uhud, where the Prophet said 'what a fine horseman Uwaymir is' and called him the wise man of his community; he had been a merchant before the mission; he died in 32 AH on the account of al-Waqidi and others, and hadith scholars hold it was in Uthman's caliphate.

• Abu al-Tufayl Amir ibn Wathila

  Amir ibn Wathila ibn Abd Allah ibn Amr, Abu al-Tufayl al-Laythi, a Companion known by his kunya. He related from the Prophet and from Abu Bakr, Umar, Ali and others, and he attended all of Ali's campaigns. The book gives his death as 100 AH and calls him the last Companion to die.

• Abu Bakr al-Khallal

  He gathered Imam Ahmad's transmitted answers and wrote them down with their chains of transmission in the book al-Jami', which counts as the foundation of the school, and so prepared the way for the writing down of Hanbali jurisprudence.

• Abu Ishaq al-Tha'labi

  Draft card for Abu Ishaq Ahmad ibn Muhammad al-Tha'labi of Nishapur, the eleventh-century exegete author of al-Kashf wa-l-Bayan and the Qisas al-Anbiya known as Ara'is al-Majalis, d. 1035; the biographical entry is not yet checked on the page.

• Abu Rayhana Shimun

  Shimun ibn Yazid ibn Khunaqa, Abu Rayhana, a Companion who took part in the conquest of Damascus. He narrated from the Prophet, and Mujahid ibn Jabr and Shahr ibn Hawshab narrated from him. Ibn Hibban noted that his name is given as Shimun, or as Abd Allah ibn al-Nadr, the first being the sounder.

• Ahmad ibn Hanbal

  An imam and hadith scholar who compiled the Musnad; eponym of the Hanbali school, which gives precedence to the revealed text and transmitted reports. He wrote only one treatise on jurisprudence, on prayer, while his students wrote more than thirty volumes of his words and fatwas.

• Ahmad ibn Husayn ibn Rislan

  Ahmad ibn Husayn ibn Rislan, Abu al-Abbas al-Ramli al-Shafi'i (d. 844 AH), a Shafi'i jurist born in Ramla in Palestine who moved to Jerusalem, where he died. He kept to issuing fatwas and teaching, and Qadi al-Qudat al-Ba'uni authorised him to issue fatwas.

• Ahmad ibn Ishaq al-Tamimi

  Ahmad ibn Ishaq ibn Atiya, Abu al-Hasan al-Tamimi al-Sayda'lani, a reciter of the Qur'an who heard from Abu Tahir al-Mukhallis and Abu al-Qasim al-Saydalani, noted for his memory and mastery of the transmissions. His work is al-Wadih fi al-qira'at al-'ashr.

• Ahmad ibn Muhammad al-Natifi

  Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn Umar, Abu al-Abbas al-Natifi al-Tabari, a Hanafi jurist from Rayy, named for making or selling natif (a sweet). Amir Katib called him one of the great scholars of Iraq and a pupil of Abu Abd Allah al-Jurjani. His works, all on Hanafi fiqh, include al-Waqi'at, al-Ajnas wa al-furuq, al-Hidaya and al-Ahkam; he died in 446 AH.

• Ahmad ibn Muhammad al-Tawawisi

  Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn Hamid ibn Hashim al-Tawawisi, named after Tawawis, a village eight farsakhs from Bukhara. He related from Muhammad ibn Nasr al-Marwazi and Abd Allah ibn Shirawayh al-Nisaburi, among others, and Nasr ibn Muhammad ibn Gharib al-Shashi and Ahmad ibn Abd Allah ibn Idris related from him. The book gives his death as 344 AH.

• Al-Atabi

  Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn Umar, Abu Nasr or Abu al-Qasim, Zayn al-Din al-Atabi al-Bukhari, a Hanafi scholar of fiqh and exegesis, named for the Atabiyya quarter of Bukhara. His works include commentaries on al-Ziyadat and al-Jami' al-kabir and al-Jami' al-saghir, a collection of fiqh, and a tafsir.

• al-Baghawi Ahmad ibn Mani

  One of the hadith memorists, companion of Abu Ubayd al-Qasim ibn Sallam, known as Ibn Bint Mani after his maternal grandfather.

• al-Baghawi Abu al-Hasan Ali ibn al-Aziz

  Hadith scholar who transmitted from al-Nasa'i, Abd Allah ibn Ahmad ibn Hanbal and Musa ibn Harun, among others; al-Husayn al-Nisaburi, known as al-Qabbani, transmitted from him.

• al-Bazmawi Shams al-Din Muhammad

  Scholar of law, Arabic grammar and inheritance who was shaykh of the Fakhriyya school in Cairo, taught at the Salahiyya in Jerusalem, and composed verse works on legal theory, inheritance and prosody; he made the Hajj in 828 AH (1424 CE).

• al-Harith al-A'war

  A jurist of Kufa. Abu Ishaq said that no one in Kufa knew the law of inheritance (al-fara'id) better than Ubayda and al-Harith al-A'war; Ibn Sirin named four Kufan jurists of his time, al-Harith, Ubayda, Alqama and Shurayh, and the order of al-Harith and Ubayda differs in the narration.

• Al-Hasan ibn Arafa al-Abdi

  Al-Hasan ibn Arafa ibn Yazid, Abu Ali al-Abdi al-Baghdadi, a hadith scholar, learned in the Arab days and in biography, reliable and widely read. He narrated from Ammar ibn Muhammad and Isa ibn Yunus, and al-Tirmidhi and Ibn Majah narrated from him. The page dates his death to 257 AH.

• al-Hasan ibn Muhammad al-Nisaburi al-A'raj

  al-Hasan ibn Muhammad ibn al-Husayn, Nizam al-Din al-Qummi al-Nisaburi, known as al-A'raj: a Qur'an commentator and jurist with interests in philosophy and mathematics. Ibrahim Atwa, in the introduction to his Gharayib al-Qur'an, places him among the scholars of the eighth century AH. His works include Gharayib al-Qur'an wa Raghaib al-Furqan, known as the Tafsir of al-Nisaburi.

• al-Isbijabi, Abu Nasr

  Hanafi jurist of Transoxiana, remembered for piety and good character in the pursuit of learning.

• Al-Miqdad ibn Madi Karib

  Al-Miqdad ibn Madi Karib ibn Amr, Abu Karima al-Kindi, a Companion who came as a youth from Yemen with the delegation of Kinda, eighty riders in all. He narrated from the Prophet, Khalid ibn al-Walid, Mu'adh ibn Jabal and Abu Ayyub al-Ansari; his son Yahya and Khalid ibn Ma'dan narrated from him. He has forty hadith, one of which al-Bukhari alone reports. The page gives his death as 87 AH.

• al-Miqdam ibn Ma'dikarib

  A Companion who lived in Syria, called Abu Karima (or Abu Yahya); he settled at Homs and narrated from the Prophet, Khalid ibn al-Walid, Mu'adh and Abu Ayyub; when told that people claimed he never saw the Prophet he swore he had, and that the Prophet had taken him by the lobe of his ear; Ibn Sa'd lists him among the Syrians and says he died in 87 AH aged ninety-one.

• Al-Sa'b ibn Jathama

  Al-Sa'b ibn Jathama ibn Qays ibn Rabi'a al-Laythi, a Companion known for his bravery. He took part in the battles of the Prophet's time and was present at the conquests of Istakhr and Fars. The book reports a hadith in which the Prophet praises his courage at Hunayn, and says he has narrations in the Sahih collections. It gives his death as about 25 AH.

• Al-Tibi

  Al-Husayn ibn Muhammad ibn Abd Allah, Sharaf al-Din al-Tibi, a scholar of hadith, exegesis and rhetoric (d. 743 AH). Ibn Hajar said he was a marvel at drawing out subtleties from the Qur'an and the Sunna, and he was firm in refuting innovators and philosophers. His works include al-Tibyan fi al-ma'ani wa al-bayan and a commentary on the Mishkat al-masabih.

• Ala ibn Ziyad

  Ala ibn Ziyad ibn Mutar ibn Shurayh, Abu Nasr al-Adawi of Basra, a Successor of the second generation. He related from his father, Imran ibn Husayn, Abu Hurayra and Mutarrif ibn al-Shikhkhir, among others, and al-Hasan al-Basri, Jarir ibn Hazim and Hisham ibn Hassan related from him. Qatada said that he wept until he lost his sight, Ibn Hibban listed him among the trustworthy, and Ibn Sa'd called him trustworthy. The book gives his death as 78 AH, or 94 AH according to another report.

• Amr ibn Abi Salama

  Amr ibn Abi Salama, Abu Hafs al-Tinnisi al-Dimashqi, a mawla of the Banu Hashim, who narrated from al-Awza'i and others; his son Sa'id, Abd Allah al-Shafi'i and Ahmad ibn Salih narrated from him. Al-Walid ibn Bakr called him one of the leading transmitters, al-Saji and Ibn Ma'in weakened him, and Ibn Hibban counted him among the trustworthy. The page gives his death as 214 AH on one account.

• عمرو بن الحارث أبو أمية

• Amr ibn Hazm

  An Ansari, brother of Umara ibn Hazm; he took part in al-Khandaq and later campaigns, and the Prophet appointed him over Najran; his son Muhammad narrated from him a letter the Prophet wrote for him on the obligations, zakat and blood-money, which Abu Dawud, al-Nasa'i, Ibn Hibban and al-Darimi record; Abu Nu'aym says he died under Umar, while Ibn Hajar judges it likelier that he lived past the fifties AH.

• Amr ibn Salama al-Jarmi

  Amr ibn Salama al-Jarmi, Abu Buraid, also called Abu Yazid of Basra, who met the Prophet and led his people in prayer in the Prophet's time because he had the most of the Qur'an by heart. He narrated from his father; Abu Qilaba al-Jarmi, Asim al-Ahwal and Abu al-Zubayr narrated from him. Ibn Hibban held that he had companionship with the Prophet.

• Asad al-Sunna

  Egyptian hadith transmitter of the second century AH.

• Ashir ibn Muhammad al-Fasi

  Ashir ibn Muhammad, Abu Muhammad al-Ansari al-Andalusi al-Fasi, a Maliki scholar with learning in the readings of the Qur'an, grammar, exegesis, legal theory and theology. His works include al-Murshid al-mu'in, a versified Maliki law, a commentary on Khalil's abridgement, and al-Kafi on the readings.

• بكير بن عبد الله بن الأشج

• Busr ibn Said

  Busr ibn Said al-Madani, a devout Successor (tabi'i) and mawla of Ibn al-Hadrami. He related from Abu Hurayra, Uthman, Abu Sa'id, Sa'd ibn Abi Waqqas and Zayd ibn Thabit, among others, and was related from by Salim ibn Abi al-Nadr and Ya'qub ibn al-Ashajj. Ibn Ma'in and al-Nasa'i called him trustworthy. The book gives his death as 100 AH.

• Dhu al-Qarnayn

  Sheikh Omar Abdelkafy cites Dhu al-Qarnayn in his teaching on empowerment, as one given the means who followed them, describes his knowledge and empowerment, and recounts the barrier he built for a people who complained of corruption.

• Harun ibn Abdallah al-Zuhri

  Abu Yahya al-Zuhri of Medina, descended of the line of 'Abd al-Rahman b. 'Awf — among the late hearers of Malik b. Anas, transmitting also from Ibn Zayd b. Aslam, al-Darawardi and Ibn Salama al-Zubayri; Yahya b. Bukayr among his students.

• Hilal ibn Amir al-Muzani

  Hilal ibn Amir ibn Amr al-Muzani of Kufa, a Companion who narrated from his father and from Rafi' ibn Amr al-Muzani. Sayf ibn Umar al-Tamimi, Yahya ibn Sa'id al-Umawi, Abu Mu'awiya al-Darir and Marwan ibn Mu'awiya narrated from him. Ishaq ibn Mansur reported from Ibn Ma'in that he was reliable, and Ibn Hibban listed him among the trustworthy.

• Ibn Abi Shayba

  Draft card for Abu Bakr Abd Allah ibn Muhammad ibn Abi Shayba al-Kufi, the hadith master author of the Musannaf and the Musnad, d. 849; the biographical entry is not yet checked on the page.

• أبو عبد الله ابن البهلول القارئ

• أبو الحسن ابن الخشاب القارئ

• Ibn al-Tin

  Abd al-Wahid ibn al-Tin, Abu Muhammad al-Safaqusi al-Maghribi al-Maliki, a jurist, hadith scholar and exegete (d. 611 AH). His work joins fiqh with much of the Mudawwana and its commentators, and Ibn Hajar relied on him in his commentary on al-Bukhari.

• Ibn Hibban al-Busti

  Draft card for Muhammad ibn Hibban al-Busti, the hadith master author of Sahih Ibn Hibban, al-Thiqat and al-Majruhin, d. 965; the biographical entry is not yet checked on the page.

• Ibn Suraqa

  Muhammad ibn Ahmad ibn Muhammad, Abu Bakr al-Ansari al-Shatibi al-Misri (d. 662 AH), a hadith scholar, jurist, expert in inheritance and poet, and head of the Kamiliyya hadith school in Cairo. Among his works are al-Hiyal al-shar'iyya and a commentary on al-Kafi on inheritance.

