Muhammad ash-Shawkani

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Muhammad ibn Ali ibn Muhammad ibn Abdullah al-Shawkani
Born 1759 CE
Died 1834 CE/1250 AH
Era Medieval era
Region Yemeni scholar
School Muslim
Main interests Theology

Muhammad ash-Shawkani (1759–1834 CE [1]) was a Yemeni scholar of Islam, jurisprudent, and reformer.

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[edit] Name

His full name was Muhammad Ibn Ali ibn Muhammad ibn Abdullah al-Shawkani.[2] The surname "ash-Shawkani" is derived from Hijrah ash-Shawkan, which is a town outside San‘a’[3]

[edit] Biography

Born into a Zaydi Shi'a Muslim family, ash-Shawkani later on adopted the ideology within Sunni Islam and called for a return to the textual sources of the Quran and hadith. He is considered as a mujtahid, or authority to whom