• al-Harbi (Ibrahim)

  Author of Gharib al-Hadith and Dala'il al-Nubuwwa, and one of those who transmitted Imam Ahmad's school from him. Ibn al-Jawzi places his death in 285 and preserves his famed austerity: born 198 at Marw, he wore a clean shirt and a soiled izar without ever thinking them equal, walked all Baghdad with one sandal-strap broken for ten years telling no one of his ailments, and lived thirty years on a loaf or two a day — when asked how he had gathered his books he answered 'with my flesh and blood'.

• Imran ibn Muslim al-Qasir

  Imran ibn Muslim, Abu Bakr al-Minqari al-Basri al-Qasir, who saw Anas and narrated from Abu Raja al-Utaridi, al-Hasan, Anas ibn Sirin and Ata ibn Abi Rabah. Mahdi ibn Maymun, al-Thawri and Hatim ibn Isma'il narrated from him. Al-Qattan called his narrations sound, Ibn Hibban counted him among the trustworthy, and Ibn Ma'in said he was worth nothing.

• Jabir ibn Abdullah

  A Companion of the Ansar, son of Abdullah ibn Amr ibn Haram and one of the great transmitters of hadith; he was present at al-Aqaba and took part in nineteen expeditions, but not Badr or Uhud because his father kept him back; he held a circle of learning in the Prophet's Mosque.

• Jubayr ibn Nufayr

  Jubayr ibn Nufayr al-Hadrami, Abu Abd al-Rahman, a Successor who lived in the time of the Prophet without meeting him. He related from Abu Bakr, Umar ibn al-Khattab, al-Miqdad ibn al-Aswad, Ubada ibn al-Samit and Uqba ibn Amir, among others, and his son Abd al-Rahman, Makhul and Khalid ibn Ma'dan related from him. The book counts him among the senior Successors of Syria, notes that his father was a Companion, and records Abu Hatim and Abu Zur'a as calling him trustworthy. It gives his death as 75 AH, or 80 AH according to another report.

• Ka'b ibn Ujra

  An ally of the Ansar from Bali of Quda'a (al-Waqidi claimed he was an Ansari and Ibn Sa'd rejected it); he was on the umra of al-Hudaybiyya, and the ruling on redemption was revealed over him when the Prophet passed him in ihram with lice falling on his face and told him to shave his head and feed six poor people; he settled in Kufa and died in Medina in 51, 52 or 53 AH by different accounts.

• Khawla bint Tha'laba

  An Ansari Companion who complained to the Prophet of her husband Aws ibn al-Samit's zihar and laid out her case and her children's, so the opening verses of Surat al-Mujadila were revealed concerning her, carrying the expiation ruling; Umar ibn al-Khattab once greeted her and told the people she was the woman whose plea God heard from above seven heavens.

• مرثد بن عبد الله اليزني

• Muadh ibn Anas al-Juhani

  Muadh ibn Anas al-Juhani al-Ansari, a Companion who fought with the Prophet and settled in Egypt. He narrated from the Prophet, Abu al-Darda' and Ka'b al-Ahbar; only his son Sahl narrated from him, and his hadith is weak. Al-Askari indicates that he lived into the caliphate of Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan.

• مسدد بن مسرهد

• Qasim ibn Isa ibn Naji

  Qasim ibn Isa ibn Naji, Abu al-Fadl al-Tanukhi al-Qayrawani (d. 837 AH), a Maliki jurist and hafiz who studied in Qayrawan under Ibn Arafa and others and held judgeships in several places. Among his works are a commentary on the Mudawwana and al-Shafi fi al-fiqh.

• Salim, freed slave of Abu Hudhayfa

  One of the earliest Muslims; a woman of the Ansar freed him and he attached himself to Abu Hudhayfa, who adopted him, then he was returned to his own clients when the verse in al-Ahzab about adoption was revealed; he led the first emigrants in prayer at the mosque of Quba, among them Abu Bakr and Umar, and the story of his being nursed because of Sahla bint Suhayl is well known.

• Sanad ibn Anan

  Sanad ibn Anan ibn Ibrahim al-Azdi, Abu Ali, a teacher of al-Tartushi and of Abu Tahir al-Salafi, an ascetic and virtuous Maliki jurist. His book al-Tiraz, a commentary on the Mudawwana, was left unfinished; he died in Alexandria in 541 AH.

• Suwayd ibn al-Nu'man

  Suwayd ibn al-Nu'man ibn Malik, an Ansari of Medina of the Aws, who witnessed Uhud and the later campaigns with the Prophet and was among those who pledged under the tree. He narrated from the Prophet on rinsing the mouth after eating sawiq, and Bashir ibn Yasar narrated from him.

• Ubayy ibn Ka'b

  The 'master of the reciters' among the Ansar, present at the second pledge of al-Aqaba, at Badr and in all the campaigns; the Prophet told him that God had commanded him to recite to him, and Umar called him the master of the Muslims; the date of his death is given from 19 AH to 32 AH, and Abu Nu'aym favours the caliphate of Uthman.

• Umm al-Mundhir Salma bint Qays

  Salma bint Qays ibn Amr, Umm al-Mundhir al-Ansariyya, better known by her kunya, sister of Sulayt ibn Qays and one of the Prophet's maternal aunts through his father. She prayed towards both qiblas and swore the pledge of Ridwan. Umm Sulayt ibn Ayyub ibn al-Hakam related from her. The book gives no date of death.

• Yahya ibn Yahya al-Laythi

  152 AHFrom al-Andalus; he came to Imam Malik in Medina and studied the Muwatta with him. His recension became the most widely read transmission of the book in the Maghrib and al-Andalus.

• Yahya ibn Yamur

  Yahya ibn Yamur, Abu Sulayman al-Layti al-Basri, one of the Successors, learned in hadith, fiqh and the Arabic tongues. He narrated from Uthman, Ali, Ammar, Abu Dharr and Abu Hurayra; Yahya ibn Uqayl, Ata al-Khurasani, Qatada and Ikrima narrated from him. He was the first to dot the copies of the Qur'an, and al-Hajjaj appointed him judge of Marw, where he judged by one witness and an oath. He died in 129 AH.

• Zayn al-Din ibn al-Munir

  Ali ibn Muhammad ibn Mansur ibn Abi al-Qasim, Abu al-Hasan Zayn al-Din ibn al-Munir of Alexandria, a Maliki jurist and hadith scholar, brother of the judge Nasir al-Din ibn al-Munir. He studied law with his brother and with Abu Amr ibn al-Hajib, and after his brother he held the judgeship of Alexandria. He was counted among those qualified to weigh opinions and to exercise independent reasoning within the Maliki school. His works include a commentary on al-Bukhari's Sahih, al-Mutawari on the chapter titles of al-Bukhari, and glosses on Ibn al-Battal's commentary. The book's heading gives the dates 629-695 AH.

• Zubayd al-Yami

  Zubayd ibn al-Harith al-Yami, Abu Abd al-Rahman, who narrated from Murra ibn Sharahil, Sa'd ibn Ubayda and Abd al-Rahman Abi Layla, and whose narrators included his two sons, Jarir ibn Hazim and al-Thawri. Ibn Ma'in, Abu Hatim and al-Nasa'i called him reliable; the page gives his death as 122 AH on one account, with other dates also reported.

Object

• Birmingham Quran manuscript

  Hijazi-script parchment folios at the University of Birmingham; radiocarbon dated 568–645 CE, among the oldest known Qur'an leaves.

• The Blue Qur'an

  A 9th–10th-century Kufic Qur'an in gold on indigo-blue vellum — the most beautiful known Andalusi-Maghrebi mushaf, dispersed across museums.

• Gwalior Quran

  An Indian mushaf written in 1399 CE in Gwalior; a witness to Qur'anic calligraphic tradition under the Indian sultanates.

• Thaalibia Quran

  An Algerian mushaf written in Maghribi script in 1404 CE, kept at the Thaalibia library in Algiers; among the finest codices of the Maghreb.

• Hinckelmann edition

  The first Arabic printing of the Qur'an in Europe — Hamburg 1694 under Abraham Hinckelmann — opening European Qur'an printing.

• Marracci edition

  Ludovico Marracci's 1698 Padua edition of the Qur'an in Arabic and Latin with long refutations; a landmark in European Qur'an study.

• Samarkand Kufic Quran

  The great Kufic mushaf attributed to Uthman (8th–9th c.) kept in Tashkent — among the oldest Qur'ans extant, holding about half the text.

• Harari Qurans

  Old mushafs written in Harar, Ethiopia in the Ajemi/African hand; witness to Islam's depth in the Horn of Africa.

• Konya Manuscript

  Ibn Arabi's own autograph copy of his Meccan Revelations kept in Konya; the most precious Ibn Arabi document extant.

• Timbuktu manuscripts

  A corpus of hundreds of thousands of Islamic, Arabic and African manuscripts in Timbuktu; a great civilizational archive in Mali.

• Blood Quran

  A mushaf written by calligrapher Abbas Shakir Jouda in Saddam Hussein's blood between 1997 and 2000; a contested relic of a dictatorship.

• Algeria Quran

  Algeria's official mushaf printed in the Warsh recitation; adopted as the national codex, a marker of Algerian religious identity.

• Nurse's Quran

  A printed mushaf marketed in Turkey and Europe with a fabricated tale of a nurse who received ijaza; a cautionary case of legend presented as provenance.

• Qur'an of al-Za'farani

  An old Kufic mushaf bearing the name of the scholar al-Za'farani; an early witness to arranging the codex by readings.

• Aryamehr Quran

  A luxury mushaf commissioned in 1965 under the Shah of Iran; among the largest modern manuscript codices.

• BnF Arabe 328(c)

  Early Qur'anic folios held at the Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris, among the oldest surviving Hijazi fragments.

• Isfahan Quran

  A tenth-century mushaf in early Persian script; a witness to mushaf tradition in Iran.

• Codex Mashhad

  An early codex in the Astan Quds Razavi Museum in Mashhad attributed to the 1st century AH; a key witness of early Qur'anic script.

• Palermo Quran

  A tenth-century mushaf in early Maghribi script whose folios dispersed among museums; a witness of Islamic Sicily to the Qur'anic text.

• Codex Parisino-petropolitanus

  The largest surviving early Hijazi codex; its folios split between Paris, Saint Petersburg and other libraries, covering about two-thirds of the text.

• Timurid Quran

  A huge Timurid-era mushaf attributed to the workshops of Baysunghur and Umar Aqta; among the greatest Persian calligraphic treasures.

• Topkapı manuscript

  An early Qur'an codex kept in Topkapı Palace and attributed to Uthman ibn Affan; a key witness to the earliest Qur'anic text.

• Uthman Taha Quran

  The Medina mushaf written by the Syrian calligrapher Uthman Taha; the world's most widespread printed codex, from the King Fahd Complex.

• Sanaa palimpsest

  Parchment palimpsest found in 1972 in the Great Mosque of Sanaa; its lower Qur'anic layer is among the oldest surviving mushaf text, with variants studied academically.

Event

• The pause of revelation (Fatra)

  c. 610 CEThe pause in revelation after the first descent at Hira — days rather than years in the reading of Ibn Sa'd via Ibn Abbas that the book prefers — ending when Jibril appeared seated on a throne between heaven and earth and surat al-Muddaththir came down with the command to rise and warn.

• The second descent of Jibril: the opening of surat al-Muddaththir

  c. 610 CEAfter the pause in revelation the Prophet heard a voice from heaven and saw the angel who had come to him at Hira seated on a throne between heaven and earth; he returned home asking to be wrapped, and God sent down the opening of surat al-Muddaththir with the command to rise and warn, after which revelation came thick and fast; the author reads in its commands the substance of the call.

• The first revelation

  10 August 610 CE · 21 Ramadan 12 BHThe descent of Jibril upon the Prophet in the cave of Hira with the opening verses of surat al-Alaq — on the night of Monday 21 Ramadan in the book's preferred reckoning, corresponding to 10 August 610 CE, when the Prophet was forty lunar years, six months and twelve days old.

• The prostration at surat al-Najm

  c. 615 CEIn Ramadan of the fifth year, before a great assembly of Quraysh's chiefs in the sanctuary, the Prophet recited surat al-Najm; when he reached its closing prostration and prostrated, none present held back and all fell prostrate — Muslims and polytheists alike, as Bukhari reports.

• The Incident of the Slander (Hadith al-Ifk)

  c. December 627 CE · Sha'ban 6 AHOn the return from the Expedition of al-Muraysi', Aisha was accidentally left behind when searching for a lost necklace and was escorted back to Medina by Safwan ibn al-Mu'attal; Abdullah ibn Ubayy orchestrated a malicious slander campaign that troubled the community for a month until verses of Surat al-Nur established her innocence.

• The Prophet's request for a writing in his last illness

  4 June 632 CE · 8 Rabi' I 11 AHIn his last illness the Prophet asked for a writing that would keep the community from error; those present disagreed, one said the book of God was enough, and the writing was not made. Sallabi reads the episode within the Sunni frame as a matter of ijtihad that no one was blamed for; Imami readings that take it as a designation of Ali he treats as false.

• Umar's Friday sermon on the stoning verse and on Abu Bakr's pledge

  c. 12 June 632 CE · c. Rabi' I 11 AHOn the first Friday after the death Umar recalled a verse of stoning, which he said had been in God's book and had been recited, memorised and applied, and feared that someone might say there is no stoning in God's book; he then called the pledge to Abu Bakr a sudden act that God had averted the harm of, and said whoever pledges to a man without consultation has no pledge, nor has the one he pledged to.

• Uthman's standardization of the mushaf

  c. 650 CE · c. 30 AHHudhayfa ibn al-Yaman, alarmed at the readers' divergence during the Armenia-Azerbaijan campaign, pressed Uthman to save the community before it split over the Book; Uthman borrowed Hafsa's codex, commissioned Zayd ibn Thabit and three Qurashis to copy it into masahif — 'write it in the tongue of Quraysh' — sent a copy to every garrison city and ordered all other codices burned.

• Dubai International Holy Quran Award

  Dubai's annual Qur'an-memorisation award and contest since 1997, drawing reciters from a hundred-plus countries.

Work

• The Sira of Ibn Ishaq in Ibn Hisham's recension

  The earliest surviving continuous biography of the Prophet; composed by Muhammad ibn Ishaq (d. 151 AH) and abridged/recast by Abd al-Malik ibn Hisham (d. 213 or 218 AH) — the text known as Ibn Hisham's Sira.

• al-Ahadith al-Kulliyya

  A dictation session by the hadith master Abu Amr ibn al-Salah gathering the comprehensive hadiths on which the religion is said to turn — twenty-six in all — which al-Nawawi took and expanded into his 'Arba'un'.

• al-Arba'un al-Nawawiyya (Nawawi's Forty)

  The famous collection of concise hadiths that Imam Abu Zakariyya Yahya al-Nawawi took from Ibn al-Salah's 'al-Ahadith al-Kulliyya' (twenty-six hadiths) and expanded to forty-two, naming it 'al-Arba'un'; widely memorised and much commented upon.

• Jami' al-Tirmidhi

  The Jami' of Abu 'Isa Muhammad ibn 'Isa al-Tirmidhi (d. 279 AH): one of the six books, distinguished by grading each report (sahih, hasan, gharib) and noting the jurists' positions under every chapter; it closes with the Book of al-Shama'il al-Muhammadiyya on the Prophet's description.

• Jami' al-Ulum wal-Hikam

  Ibn Rajab al-Hanbali's (d. 795 AH) commentary on fifty hadiths: the twenty-six of Ibn al-Salah's 'al-Ahadith al-Kulliyya', which al-Nawawi brought to forty-two in his 'Arba'un', plus eight hadiths Ibn Rajab added himself to reach fifty, naming it Jami' al-Ulum wal-Hikam.

• Muwatta of Imam Malik

  The Muwatta of Imam Malik ibn Anas (d. 179 AH): one of the earliest hadith and jurisprudence works arranged by chapter, compiled in Medina. Its most widely read transmission is the recension of Yahya ibn Yahya al-Laythi.

• Nur al-Iqtibas fi Mishkat Wasiyyat al-Nabi li-Ibn Abbas

  A standalone treatise by Ibn Rajab al-Hanbali devoted to the commentary of Ibn Abbas's hadith 'O boy, I shall teach you words: guard God and He will guard you...', the nineteenth of al-Nawawi's Forty; in the Jami' al-Ulum wal-Hikam Ibn Rajab says the hadith comprises great counsels and universal maxims among the religion's most important matters and that he 'devoted a large separate portion to its commentary' — the printed book bearing this title.

• Qisas al-Anbiya' (al-'Ara'is)

  Al-Tha'labi's collection of the stories of the prophets named in the Qur'an. It opens with why God narrates earlier histories, then cosmology, then the prophets, beginning with Adam. The edition used here is not yet verified.

• The Qur'an

  The scripture of Islam, which Muslims believe was revealed to the Prophet Muhammad; 114 suras and 6,236 verses in the Hafs reading as given by the Tanzil text.

• The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam

  A book by Muhammad Iqbal in a preface and seven lectures, in which he tries to reconstruct Muslim religious philosophy in the light of its philosophical tradition and of modern knowledge. Lecture I asks how knowledge and religious experience relate and proposes two tests for the claims that experience makes.

• Sahih al-Bukhari

  The Jami' al-Musnad al-Sahih of Muhammad ibn Isma'il al-Bukhari al-Ju'fi.

• Sahih Muslim

  The Musnad al-Sahih of Muslim ibn al-Hajjaj al-Naysaburi (d. 261 AH): the second most celebrated hadith collection, famed for gathering the variant transmissions of each report in one place and for its introductory essay that became a founding text of hadith method.

• Sunan Abi Dawud

  The Sunan of Abu Dawud Sulayman ibn al-Ash'ath al-Sijistani (202–275 AH): one of the six books, arranged by legal chapter and restricted to reports bearing on rulings; his letter to the people of Mecca, prefixed to the work, explains what he included and omitted.

• Sunan al-Nasa'i

  The Sunan al-Sughra of Ahmad ibn Shu'ayb al-Nasa'i (215–303 AH): one of the six books, famed for its attention to hidden defects and transmitters' errors — said to be the subtlest of them in that regard — distilled by its author from his larger Sunan.

• Sunan Ibn Majah

  The Sunan of Ibn Majah Muhammad ibn Yazid al-Qazwini (d. 273 AH): counted sixth of the six books by later scholars, noted for its renunciation and tribulation material and for reports absent from the two Sahihs; the standard print is Muhammad Fu'ad Abd al-Baqi's (Cairo, 1952–1953).

• Tabaqat al-fuqaha' (Shirazi)

  Abu Ishaq al-Shirazi's biographical dictionary of jurists by generations, focusing on the Shafi'i school and on the transmission of teaching within it.

Concept

• The abjad letters named for Madyan's kings

  al-Mas'udi's etymology of the abjad numeral letters — the 29 letters of the abjad order named after six kings of Shu'ayb's people: Abjad of Mecca and the Hijaz, Hawwaz and Hutti of Wajj (the Ta'if and Najd lands), and Kalamn, Sa'fas and Qursht of Madyan or Egypt.

• Manners of the Qur'an bearer

  Sheikh Omar Abdelkafy says that the bearer of the Qur'an is known by his night when people sleep, by his weeping when people laugh, by his silence when people engage in idle talk and by his humility when people are proud. He holds that he should be wise and forbearing, neither harsh nor careless.

• The divine covenant (al-ahd)

  Sha'rawi holds that the divine covenant can mean three things: the covenant of the fitra to believe and be grateful for God's favours; the covenant of the prophets to believe in and support the final messenger; and the covenant of the scholars of the Children of Israel not to conceal what is in their books. He holds that God fulfils His covenant with the promise of Paradise to those who keep theirs.

• The seven ahruf

  The Prophet's saying 'the Qur'an was revealed in seven ahruf, so read of it what is easy' — narrated through Umar's dispute with Hisham ibn Hakim over Surat al-Furqan; its exact meaning is one of the widest debates in Qur'anic sciences.

• Delivery of the message and the limit of the Prophet's charge

  Sha'rawi holds that the Prophet is a bringer of good news and a warner whose charge is to deliver the message; he is not answerable for the people of the Fire, and no one is forced to believe, since God created people free to choose. He adds that a message of truth does not contradict itself or change.

• Al-din al-qayyim (the upright religion)

  Sheikh Omar Abdelkafy holds that God called this religion al-qayyim, because it has the highest value and because it sets human life straight.

• Hadith

  Hadith is what is transmitted of the Prophet's words, deeds, tacit approvals and descriptions, reaching us through a chain of narrators ending at him; it is Islam's second source after the Qur'an, expounding its generals and fixing the details of worship, dealings, biography and conduct. It was gathered into works arranged by legal chapter or by narrator's musnad, most famously the six books.

• Abrogation (naskh) in the Qur'an

  Naskh is the removal of an existing ruling and the putting of another in its place after a term God had fixed in His knowledge. Sha'rawi develops the idea in his commentary on al-Baqara, distinguishes it from bada' (a change of mind in God), and holds that it touches obligations alone and never creed or reports of the past.

• Shama'il Muhammadiyya

  Shama'il is the hadith genre gathering what is transmitted of the Prophet's form and character — his hair, gait, speech, food, gathering, laughter and weeping: the complete physical and moral portrait as his family and Companions conveyed it. Its most famous compilation is al-Tirmidhi's Shama'il Muhammadiyya, with which he closed his Jami', until it circulated and was commented on as a discipline of its own.

• The Prophetic sira

  The Prophetic sira is the transmitted history of the Prophet's life: his birth and upbringing, his call in Mecca, the Hijra, his campaigns and his death, with the connected record of his Companions and family. It grew out of the maghazi and athar reports transmitted by isnad in Ibn Ishaq's school, then became its own genre chronicling the twenty-three years that changed the world.

• The Prophetic Sunna

• Ta'abbud (obedience to a command as worship)

  Ta'abbud, in Sha'rawi's account, is to carry out a legal command because God commanded it, not because of an apparent worldly reason. He takes the change of qibla and the number of daily prayers as showing that the sanctity of the Ka'ba and of Jerusalem lies in God's command and not in the places themselves.

• Taqlid (blind imitation of inherited views)

• Command, prohibition and capacity

  The duty of complying with prohibitions by avoidance, and with commands according to one's capacity; in Abu Hurayra's hadith 'what I forbid you, avoid, and what I command you, do of it what you can' — its occasion, per Ibn Rajab, being the questioner who asked when hajj was imposed 'every year?' until he said it three times and was told 'had I said yes it would have been obligatory and you could not have managed'; Ibn Rajab derives from it the prohibition of asking about what is not needed, of asking out of obstinacy, frivolity or mockery, of asking about what God has hidden from His servants, and of questions on the lawful and unlawful that might draw stricter rulings, noting that licence to ask was for bedouins and delegations, not the residents of Medina; and in Abu Sa'id al-Khudri's hadith — the thirty-fourth — the three grades of changing evil by hand, then tongue, then heart, according to capacity, that being the weakest of faith, corroborated by Ibn Masud's report that whoever struggles against the successors who say what they do not do with hand, tongue or heart is a believer, and beyond the heart there is not a mustard-seed of faith (pp. 218–222, 698–699).

• The angels at Badr

  Rida says the verifiers held that the angels did not fight at Badr; that the command given to them was to cast the message into the hearts of the believers by inspiration. He quotes Ibn Kathir's transmission of al-Rabi' ibn Anas about marks on the slain angels, and holds that the reports of angelic fighting are weak and that al-Tabari did not accept them.

• Companions of the Cave (Ashab al-Kahf)

  Sheikh Omar Abdelkafy describes the cave in which the young men took refuge as narrow and dark, and says they went into it without any prior sign of relief.

• Sifa (the attribute: its meaning for grammarians, jurists and usulis, its role in sale and salam, and the effect of an unmet description)

  In language sifa is the adornment or description of a thing. For grammarians it is a noun showing some state of a thing; for jurists it is that the thing described is so fixed that after the description only a slight variation remains; for the usulis it is the restriction of a word with several meanings by another, specific word, which is not a condition or a limit. Description enters the conditions of salam and of sale on description: if the described quality is not found, the buyer has the option of the lost attribute, and the attribute has no share of the price, since it follows the contract without being named. In usul al-fiqh the concept of the attribute is the attaching of a ruling to a thing by one of its qualities, as in the saying that a free-grazing flock owes zakat.

• Awliyya (priority: the better course and the reasoning from the more fitting case, in usul and fiqh)

  Awliyya in lexical sense is the state of one thing being more fitting than another, that is more deserving and nearer. The usulis and jurists use awla in the sense of more fitting and better, and in the sense of having a right to a thing over others. They call a light recommendation awla, and call the leaving of a recommended act khilaf al-awla; the Hanafis hold that whoever does what is contrary to the better course has done ill. Among the kinds of verbal indication is the fahwa al-khitab, where a ruling is extended to an unmentioned case by the understood cause, as the prohibition of a word of contempt implies the prohibition of beating, and qiyas al-awla is a kind of clear analogy. For the Hanafis the phrase ‘there is no harm’ usually signals that the leaving of an act is the better course.

• The aya

  The aya in Qur'anic-sciences usage is the division of the sura bounded by separators; each sura comprises a number of them.

• The Sunna as explanation of the Qur'an

• Bid'a (religious innovation)

  Introducing into religion what the Lawgiver's command did not bring; Ibn Rajab makes Aisha's hadith 'whoever introduces into this matter of ours what is not of it has it rejected' the scale of deeds in their outward form, as the hadith of intentions is their scale inwardly: every act not upon the command of God and His Messenger is thrown back at its doer, and whoever introduces into religion what God and His Messenger did not permit is no part of the religion; he pairs it with al-Irbad ibn Sariya's hadith 'beware of newly introduced matters, for every innovation is an error', deferring the detailed discussion of innovations to his commentary on it (hadith 28); in that commentary he reads 'beware of novelties, for every innovation is error' as a warning to the community against following invented matters, emphasised by the universal 'every innovation is error', and defines the intended innovation as what is introduced with no foundation in the Law to indicate it — whatever does have a legal basis is no innovation in the legal sense though it may be one linguistically; he couples it with Jabir's sermon report in Sahih Muslim 'the worst of matters are their novelties and every innovation is error', with his account of the Rightly Guided as those who know the truth and follow it — unlike the ghawi who knows and does not follow and the dall who does not know at all — and with his reading of 'you will see much disagreement' as foretelling the community's divergence in roots and branches (Jami' al-Ulum wal-Hikam pp. 581–601).

• Suhba (companionship with the Prophet: who is a Companion, how companionship is proved, the uprightness of all Companions, and the ruling on insulting them)

  When the word is used alone in law it means companionship with the Prophet. A Companion is, in Ibn Hajar's view, one who met the Prophet as a believer and died in Islam. Companionship is proved by reports that reach the level of widespread transmission, by general reputation, by a report from a Companion or a Successor that someone was a Companion, or by the word of a just man who lived in the same time. Sunni scholars agree that all the Companions are upright, and that whoever denies the companionship of Abu Bakr is an unbeliever; they differ on denying the companionship of others. Those who revile a Companion are not unbelievers unless they charge him with what impugns his religion or his uprightness; the majority hold that the reviling of one Companion does not make one an unbeliever, while accusing 'A'isha of what God cleared her of does.

• The completion of the final message of earlier ones

  Sha'rawi holds that Islam did not come to abolish earlier religions but to complete what they contain of sound belief, reports and stories, adding laws suited to every age and place. He cites the Prophet's image of a building in which one brick was missing, and the Qur'anic statement that God has completed the religion, and holds that the purpose of Islam is complete and the law has come whole.

• Shura (consultation: its ruling, the Prophet's consultation, consultation of judges, the duty of the adviser, and the succession by council)

  Shura is seeking and reviewing opinion. The jurists differ on its ruling: al-Nawawi and Ibn 'Atiyya hold it obligatory, others recommended. The Prophet consulted his companions in matters without a text, such as the call to prayer, war stratagems and the captives of Badr, but not where the law is clear. A judge may consult on points on which the jurists differ, and is not bound to the advice he receives. The adviser must be sincere, naming the good and the faults, including faults that make a marriage or partnership unlawful. The head of state may make succession a matter for a fixed council, as 'Umar did.

• God repels some people by means of others

  Arjun holds that one of God's sunan in the struggle between truth and falsehood is that some people are repelled by others. Without it, places of worship would be destroyed and the earth corrupted. He reads the permission to fight in the Hajj surah as defence against aggression, and preparation of strength as deterrence rather than attack.

• Derivation of the cause (takhrij al-manat)

  Takhrij al-manat is the effort to establish the cause of a ruling when a text or consensus states the ruling but not its cause, so the jurist draws the cause out by his own judgement. Some usulis count it as one way of establishing the cause; the Zahiris, the Shia and some Baghdadi Mu'tazilis reject it.

• Shahadat al-zur (false testimony: its proof, its punishment, the effect of a judgement based on it, and the repentance of the false witness)

  False testimony is the giving of testimony known to be false in order to reach a falsehood. It is a major sin and forbidden by law. It is proved by the witness's own admission, by evidence against him, or by his testifying to what is certainly false. The jurists agree that a false witness is disciplined, though they differ on how: the Hanafis publicise him, and some beat and imprison him. A judgement based on false testimony takes effect outwardly, not inwardly, according to the majority, and the witnesses must make good what it caused; for a deliberate killing the Shafi'is and Hanbalis apply retaliation while the Hanafis and most Malikis owe blood money. A witness who repents, after a period in which his repentance shows, is accepted by the majority.

• Fath between the people (judgment)

  In Rida's reading, fath in Shu'ayb's prayer means judgment and decision between two sides. He reports a narration from Ibn Abbas that he had not understood the word until a woman of Yemen said 'come, let me judge with you', and an Arab woman said 'between me and you is the fattah'; he infers from the Arabic usage that the sense is not Quraysh's, and cites al-Suddi's view that the word is Yemeni.

• Corruption spreads beyond the guilty

  Arjun holds that when corruption spreads, God's punishment can reach people who did not commit the wrong. Distinction is made at the gathering according to intention, and those who accept evil share in its guilt; those who forbid wrong are saved.

• Friendship (its meaning, the law's encouragement of it, eating at a friend's house, and a friend's testimony for a friend)

  In language friendship (sadaqa) comes from truth in affection and counsel; in usage it is the agreement of two hearts on affection. The law encourages friendship among Muslims and usually names it brotherhood in God. The Shafi'is allow a friend to eat in his friend's house in his absence when it is known that he would not object; al-Mawardi reports two views on whether this extends beyond a wedding feast. A friend's testimony for a friend is accepted by most scholars; the Hanafis and Malikis add that the friendship must not be so close that each disposes of the other's property, and that the witness be known for uprightness, and the Malikis add that he must not live as one of the other's household.

• Ghanima (spoils of war)

  In Rida's account, ghanima is what the Muslims take in movable property from war against unbelievers by force; a fifth is set aside for God, the Messenger and the others named in Q. 8:41, and the rest goes to the fighters. Rida distinguishes it from fay', which he takes to be what is gained without the force of war.

• Sacred hadith (hadith qudsi)

  A hadith qudsi is what the Prophet related from his Lord, marked in the chains by the formula 'among what he relates from his Lord' — as in Abu Dharr's 'O My servants, I have forbidden injustice to Myself', transmitted by Muslim (2577), the first sacred hadith in al-Nawawi's Forty — while al-Tirmidhi's wording states 'God Almighty says' explicitly; the Imam Ahmad called it the noblest hadith of the people of Syria, and its narrator Abu Idris al-Khawlani would kneel on his knees whenever he transmitted it, as Sa'id ibn Abd al-Aziz related of him from Rabi'a ibn Yazid.

• God's preservation of the Qur'an

  Sha'rawi holds that God preserved His speech so that it would be a proof for people, and that no fact in the universe can collide with the Qur'an, because the Creator is its speaker.

• Preservation and memorising (hifz)

  Preservation (hifz) means keeping a thing from loss and ruin, and also watchfulness, as in memorising the Qur'an by heart. Memorising the Fatiha for prayer is obligatory for one able to do it; if he cannot, he learns it or reads it from a copy; the Shafi'is and Hanbalis require it in every rak'a, the Hanafis require a long verse or three short ones. For leading prayer the majority prefer the more learned, and the Hanbalis and, in a view against the sounder one, the Shafi'is prefer the better reciter, on the report ”let the people be led by the one who recites the Book best”. A waqf or bequest to reciters goes to those who hold the whole Qur'an by heart, according to the Shafi'is and Hanbalis; making the teaching of the Qur'an a bridal gift is disputed, allowed by the Shafi'is and forbidden by the Hanafis and Malikis. The depositor must keep the deposit in a place fit for it, and is not liable if it is lost without fault.

• The limits of God (hudud Allah)

  Al-Sha'rawi reads the 'limits of God' in inheritance, marriage and other rulings as separators that stop one right from merging with another or with wrong. He distinguishes an ownership limit, which must not be crossed, from a neighbourly limit, which prevents harm, and a command, which must not be exceeded, from a prohibition, which must not be approached.

• The authority of the Sunna (hujjiyyat al-sunna)

• Ibham (ambiguity in speech and transactions)

  In the language, ibham refers to the big finger at the end of the hand or foot, and to whatever has no known way to it. For jurists and usulis it is speech whose meaning is unknown. If the ambiguity falls in a contract, the contract is in general invalid; if it falls elsewhere, the speaker must clarify it. Where a finger is harmed deliberately, retaliation is due; where it is harmed by mistake, a tenth of the blood money is due.

• Seeking knowledge

  Seeking knowledge in Abu Hurayra's hadith — the thirty-sixth of the Forty — is among the greatest paths to Paradise: 'whoever treads a path seeking knowledge, God will ease for him by it a path to Paradise', and it is paired with gatherings of remembrance in God's houses, where the Book is recited and studied together, upon whom serenity descends, mercy envelopes and the angels surround while God mentions them among those with Him; the hadith closes by making deeds, not lineage, the rescuer — 'whoever is slowed by his deeds, his descent will not speed him along' — so that treading the path of learning and studying the Qur'an in company are means to serenity and divine mention, while reliance on ancestry is answered by the rule of works (Jami' al-Ulum wal-Hikam p. 731).

• Inikas (reverse concomitance and the reverse analogy in usul)

  Inikas is lexically the reflexive of ‘aks, which is turning the beginning of a thing back on its end. Among the usulis, the reverse analogy (qiyas al-‘aks) is the establishment of the reverse of a ruling for a like thing because the two are reversed in their cause. For them inikas is the absence of a ruling through the absence of its cause, as the prohibition of wine ends with the end of its intoxication. Most usulis hold that inikas together with ittirad is a way of knowing the cause; the Hanafis and many Ash'aris, including al-Ghazali and al-Amidi, do not count it.

• Inqiraz (the passing of an age or line, and its bearing on consensus and endowments)

  Inqiraz is lexically cutting off and passing away, and the jurists use it in that sense. The usulis differ on whether the passing of the age of those who agreed is a condition of the authority of a consensus: the majority do not require it; some do; and others distinguish a consensus by word or deed from one by silence. In endowments the Hanafis, Shafi'is and Hanbalis do not validate a gift to a line that may die out, such as a gift to children, since they require perpetuity; the Malikis validate it.

• Inqita (cessation, and the broken chain of a narration; the ending of blood, of an imam's prayer, and of a series)

  Inqita' is lexically stopping and parting, and the jurists use it in these senses. For the hadith scholars it is the lack of connection in a chain of narration, whether a narrator falls out at the start, middle or end, which includes the mursal, mu'allaq, mu'dal and mudallas reports; it is mostly used of a report from a Companion by one who is not a Successor. Its ruling depends on what it is said of: when the blood of menstruation or of the postnatal period stops, intercourse is forbidden until washing or dry ablution for the majority, while Abu Hanifa allows it at once if the blood stops at the longest period. Following an imam ends when the follower intends to part from him, and the validity of that prayer is disputed.

• Insha' (creative speech, and its legal application)

  Insha' is lexically the beginning and raising of a thing; in rhetoric and usul it is one of the two kinds of speech, against khabar. A khabar is that which admits truth or falsehood in itself, while an insha' does not, because it has no external fact to match. It is of two kinds: demanding (talabi), such as question, command, prohibition, wish and call, and non-demanding, such as praise, blame, surprise and oath. The jurists differ on contract words such as ‘I sold’ and ‘I bought’: the Shafi'is hold them insha', the Hanafis hold them khabar by implication, and al-Tahanawi preferred the Shafi'i view.

• The splitting of the moon

  The splitting of the moon among the scholars is a sign of prophethood; Ibn Kathir says it is agreed upon among the scholars, and that the moon split over Mecca twice.

• Iqra' (teaching and reciting to others)

  Iqra' means causing another to read, and the jurists keep this lexical sense, whether the aim is listening and remembrance or teaching and memorisation. Reading and recitation (qira'a and tilawa) mean the same, and recitation is most often used for the Qur'an. Mudarasa is two people reading to each other in turn; idara is a group reading a portion each in turn. Causing someone to recite for the purpose of remembrance and listening to the Qur'an, especially from a person with a good voice, is recommended, and the jurists cite a report about Ibn Mas'ud in which the Prophet asked him to recite to him. Iqra' for teaching and memorisation is a communal obligation (fard kifaya) on those qualified to carry the religious sciences, and it carries rulings such as taking payment for it.

• Islam and the authority of reason and science

  Wajdi argues that Islam calls for reflection, demanding proof and rejecting blind imitation, and that the whole Qur'an rests on these principles. He quotes a saying equating religion with reason, but the footnote records al-Nasa'i's judgement that it is baseless. His claim that Islam spread without compulsion is the author's view and is presented with other views.

• Islamic calligraphy

  The art of beautiful Arabic script; the noblest Islamic art for its link to writing the Qur'an, with styles from Kufic to Naskh, Thuluth and Diwani.

• Isnad

  The isnad is the chain of men linking a hadith's text back to the Prophet or a Companion — 'so-and-so told us from so-and-so'; by it the muhaddithun judged a report sound or weak, examining narrators for integrity and precision and the chain for continuity. Muslim opened his Sahih with the isnad's dignity and its guarding against fabrication, so that it came to be counted among this community's distinguishing marks.

• Connectedness of the isnad and proven hearing

  The condition held by a majority traditionist school for accepting a chain as connected: that each narrator's hearing of, or meeting with, his own informant be proven — not mere contemporaneity and 'an'ana; Ibn Rajab sets out this principle plainly in his takhrij of 'fear God wherever you are': the view of al-Bukhari, his teacher Ali ibn al-Madini, Abu Zur'a, Abu Hatim and others that a hadith connects only with proven meeting, Ahmad's wording indicating the same and al-Shafi'i stating it in the Risala — all contrary to Muslim's position; the application is Maymun ibn Abi Shabib, the chain's reporter from Abu Dharr and Mu'adh: al-Fallas found no 'I heard' in any of his Companion reports, Abu Hatim declared his routes from Abu Dharr and A'isha unconnected, Abu Dawud held he reached neither A'isha nor Ali — still less Mu'adh — and al-Bukhari narrates nothing from him in his Sahih nor Muslim except in his introduction; hence al-Hakim's grading of the hadith as sound on the two Shaykhs' condition is, for Ibn Rajab, mistaken on both counts, and al-Daraqutni preferred its mursal route.

• Jahl (ignorance and its legal effect)

  Jahl in fiqh is lack of knowledge of a thing; the encyclopedia distinguishes it from forgetfulness. Ignorance of a prohibition removes sin and the ruling in outward terms for someone who has recently become Muslim or is similar, but someone who knows a thing is forbidden is not excused for not knowing its consequences. Its effect is discussed for the prayer when the time or the opening chapter is unknown, for fasting when Ramadan is uncertain, and for divorce and unbelief, where the offender is excused only in certain cases.

• Criticism and vindication of narrators (jarh wa-ta'dil)

• Jawab (the answer, and its legal effect)

  In the usul and fiqh, a jawab is a reply to a question. If it cannot stand alone, such as yes, it takes the scope of the question; if it can stand alone, it has its own effect, as in an acknowledgement given in reply. An answer may also be read by the speaker's intention, as with a reply to a delegated divorce. A person who refuses a required answer, such as a mufti or a witness, is sinful.

• The jinn

  The jinn in Islamic conception are a hidden, accountable creation; Ibn Kathir reports they inhabited the earth before mankind and that among them are disbelievers and believers.

• The juz'

  The juz' in masahif usage is one of the thirty divisions into which the masahif is divided.

• The Qur'an as the speech of God (in the Tahawi creed)

  al-Tahawi's statement that the Qur'an is the speech of God, which began from Him without how, sent down on His messenger as revelation, and is not created like human speech.

• The single report (khabar al-ahad)

• The fifth of spoils (khums)

  Rida reports that Mujahid, Ikrima and al-Suddi held that the first Anfal verse is abrogated by the verse of the fifth, and prefers the view of Ibn Zayd that the verse is muhkam (not abrogated): the fifth verse gives its destinations, and the imam may grant a share to whom he wills before the division into fifths.

• Book, letter and writing (kitab)

  In jurisprudence kitab has three senses: a written letter, a document or covenant, and a book of learning. The letter carries rules, among them divorce by writing, on which the schools differ as to when it takes effect; the opening with the basmala; and the duty or courtesy of answering. The document sense rests on the Qur'an's command to write down debts. Books carry many rules: touching them without purity, using them for istinja, resting on them, selling, pawning, lending, hiring, endowing, stealing and destroying them. The schools differ on reading the books of the People of the Book and on selling a copy of the Qur'an, which the Hanafis, Malikis and Shafi'is allow and the Hanbalis forbid.

• Writing down the hadith

• The Six Books

  The 'six books' of later convention: Sahih al-Bukhari, Sahih Muslim, Sunan Abi Dawud, Jami' al-Tirmidhi, Sunan al-Nasa'i and Sunan Ibn Majah — the principal chapter-arranged hadith collections that became the community's widest hadith reference from the fifth century; some lists substitute the Muwatta or the Musnad of Ahmad for Ibn Majah.

• God does not change a people's state until they change what is in themselves

  Arjun treats this as one of the clearest social sunan: God does not withdraw a blessing or health from a people until they change the obedience or good they practise, and the sunan works both for good and for evil. Empty wishes and outcry without serious action carry no weight in these sunan.

• Learning and teaching (ta'allum and ta'lim)

  Ta'allum (learning) is the reflexive form of ta'lim (teaching). Teaching is making a thing known by repetition until it leaves a mark on the learner, and al-Raghib says it differs from informing, which is quick and by report. It is distinguished from culture (taqif), from training (tadrib), which is a means of teaching, and from discipline (ta'dib), which may be by upbringing or by punishment. Learning is an individual duty for what a Muslim cannot do without in belief, worship and dealings; a communal duty for what public life needs, such as medicine, arithmetic and grammar; recommended in depth; forbidden in sorcery, soothsaying, augury and geomancy; disliked in love poetry that names real women; and permitted where nothing is objectionable. Teaching is a communal duty, and becomes binding on one who is the only qualified person; it is binding when someone asks about Islam or what is lawful and unlawful; al-Nawawi holds that teaching students is a communal duty. Scripture and reports praise knowledge, including the report that God wants good for whomever He gives understanding of the religion. The etiquette of the teacher: seek God's face, be kind to students, be humble, teach to their level, and practise what he teaches. The etiquette of the student: purify the heart, be humble before the teacher, do not press him with questions, be diligent and steady, and show patience and high aims. Parents must teach a child what his belief and worship require, and also manners, swimming and archery; al-Rafi'i holds this is obligatory and al-Nawawi affirms it. Teaching women the Qur'an, sciences and manners is lawful by agreement, and what they need, such as women's medicine, is required; most jurists see no objection to teaching women to write. A teacher may beat a pupil for discipline under conditions: the beating is customary, the guardian permits it, and the child understands discipline. The Hanafis hold the teacher liable if he beats without permission, while the Shafiis hold him liable whenever the beating leads to death. Being paid for teaching the Qur'an and religious knowledge is disputed: the earlier Hanafis and one Hanbali view forbid it, while the later Hanafis, one Maliki view and one Hanbali narration allow it. The Malikis allow pay for teaching the Qur'an and dislike it for jurisprudence and other sciences; the Shafiis require the surah or the questions to be named. Pay for teaching lawful crafts is allowed; most jurists allow it for non-religious sciences such as language and manners, while the Malikis dislike it. Teaching forbidden sciences such as soothsaying, astrology, geomancy, sorcery and their like is forbidden, and taking pay for them is forbidden. For the game caught by a trained hound to be lawful, the hound must have been trained, as the Qur'an says and the hadith confirms.

• Implied meaning (mafhum)

  In the usage of the jurists of legal theory, the implied meaning (mafhum) is what a wording indicates without being in the place where it is spoken: a ruling for something not mentioned, or a state of it. The forbidding of saying uff to parents implies the forbidding of beating them. It divides into agreement (mafhum al-muwafaqa), which agrees with the spoken ruling and is accepted by consensus, called a stronger implication (fahwa al-khitab) when it applies more strongly and an equal implication (lahn al-khitab) when it applies equally; and contrariety (mafhum al-mukhalafa), which gives the opposite ruling to what is unspoken and is accepted by most jurists except the implication from a name alone. Most Hanafis reject contrariety in the speech of the Lawgiver.

• The modes (ranks) of revelation

  The modes of revelation as Ibn al-Qayyim lists them and al-Raheeq al-Makhtum transmits: true dreams, what the angel casts into the heart, the angel appearing as a man, revelation coming like the ringing of a bell, seeing the angel in his true form, what was revealed above the heavens on the night of the Ascension, and God's speech without an intermediary; some add an eighth mode which the author does not consider established.

• The substance of the call in the opening of al-Muddaththir

  What al-Raheeq al-Makhtum draws from the commands opening surat al-Muddaththir: warning implies a day of recompense and another life, and the remaining verses demand plain monotheism and entrusting all things to God; so the substance of the call is monotheism, belief in the Last Day, purification of the soul, entrusting affairs to God, all under belief in Muhammad's message.

• Method of Islamic economics

• The munafiq

  The munafiq in legal-theological usage is one who outwardly shows Islam while concealing disbelief; the Qur'an devotes sura al-Munafiqun to them, which Ibn Kathir details.

• Hadith methodology (mustalah al-hadith)

  Mustalah al-hadith is the science of the states of chain and text — sahih, hasan, da'if; mawquf, marfu', maqtu'; muttasil, munqati', mu'dal, mursal — and the reconciliation and hidden defects of transmissions. It began in the early muhaddithun's obiter dicta, then gained its own manuals; the earliest surviving systematic statement is Muslim's introduction to his Sahih, later epitomised in works like Ibn al-Salah's Muqaddima.

• Prophet and messenger (the difference between conveying and exemplifying)

  Sha'rawi holds that a messenger is sent both to convey and to serve as an example, carrying the law, applying it and then delivering it, while a prophet is sent to serve as an example in conduct and is not an intermediary of conveyance. He adds that wisdom may be given to someone who is neither prophet nor messenger, and cites the advice of Luqman to his son. He presents this without a verdict.

• Nahy (prohibition, in usul al-fiqh)

  Nahy, in the lexicon, is the opposite of command; for the usulis it is demanding cessation from an act from a position of superiority. The majority hold it has a dedicated form, "la taf'al" (do not), which Abu al-Hasan al-Ash'ari and his followers denied. They differ over whether it conveys permanence, repetition and immediacy; most scholars hold that the absolute prohibition conveys tahrim and, in general, invalidity — the details disputed between the Hanafis and Shafi'is on one side and the Malikis and Hanbalis on the other; and its form is also used for dislike, supplication, guidance and belittling.

• Abrogation (naskh) in legal theory

  Naskh, in the lexicon, means copying one text from another, and also annulment or removal. In the technical sense it is a later legal proof arriving after an earlier one and prescribing a ruling contrary to it. It is a change as far as we know, and a statement of the ruling's term as far as God's knowledge is concerned. It differs from specification (takhsis), which excludes some cases before a ruling takes effect, whereas naskh lifts a ruling after it has taken effect. It also differs from the firm (muhkam) and from interpretation (ta'wil). Naskh has three kinds: abrogation of the ruling while the recitation stays, abrogation of the recitation while the ruling stays, and abrogation of both. Most scholars hold it is possible by reason and has occurred by revelation; a few later thinkers denied it. For it to occur, the abrogated ruling must be legislated and not a custom that people were left to keep; the abrogating proof must come separately and later, not joined to the ruling as a condition or exception; it must come by a legal address; the abrogating proof must be stronger or equal; the ruling must not belong to the roots of faith or be something the text has made permanent, which is why there is no naskh in reports. A heavier ruling may be replaced by a lighter one and the reverse, and a ruling may be lifted without any replacement. Abrogation of a Qur'anic ruling by a single report is refused, while abrogation by a widely transmitted Sunna is disputed, and the majority allow it. Prayer with a verse whose ruling is abrogated but whose recitation stays is agreed to be lawful, and a menstruating or impure person may not recite it. For a verse whose recitation is abrogated, prayer with it is not lawful, but reciting it is not forbidden to them. For the Qur'anic naskh debate in a modern commentary, see the separate entry on abrogation in the Qur'an.

• God's victory for the believers and its conditions

  Arjun holds that God's help for believers depends on their help for God: holding to the Shari'a and its limits, and on a single command, since division among leaders brings failure. He cites Badr, the Trench, Hunayn, the Ridda wars, the victories over Persia and Byzantium, 'Ayn Jalut and Hattin as cases where a united community won despite fewer numbers.

• The orientalist claim that the Prophet authored the Qur'an

  Zaqzuq presents orientalist views on the source of the Qur'an. He reports that George Sale's English preface states flatly that the Prophet was the author, a claim that shaped European writing for a long time, and that Richard Bell argued the Prophet drew on the Bible. These are the author's report and rebuttal, not a ruling by the museum.

• Overlap of causes and rulings (tadakhul)

  Tadakhul is one thing entering another without any addition in size or measure. In the jurists' usage, several causes may be met by one ruling, or several rulings by one act. The schools differ on where it operates, causes or rulings: the Hanafis place it in causes for acts of worship and in rulings for penalties. It is discussed in purification, prayer, fasting, pilgrimage, expiation, waiting periods, injuries and blood-money, fixed penalties, the jizya and the arithmetic of inheritance.

• Poetry (shi'r): its permissibility, limits, teaching, recitation and the rulings that touch poets

  Shi'r in language means knowledge; the word came to be used for measured and rhymed speech because of its worth. In law it is speech that is rhymed and metred, composed on purpose. The jurists agree it is permissible unless it contains something forbidden; some hold that knowing the pre-Islamic poetry is a communal duty for understanding the Qur'an and the sunna. It is recommended when it praises God and the Prophet or gives moral counsel, forbidden when it is obscene, satirises without right or is pure lies, and disliked when a man indulges in it so much that it distracts him from the remembrance of God. They differ on learning it, reciting it in the mosque, earning by it and accepting the testimony of a poet.

• The acceptance of reports

  The schools' rules for reports: mutawatir obliging knowledge and action, the single report obliging action but not knowledge — and al-Mas'udi placing tales of the nasnas, the 'anqa and the horse's creation in the realm of the possible, ranking with Isra'iliyyat and sea-marvels.

• The stories of the Qur'an

  Sha'rawi holds that the stories of the Qur'an are events that happened, told to strengthen the Prophet and the believers. The people in them are left unnamed unless their miracle cannot recur, and one story is spread over verses that complete one another.

• Qira'at (the canonical readings)

  Qira'at is the science of transmitting the recitation of the Qur'an through the transmitted readings; al-Suyuti counts it among the types of Qur'anic sciences in the Itqan.

• Quranism

  Quranism is a modern current that restricts religious authority to the Qur'an alone and questions the authority of hadith; academic study traces the debate over hadith authority since the nineteenth century.

• Al-rajfa (the quake)

  Rida glosses rajfa as violent shaking and prefers the reading of earthquake. The Qur'an names the punishment of Madyan rajfa in al-A'raf and sayha (the cry) in Hud, and of Thamud both ways in the two suras; Rida says he treated how to reconcile them elsewhere in his tafsir.

• Qur'anic orthography (rasm)

  In Sheikh Omar Abdelkafy's lessons the Sheikh reflects on differences in how some words of the Qur'an are written, such as the dropped ya in «al-muhtadi» in Surat al-Isra and in «atumiddunani» in Surat al-Naml, and finds meaning in these differences. He says the Qur'an is miraculous in its writing and even in its movement.

• Reason and knowledge in Islam

  Mahmud Shaltut, the opening essay of the book, argues that Islam is a religion of reason and knowledge: the Qur'an urges reflection on the heavens and the earth, places people of knowledge third after God and the angels, and condemns blind imitation of inherited belief (pp. 11-13). He reads knowledge in the Qur'anic sense as anything that helps humans build the earth (p. 20), and records the early Muslims' literacy effort (pp. 18-21).

• Transmitting a hadith by its meaning (riwaya bil-maana)

• Sabi'a (the Sabians: who they were, whether they are People of the Book, and the rulings on their land, blood money, food and marriage)

  The Sabians are a people whose religion the jurists classed in different ways: whether they are People of the Book. Abu Hanifa and Ahmad in one report count them among the People of the Book, while Abu Yusuf, Muhammad, most Malikis and one Shafi'i view count them among the others because they worship the stars; the Shafi'is distinguish those who differ from the Christians on the root of their religion from those who agree. Al-Biruni, Ibn Taymiyya and Ibn al-Qayyim hold that they are two groups: the Harranians, star-worshippers who came to be called Sabians under al-Ma'mun, and a group of the People of the Book in Iraq who baptise. Their land, their blood money, the lawfulness of their food and marriages and the validity of their endowments differ between the schools.

• Sama' (hearing) and its rulings

  In the lexicon sama' means perceiving by the sense of hearing, and it carries the senses of answering, understanding and accepting; the technical sense does not depart from them. The jurists treat hearing in several separate rulings: joining the congregation for one who hears the call to prayer, reading aloud in prayer, listening to the Friday sermon, the prostration of recitation, hearing a claim before a judge, testimony by hearing, listening to singing, the Qur'an, hadith and idle talk.

• Shabah (resemblance, a ground of analogy in usul)

  In language shabah is likeness. The usulis define it as an attribute whose fitness to the ruling is not understood when considered in itself, yet fitness is supposed in it because the lawgiver attended to it in some cases; it is one of the ways of identifying a cause, and analogy by it is analogy of resemblance. Related terms are the fitting attribute (munasib), concomitance and its converse, and circling (dawaran). Shabah stands between fitness and mere concomitance. Shafi'i holds it a proof; the Hanafis and some Shafi'is reject it. In law the Shafi'is and Hanbalis trace the lineage of a foundling by the resemblance judged by the physiognomist, while the Hanafis do not.

• Shar' man qablana (the law of earlier prophets, and whether it binds us)

  The shar' in language is the clear road to water; in the technical sense it is the religion God established for His servants, and 'those before us' are the messengers before our Prophet. The revealed laws share one root in belief, and the usulis differ on whether the law of earlier prophets binds us: the Hanafis, Malikis and Hanbalis hold it binding on us when the Qur'an tells it without denial or endorsement, while the sounder Shafi'i view holds it not binding.

• Shart (a condition in law: its kinds, and its effect on contracts)

  In language shart is the binding of a thing and its obligation, and also a sign, as in the signs of the Hour; in the technical sense it is what the absence of which entails absence, while its presence entails neither presence nor absence in itself. The usulis distinguish a condition that acts as a cause, one that has the force of a cause, a condition that is a name and not a ruling, and a condition that is a plain sign, as ihsan in fornication. A made condition is either conditional (ta'liq) or restricted (taqyid); a conditional one requires that the thing conditioned on be future and uncertain. A valid restricted condition concerns an attribute of the object, what the contract requires, what suits it, what a text permits, or what custom has settled; a defective or void condition either voids the contract or leaves it valid, according to the school.

• Shudhudh (an irregular view or report, and acting on it)

  In language shudhudh is separation from others, and a shadh is one who stands apart or leaves the group. In the usage of the Hanafis and Malikis a shadh view is one opposed to the prominent, preferred or sound view; in the usage of the hadith scholars a shadh report has a single chain in which a reliable or unreliable narrator stands alone. Acting on a shadh view differs for the mujtahid, the follower and the layman: the mujtahid weighs the evidence, while the follower acts only on the prominent or preferred view of his school. Al-Shatibi holds that a follower may give a fatwa only on the prominent view, while al-Subki holds that a qualified judge may rule by a view he finds stronger on good evidence.

• Specification of general terms (takhsis)

  For most usulis, takhsis is confining a general term to some of what it covers by a proof that shows this; for the Hanafis, it is confining it to some of its individuals by an independent proof that accompanies it. It is possible by reason and occurs by induction, and most usulis hold that the general term remains a proof after specification. It differs from abrogation, which lifts a ruling, and from qayd, which narrows an absolute term.

• God's sunan among peoples

  Rida holds that every nation keeps a remnant of the righteous who stand as God's proof; when they become few, corruption prevails and God's requital draws near. He argues that the root of religion brings the good of this world before the next, and that the chastisements in the Qur'an fall because of shirk and of sins that corrupt social order.

• Sunna (the way, the practice of the Prophet, and the legal grades of the recommended)

  In language sunna means a way, custom or conduct, praiseworthy or blameworthy, and then came to mean the upright praiseworthy way. For the jurists it names what is requested without binding obligation, set against the obligatory, the compulsory, the forbidden, the disliked and the permitted; the Hanafis distinguish the sunna of guidance (emphasised) from the supplementary sunnas. For the usulis it is what came from the Prophet in speech, act or tacit approval, and by chain of transmission it is divided into mass-transmitted, widely transmitted and single-report.

• The sura

  The sura in Qur'anic-sciences usage is the named division of the Qur'an comprising a number of ayat; the masahif count a hundred and fourteen suras.

• Surah (a chapter of the Qur'an) and its recitation in prayer

  In language surah means rank or height; the technical sense is a distinct portion of the Qur'an with a beginning and an end, not fewer than three verses, and with its own name. Most jurists recommend reciting surahs in the order of the codex; they dislike reversing their order. The Fatiha is a pillar of each unit of prayer for the majority and an obligation for the Hanafis, who require only what is easy of the Qur'an. Most jurists allow joining two surahs in one unit, and repeating a surah. In the funeral prayer the Hanafis and Malikis recite nothing, while the Shafi'is and Hanbalis require the Fatiha.

• Ta'awwudh (seeking refuge)

  Ta'awwudh is seeking refuge with God from Satan before and during recitation; the Kuwaiti Fiqh Encyclopedia examines the formulas of refuge, the best of them, and the rulings on pausing and repeating it.

• Ta'abbudi (rules whose reason is not given: acts of pure obedience)

  Ta'abbudi is what the law commands without a reason the servant can grasp, so that obedience alone is the point. Most scholars hold that God's rulings have reasons in the interest of people, and a ruling is called ta'abbudi only when the reason cannot be found. Its marks: it is not reasoned from by analogy, the basis of worship is the command while the basis of custom is the purpose; some hold ta'abbudi more excellent for its pure submission.

• Ta'lil (giving reasons for rulings)

  Ta'lil, in the technical sense, is establishing that a cause is effective in order to prove its effect, or showing that a thing is a cause; it is the motive for legislating a ruling or the interest for which it was set. Worship rulings are presumed not to have a stated rationale, because they rest on pure devotion; transactions, customs and offences are presumed to have one, because they serve the interests of people. Stating the rationale helps people know and keep the rulings, and makes them more accepted. The usuliyyun divided on whether texts have stated reasons into four views: the default is no reason unless shown; the default is any suitable attribute; the default is an attribute with a test to choose the suitable ones; or the texts are devotional. The paths to a cause are the explicit text, consensus, implication and allusion, division and examination, suitability, resemblance and concomitance, the refinement and verification of the ground, and concomitance of presence and absence. A defective hadith is one in which a cause has been found that impairs its soundness although it appears sound; it is a kind of weak hadith.

• Ta'shir (marking the tens in a copy of the Qur'an)

  Ta'shir means, in language, taking a tenth of property; in the technical sense it means marking the tens in a copy of the Qur'an, a ring placed at the end of every ten verses. One report attributes the practice to al-Ma'mun, another to al-Hajjaj, and Qatada describes dotting, then fifths and then tens as successive stages. Ibn Mas'ud disliked it and ordered such marks removed, and Mujahid disliked it together with perfume; the Hanafis allowed it as an aid to readers, especially non-Arabs, and called it a good innovation; the Malikis disliked marking in red or other colours but allowed ink.

• Reflection on the Qur'an (tadabbur)

  Sheikh Omar Abdelkafy's call to read the Qur'an with reflection, with his readings of the meanings of short suras and of the Qur'an's accounts of nations and of the earth as witness, and his remarks on completing the mushaf and beginning again.

• Ta'dil (certifying a witness's probity; equalising shares; correcting postures in prayer; the value-based division)

  Ta'dil is equalising or setting straight; in law it is certifying a witness or narrator as upright. A judge must seek the probity of the witnesses if he does not know it, according to the Shafiis, Hanbalis, Malikis, Abu Yusuf and Muhammad; Abu Hanifa accepts the apparently upright, except in penalties and retaliation. Settling the postures in prayer is obligatory: a pillar for the majority and a duty short of obligation for the Hanafis. Division by value divides a common thing by worth rather than by parts; the majority also allow a change of value in the fixed penalty for hunting in pilgrimage.

• Tadlis (concealment of a defect in a contract)

  Tadlis is hiding a defect in goods from the buyer. Among the hadith scholars it has two kinds, concealing the chain of narration and concealing the name of a teacher. Tadlis is forbidden by text, and gives a right of option in every exchange, by the majority of jurists, provided the deceived party did not know of the defect before the contract. The deceiver is disciplined by discretionary penalty. In marriage the majority hold that a right of annulment arises, unlike the Hanafis.

• Tadmiya (the dying man's word that he was killed)

  Tadmiya is the words of a slain man before he dies: my blood is on so-and-so, or so-and-so killed me. It is a term of the Malikis. They count it as the sign (lawth) that establishes qasama when there is a wound or a mark of a blow, called the red tadmiya; a white tadmiya without a wound is, in the accepted view, not accepted without proof.

• Tafsir (Qur'anic exegesis)

  Tafsir in Sheikh Omar Abdelkafy's course is a reading of Juz' 'Amma that begins with Surat An-Naba' and then An-Nazi'at. It joins verses to one another, returns to the sense of words, and reads the scenes of Judgement together rather than from a single surah.

• Tajwid

  Tajwid is the science of articulating the letters from their points of articulation and performing the recitation properly; al-Shatibi composed his poem 'Hirz al-Amani' — the Shatibiyya — as its comprehensive matn.

• Takhliya (making a thing available to the taker)

  Takhliya is enabling a person to deal with a thing without any obstacle. It is a form of delivery whose effect is taking possession (qabd). For real property it is possession by agreement; for movables the schools differ; and with possession, liability passes from the giver to the taker.

• Tarada (invoking God's pleasure upon a person)

  Tarada is asking for pleasure, that is, the formula of God's pleasure upon someone. Its ruling depends on who is named: it is recommended for those whose prophethood is disputed, agreed to be recommended for the Companions, and allowed for other early scholars and the righteous. The writer should keep writing it, and a listener should also invoke it when the Companions are named.

• Tarakhi (delay in performing a duty)

  Tarakhi is performing an act later than its first possible time, up to the point where it may be lost; its opposite is fawr, prompt performance. Usulis differ over a bare command: whether it requires prompt performance, delay, or neither. Jurists apply delay in the return of usurped goods, in gifts, in pre-emption, in bequests, in marriage and in defect options.

• Tarjama (translation, and speaking in other tongues in worship and law)

  Tarjama is conveying speech in another tongue. It differs from tafsir in that it keeps to the amount of the speech, without addition. A translation is not called the Qur'an, and reciting the Qur'an in another tongue is allowed outside prayer by a group of jurists, with dispute inside prayer. Marriage and divorce in another tongue are valid for most jurists, and a judge may use a translator, who must be two just men according to the Shafi'is and Hanbalis.

• Tarjih (preponderance): choosing the stronger of two conflicting evidences, between two reports and between two analogies

  Tarjih in the lexicon is strengthening one of two alike things over the other. The Hanafis define it as showing an excess in one of two alike items that is not independent, and the Shafi'is as one of two valid proofs being preferred to its opponent. When two conflicting proofs cannot be reconciled, the stronger must be acted upon and the weaker set aside, and the Companions and the early scholars did so by the strength of the opinion. Among the rules for two reports are those about the chain, such as more transmitters, a senior Companion, earlier Islam, and mutawatir over single reports; and those about the text, such as a prohibition over a command, and the literal over the figurative. For two analogies, one prefers the analogy whose root ruling is stronger, whose cause is more clearly stated, or whose branch is of the same kind as its root.

• Tark (abstention, and its legal effects)

  Tark is restraining oneself from an act. For most usulis it is an act, so obligation applies to it; Abu Hashim holds it is not an act. Abstaining from what is forbidden is obligatory, and failing a duty is disciplined by discretionary penalty. Once a fixed penalty is established before the judge it cannot be waived, while a right of a person may be waived. The schools differ on liability for abstaining from protecting property or life.

• Tartib (order among parts of a duty)

  Tartib is the arrangement of many things under one name, with some parts before others. In wudu it is obligatory for the Shafi'is and Hanbalis and a sunna for the Hanafis and Malikis. In making up missed prayers it is obligatory for the Hanafis, Malikis and Hanbalis and recommended for the Shafi'is. It also arises in the rows of prayer, funerals, pilgrimage, debts and expiations.

• Tartil (measured recitation)

  Tartil is the measured, distinct articulation of the recitation; the Kuwaiti Fiqh Encyclopedia treats tartil and tarsil among the rules of tilawa.

• Tasamu (testimony by repute and hearsay)

  Tasamu is knowledge gained by repeated report or wide repute. Testimony by repute is allowed by agreement in six matters: freeing, descent, death, marriage, patronage and endowment. Each school adds to this list: the Hanafis the dower, consummation and the appointment of a judge; the Malikis many more; the Shafi'is ownership; the Hanbalis absolute ownership, birth, divorce, khul, the endowment and its purpose. The Hanafis require the report to come from people who could not agree on a lie.

• Tashahhud (the testimony sitting in prayer)

  The tashahhud is the set of words said in the sitting of prayer, named for its two testimonies. In the sitting not followed by the salam (the first), it is obligatory for the Hanafis on the sound view, for the Malikis in one view and for the Hanbali school, and a sunna for the Malikis in their school view, the Shafiis and one Hanbali narration. The last sitting is obligatory for the Hanafis, a sunna for the Malikis in their school view, and a pillar for the Shafiis and Hanbalis. The best wording is the version taught to Ibn Masud for the Hanafis and Hanbalis, Umar's for the Malikis, and Ibn Abbas's for the Shafiis. Saying it quietly is the sunna. Omitting it in the first sitting by forgetfulness requires the forgetfulness prostration; deliberate omission is disputed.

• Tashih (correction and validation: of a hadith, a contract, an act of worship, and inheritance shares)

  Tashih means removing an error. For the hadith scholars it is ruling a hadith sound once its conditions are met; for the experts in inheritance it removes fractions between shares and heads; for the jurists it is removing what spoils a worship or a contract. Correcting a defect is a duty once known. On hadith the conditions are disputed, and a scholar's practice in line with a hadith is not a ruling that it is sound. A defective contract is not made valid by removing its defect, according to the non-Hanafi jurists; the Hanafis hold that a weak defect may be removed while a void one may not. A worship spoiled in the course of it can be corrected by removing the fault quickly, as when a worshipper's judgement of the qibla changes or a garment slips or an impurity falls on him. Inheritance shares are corrected by multiplication according to the agreement, overlap and separateness of the numbers of heads.

• Tasir (fixing prices in the market by authority)

  Tasir is the ruler's or his deputy's fixing of a price for people, and compelling them to trade at it. The four schools take its basic rule to be prohibition; it is allowed on conditions: when sellers overcharge grossly, when people need the goods, when goods are hoarded, or when traders collude. The schools differ on what it covers, on the importer and the hoarder, and a sale against a fixed price is valid for most with discipline.

• Tazkiya (attestation of witnesses' uprightness)

  Tazkiya in judging is attesting that witnesses are just. It is done secretly and openly. The schools differ on whether it is required: the Hanafis judge by apparent uprightness unless the opponent impugns it, and exempt the fixed penalties and retaliation; others require it in every matter, with disputes over the number and the qualities of the attestors. Impugning and attesting, their conflict and the statement of cause, and the uprightness of a narrator of hadith are treated under this entry.

• Tazwir (forgery and falsification, including false testimony)

  Tazwir is making a thing look other than it is, decorating it so that the hearer takes falsehood for truth. It is forbidden in testimony, in acts, in coin, weights and measures, and in documents. Exceptions are lying in war, soothing one's wife, and reconciling people. In false testimony the schools differ on whether a ruling takes effect outwardly and inwardly, and on whether retaliation or blood-money is owed by the false witnesses.

• Shahada (testimony in law: its meaning, its basis, the duty to give it, and the conditions of the witness)

  In legal usage, testimony is a statement by one person of another's right against a third party, in the session of the judge, made with the word 'I testify'. It is a legal proof that obliges the judge to rule accordingly. Giving and bearing testimony is a communal duty, becoming individual where the right is at risk; its basis is the Qur'an, the sunna and consensus. Its conditions are of bearing and of giving. The witness must be sane, of age, free, Muslim, sighted, able to speak, upright and attentive, with the schools differing on some of these; a non-Muslim is not accepted except for a bequest on a journey according to one view, and a child only in wounds and killing according to some.

• Umm al-kitab (the basis of the book; the opening surah)

  Umm al-kitab means the basis of a thing. The Qur'an uses it for the firm verses to which one returns in doubt, and for the Preserved Tablet which holds God's knowledge; the hadith uses it for the opening surah.

• The eight principles of education in the Qur'an and Sunna

  Al-Bari draws eight principles of education from the Qur'an and the Sunna: freedom of the servant from intermediaries before God, general equality, the call to knowledge, that creed does not oppose reason, that religion was legislated for human good, freedom of inquiry, shura and counsel, and that deeds are the basis of happiness. His aim is a person who knows his Lord, acts on his knowledge and benefits his community (pp. 8-9). This is the author's own framing.

• Sihha (validity in law: what makes an act valid, its difference from ijza' and from void acts, the effect of health on duties, and the rules of sound hadith)

  In the principles of law validity is one of the kinds of legal rulings: the act's agreement with the law. For the majority it covers acts of worship and contracts; for the Hanafis, in worship, it means that the duty to repeat is cleared, and in contracts that its effect follows. Ijza' is agreement with the lawgiver's command by having all its conditions; the Hanafis take voidness in contract to be an act that is unlawful in its root or its attribute. Health of the body is a condition for some duties, such as leading prayer, jihad and the pilgrimage, but not for stoning or retaliation. The hadith scholars set five conditions for a sound hadith.

• Fabrication of hadith (wad' al-hadith)

• The heart's trembling at the remembrance of God (wajal)

  Rida glosses wajal in the Anfal verse as a felt apprehension of the heart, which may come from fear of an unknown end or from awe and majesty. He argues that whoever restricts the remembrance to threat misses this, and sees no contradiction with the Ra'd verse that hearts find rest in remembrance of God, since promise, threat and God's attributes all bring the heart to rest.

Group

• The al-Alusi family of Baghdad

  The al-Alusi family of Baghdad took its name from Alus, a place on the west bank of the Euphrates between Abu Kamal and Ramadi. According to family tradition its ancestors, who traced their descent to al-Hasan and al-Husayn, fled there from the Mongol conqueror Hulagu, and the family returned to Baghdad only in the 11th/17th century. Its most famous member is Mahmud Shukri al-Alusi (1857–1924), author of Bulugh al-arab.

Passage

• Sura 1: Al-Fatiha

  Sura 1 of the Qur'an, Al-Fatiha, has 7 verses.

• Sura 10: Yunus

  Sura 10 of the Qur'an, Yunus, has 109 verses.

• Sura 100: Al-Adiyat

  Sura 100 of the Qur'an, Al-Adiyat, has 11 verses.

• Sura 101: Al-Qari'a

  Sura 101 of the Qur'an, Al-Qari'a, has 11 verses.

• Sura 102: At-Takathur

  Sura 102 of the Qur'an, At-Takathur, has 8 verses.

• Sura 103: Al-Asr

  Sura 103 of the Qur'an, Al-Asr, has 3 verses.

• Sura 104: Al-Humaza

  Sura 104 of the Qur'an, Al-Humaza, has 9 verses.

• Sura 105: Al-Fil

  Sura 105 of the Qur'an, Al-Fil, has 5 verses.

• Sura 106: Quraysh

  Sura 106 of the Qur'an, Quraysh, has 4 verses.

• Sura 107: Al-Ma'un

  Sura 107 of the Qur'an, Al-Ma'un, has 7 verses.

• Sura 108: Al-Kawthar

  Sura 108 of the Qur'an, Al-Kawthar, has 3 verses.

• Sura 109: Al-Kafirun

  Sura 109 of the Qur'an, Al-Kafirun, has 6 verses.

• Sura 11: Hud

  Sura 11 of the Qur'an, Hud, has 123 verses.

• Sura 110: An-Nasr

  Sura 110 of the Qur'an, An-Nasr, has 3 verses.

• Sura 111: Al-Masad

  Sura 111 of the Qur'an, Al-Masad, has 5 verses.

• Sura 112: Al-Ikhlas

  Sura 112 of the Qur'an, Al-Ikhlas, has 4 verses.

• Sura 113: Al-Falaq

  Sura 113 of the Qur'an, Al-Falaq, has 5 verses.

• Sura 114: An-Nas

  Sura 114 of the Qur'an, An-Nas, has 6 verses.

• Sura 12: Yusuf

  Sura 12 of the Qur'an, Yusuf, has 111 verses.

• Sura 13: Ar-Ra'd

  Sura 13 of the Qur'an, Ar-Ra'd, has 43 verses.

• Sura 14: Ibrahim

  Sura 14 of the Qur'an, Ibrahim, has 52 verses.

• Sura 15: Al-Hijr

  Sura 15 of the Qur'an, Al-Hijr, has 99 verses.

• Sura 16: An-Nahl

  Sura 16 of the Qur'an, An-Nahl, has 128 verses.

• Sura 17: Al-Isra

  Sura 17 of the Qur'an, Al-Isra, has 111 verses.

• Sura 18: Al-Kahf

  Sura 18 of the Qur'an, Al-Kahf, has 110 verses.

• Sura 19: Maryam

  Sura 19 of the Qur'an, Maryam, has 98 verses.

• Sura 2: Al-Baqara

  Sura 2 of the Qur'an, Al-Baqara, has 286 verses.

• Sura 20: Ta-Ha

  Sura 20 of the Qur'an, Ta-Ha, has 135 verses.

• Sura 21: Al-Anbiya

  Sura 21 of the Qur'an, Al-Anbiya, has 112 verses.

• Sura 22: Al-Hajj

  Sura 22 of the Qur'an, Al-Hajj, has 78 verses.

• Sura 23: Al-Mu'minun

  Sura 23 of the Qur'an, Al-Mu'minun, has 118 verses.

• Sura 24: An-Nur

  Sura 24 of the Qur'an, An-Nur, has 64 verses.

• Sura 25: Al-Furqan

  Sura 25 of the Qur'an, Al-Furqan, has 77 verses.

• Sura 26: Ash-Shu'ara

  Sura 26 of the Qur'an, Ash-Shu'ara, has 227 verses.

• Sura 27: An-Naml

  Sura 27 of the Qur'an, An-Naml, has 93 verses.

• Sura 28: Al-Qasas

  Sura 28 of the Qur'an, Al-Qasas, has 88 verses.

• Sura 29: Al-Ankabut

  Sura 29 of the Qur'an, Al-Ankabut, has 69 verses.

• Sura 3: Al Imran

  Sura 3 of the Qur'an, Al Imran, has 200 verses.

• Sura 30: Ar-Rum

  Sura 30 of the Qur'an, Ar-Rum, has 60 verses.

• Sura 31: Luqman

  Sura 31 of the Qur'an, Luqman, has 34 verses.

• Sura 32: As-Sajda

  Sura 32 of the Qur'an, As-Sajda, has 30 verses.

• Sura 33: Al-Ahzab

  Sura 33 of the Qur'an, Al-Ahzab, has 73 verses.

• Sura 34: Saba

  Sura 34 of the Qur'an, Saba, has 54 verses.

• Sura 35: Fatir

  Sura 35 of the Qur'an, Fatir, has 45 verses.

• Sura 36: Ya-Sin

  Sura 36 of the Qur'an, Ya-Sin, has 83 verses.

• Sura 37: As-Saffat

  Sura 37 of the Qur'an, As-Saffat, has 182 verses.

• Sura 38: Sad

  Sura 38 of the Qur'an, Sad, has 88 verses.

• Sura 39: Az-Zumar

  Sura 39 of the Qur'an, Az-Zumar, has 75 verses.

• Sura 4: An-Nisa

  Sura 4 of the Qur'an, An-Nisa, has 176 verses.

• Sura 40: Ghafir

  Sura 40 of the Qur'an, Ghafir, has 85 verses.

• Sura 41: Fussilat

  Sura 41 of the Qur'an, Fussilat, has 54 verses.

• Sura 42: Ash-Shura

  Sura 42 of the Qur'an, Ash-Shura, has 53 verses.

• Sura 43: Az-Zukhruf

  Sura 43 of the Qur'an, Az-Zukhruf, has 89 verses.

• Sura 44: Ad-Dukhan

  Sura 44 of the Qur'an, Ad-Dukhan, has 59 verses.

• Sura 45: Al-Jathiya

  Sura 45 of the Qur'an, Al-Jathiya, has 37 verses.

• Sura 46: Al-Ahqaf

  Sura 46 of the Qur'an, Al-Ahqaf, has 35 verses.

• Sura 47: Muhammad

  Sura 47 of the Qur'an, Muhammad, has 38 verses.

• Sura 48: Al-Fath

  Sura 48 of the Qur'an, Al-Fath, has 29 verses.

• Sura 49: Al-Hujurat

  Sura 49 of the Qur'an, Al-Hujurat, has 18 verses.

• Sura 5: Al-Ma'ida

  Sura 5 of the Qur'an, Al-Ma'ida, has 120 verses.

• Sura 50: Qaf

  Sura 50 of the Qur'an, Qaf, has 45 verses.

• Sura 51: Adh-Dhariyat

  Sura 51 of the Qur'an, Adh-Dhariyat, has 60 verses.

• Sura 52: At-Tur

  Sura 52 of the Qur'an, At-Tur, has 49 verses.

• Sura 53: An-Najm

  Sura 53 of the Qur'an, An-Najm, has 62 verses.

• Sura 54: Al-Qamar

  Sura 54 of the Qur'an, Al-Qamar, has 55 verses.

• Sura 55: Ar-Rahman

  Sura 55 of the Qur'an, Ar-Rahman, has 78 verses.

• Sura 56: Al-Waqi'a

  Sura 56 of the Qur'an, Al-Waqi'a, has 96 verses.

• Sura 57: Al-Hadid

  Sura 57 of the Qur'an, Al-Hadid, has 29 verses.

• Sura 58: Al-Mujadila

  Sura 58 of the Qur'an, Al-Mujadila, has 22 verses.

• Sura 59: Al-Hashr

  Sura 59 of the Qur'an, Al-Hashr, has 24 verses.

• Sura 6: Al-An'am

  Sura 6 of the Qur'an, Al-An'am, has 165 verses.

• Sura 60: Al-Mumtahana

  Sura 60 of the Qur'an, Al-Mumtahana, has 13 verses.

• Sura 61: As-Saff

  Sura 61 of the Qur'an, As-Saff, has 14 verses.

• Sura 62: Al-Jumu'a

  Sura 62 of the Qur'an, Al-Jumu'a, has 11 verses.

• Sura 63: Al-Munafiqun

  Sura 63 of the Qur'an, Al-Munafiqun, has 11 verses.

• Sura 64: At-Taghabun

  Sura 64 of the Qur'an, At-Taghabun, has 18 verses.

• Sura 65: At-Talaq

  Sura 65 of the Qur'an, At-Talaq, has 12 verses.

• Sura 66: At-Tahrim

  Sura 66 of the Qur'an, At-Tahrim, has 12 verses.

• Sura 67: Al-Mulk

  Sura 67 of the Qur'an, Al-Mulk, has 30 verses.

• Sura 68: Al-Qalam

  Sura 68 of the Qur'an, Al-Qalam, has 52 verses.

• Sura 69: Al-Haqqa

  Sura 69 of the Qur'an, Al-Haqqa, has 52 verses.

• Sura 7: Al-A'raf

  Sura 7 of the Qur'an, Al-A'raf, has 206 verses.

• Sura 70: Al-Ma'arij

  Sura 70 of the Qur'an, Al-Ma'arij, has 44 verses.

• Sura 71: Nuh

  Sura 71 of the Qur'an, Nuh, has 28 verses.

• Sura 72: Al-Jinn

  Sura 72 of the Qur'an, Al-Jinn, has 28 verses.

• Sura 73: Al-Muzzammil

  Sura 73 of the Qur'an, Al-Muzzammil, has 20 verses.

• Sura 74: Al-Muddaththir

  Sura 74 of the Qur'an, Al-Muddaththir, has 56 verses.

• Sura 75: Al-Qiyama

  Sura 75 of the Qur'an, Al-Qiyama, has 40 verses.

• Sura 76: Al-Insan

  Sura 76 of the Qur'an, Al-Insan, has 31 verses.

• Sura 77: Al-Mursalat

  Sura 77 of the Qur'an, Al-Mursalat, has 50 verses.

• Sura 78: An-Naba

  Sura 78 of the Qur'an, An-Naba, has 40 verses.

• Sura 79: An-Nazi'at

  Sura 79 of the Qur'an, An-Nazi'at, has 46 verses.

• Sura 8: Al-Anfal

  Sura 8 of the Qur'an, Al-Anfal, has 75 verses.

• Sura 80: Abasa

  Sura 80 of the Qur'an, Abasa, has 42 verses.

• Sura 81: At-Takwir

  Sura 81 of the Qur'an, At-Takwir, has 29 verses.

• Sura 82: Al-Infitar

  Sura 82 of the Qur'an, Al-Infitar, has 19 verses.

• Sura 83: Al-Mutaffifin

  Sura 83 of the Qur'an, Al-Mutaffifin, has 36 verses.

• Sura 84: Al-Inshiqaq

  Sura 84 of the Qur'an, Al-Inshiqaq, has 25 verses.

• Sura 85: Al-Buruj

  Sura 85 of the Qur'an, Al-Buruj, has 22 verses.

• Sura 86: At-Tariq

  Sura 86 of the Qur'an, At-Tariq, has 17 verses.

• Sura 87: Al-A'la

  Sura 87 of the Qur'an, Al-A'la, has 19 verses.

• Sura 88: Al-Ghashiya

  Sura 88 of the Qur'an, Al-Ghashiya, has 26 verses.

• Sura 89: Al-Fajr

  Sura 89 of the Qur'an, Al-Fajr, has 30 verses.

• Sura 9: At-Tawba

  Sura 9 of the Qur'an, At-Tawba, has 129 verses.

• Sura 90: Al-Balad

  Sura 90 of the Qur'an, Al-Balad, has 20 verses.

• Sura 91: Ash-Shams

  Sura 91 of the Qur'an, Ash-Shams, has 15 verses.

• Sura 92: Al-Layl

  Sura 92 of the Qur'an, Al-Layl, has 21 verses.

• Sura 93: Ad-Duha

  Sura 93 of the Qur'an, Ad-Duha, has 11 verses.

• Sura 94: Ash-Sharh

  Sura 94 of the Qur'an, Ash-Sharh, has 8 verses.

• Sura 95: At-Tin

  Sura 95 of the Qur'an, At-Tin, has 8 verses.

• Sura 96: Al-Alaq

  Sura 96 of the Qur'an, Al-Alaq, has 19 verses.

• Sura 97: Al-Qadr

  Sura 97 of the Qur'an, Al-Qadr, has 5 verses.

• Sura 98: Al-Bayyina

  Sura 98 of the Qur'an, Al-Bayyina, has 8 verses.

• Sura 99: Az-Zalzala

  Sura 99 of the Qur'an, Az-Zalzala, has 8 verses.

Practice

• The study circle in the mosque

  Teacher and students sitting in the mosque courtyard to recite the Qur'an and explain hadith and jurisprudence; the great mosques were the first schools of Islam, and in Mecca and Medina the circles began with the Companions and ran into the season of the Hajj.

• Sujud al-tilawa (prostration of recitation)

  Sujud al-tilawa is a prostration made when reciting one of the Qur'an's prostration verses; the Kuwaiti Fiqh Encyclopedia devotes a section to its rulings and its repetition in a single sitting.

Question

• How did revelation begin?

  It began with true dreams for six months, then with the angel's coming to the cave of Hira in Ramadan, bringing the opening verses of Surat al-Alaq when the Prophet was forty years old; then a short pause, then the descent of the opening verses of al-Muddaththir, with the command to arise and warn, as presented in al-Raheeq al-Makhtum.

• What are angels?

  The angels are servants of God made of light who carry out His commands. They include Jibril, charged with revelation; Mika'il, charged with provision; Israfil, charged with the trumpet; the Angel of Death; and the guardians of the Fire and of Paradise.

• What are the jinn?

  The jinn are a hidden world of God's rational creatures who bear religious obligation. They mingle with humans, and some believe while others disbelieve. Surat al-Jinn reports their acceptance of Islam.

• What is the barzakh?

  The barzakh is the barrier between this world and the Hereafter: life in the grave after death, in which the dead person is questioned about his Lord, his Prophet and his religion, according to Ahl al-Sunna.

• What is a fatwa?

  A fatwa is a statement of the sharia ruling on a particular case, issued by a qualified mufti. Unlike a judicial ruling, it does not bind by itself; it binds those who choose to follow it.

• What is ghiba?

  Backbiting (ghiba) is speaking of your brother in his absence in a way he would dislike. Scholars count it among the major sins, and the Qur'an likened it to eating the flesh of the dead.

• What is the hijab?

  Hijab is a Muslim woman's covering of her adornment from those who are not her mahram (unmarriageable kin). According to the majority of scholars it is one of the obligations of dress, and its forms vary across cultures.

• What is ijma?

  Ijma is the agreement of the community's qualified scholars on a legal ruling. It is the third source of jurisprudence according to the majority of jurists, and its proof is prophetic reports about the community being preserved from error.

• What is ijtihad?

  Ijtihad is the exertion of effort to derive a ruling from the sources. The restricted form belongs to the jurist-mufti who issues fatwas; the unrestricted form belongs to one who reaches the rank of competence for legal derivation.

• What is ikhlas?

  Ikhlas is purifying one's intention for God alone, without showing off. It is a condition for the acceptance of deeds and their foundation. Surat al-Ikhlas is said to equal a third of the Qur'an in merit.

• What is Jahannam?

  Jahannam is the fire of the Hereafter and God's punishment for disbelievers and wrongdoers. The Qur'an describes it with its levels, chains and boiling water, and with punishment that is eternal, or limited for the people of grave sins.

• What is Jannah?

  Jannah is the everlasting abode of bliss for believers. The Qur'an describes its rivers, its palaces and a bliss no eye has seen, and its highest level is al-Firdaws.

• What is jihad?

  Jihad is the exertion of effort in seeking God's pleasure. The books of jurisprudence give it graded meanings, from the struggle against the self to the struggle by hand and fighting in the way of God.

• What is nikah?

  Nikah is the valid legal contract of marriage in Islam. According to the majority of schools, its pillars are offer, acceptance, the guardian (wali) and the witnesses.

• What is riya?

  Riya is seeking reputation and standing through worship. Scholars regard it as a hidden form of shirk, a blight that nullifies good deeds.

• What is sabr?

  Sabr is restraining the self from distress and the tongue from complaint; according to the majority it is half of faith, and its fruit is reward without reckoning.

• What are sanad and isnad?

  A sanad is the chain of narrators of a hadith back to the Prophet. With it Muslims built the science of verifying transmitted reports, which is unique in the history of human transmission.

• What is tafsir?

  Tafsir is the disclosure of the meanings of the Quran, its occasions of revelation and its rulings. Its written heritage runs from al-Tabari, al-Zamakhshari, al-Razi and Ibn Kathir to the modern age.

• What is talaq?

  Talaq is the dissolution of the marriage contract by a specific formula. In a hadith it is the most disliked of lawful things to God, and according to the jurists it carries rules on the waiting period, return and khul'.

• What is tawakkul?

  Tawakkul is the heart's reliance on God together with taking the means. Its way is 'tie it and then rely', so it is worship and not the abandonment of effort.

• What was al-Andalus?

  Al-Andalus is the Iberian Peninsula under Islamic rule, 711-1492; centuries of civilization in Cordoba, Granada and Toledo that ended with the fall of Granada.

• What was the Islamic Golden Age?

  The Golden Age: centuries of scientific flourishing, from Abbasid Baghdad to al-Andalus and Fatimid Egypt; in it the heritage was translated and scholars produced work in medicine, astronomy and mathematics.

• What was the Mongol invasion?

  The Mongol invasion: the campaigns of Genghis Khan and his descendants against the Muslim world, 1219-1260; Baghdad was destroyed in 1258, and the Muslims halted the invasion at Ayn Jalut in 1260.

• What was the Ottoman Empire?

  The Ottoman Empire was a Turkish Islamic sultanate that lasted six centuries, 1299–1922; it peaked with the conquest of Constantinople in 1453 and the reign of Suleiman the Lawgiver.

• What were the Crusades?

  The Crusades were Latin military campaigns against Syria and Jerusalem. They began with the fall of Antioch in 1097–1098 and of Jerusalem in 1099, and ended with the expulsion of the Crusaders from the East (Hasan Ibrahim Hasan, pp. 238, 243).

• Who was Harun al-Rashid?

  Harun al-Rashid (763–809) was the fifth Abbasid caliph; the state reached the height of its power in his time, and its renown is linked to the stories of One Thousand and One Nights.

Screening Room

• Islam: The Untold Story

  2012 CE · 1433 AH†Islam: The Untold Story.

• Koran by Heart

  2011 CE · 1432 AH†Greg Barker's HBO documentary following three children from Senegal, Tajikistan and the Maldives through Cairo's international Qur'an-memorisation contest.

What is missing? Tell us · A theme is open when it has a reviewed guide, 10 questions, 25 entries across 5 classes, and voices from several traditions and regions.

Controversial topics

• Sexuality and gender diversity
• Converts and those who leave
• Images and figural art
• Takfir and its critics
• Dissent, heresy and freethought
• Conquest and its debates
• Violent extremism and the Muslim response
• Islam and atheism or secular thought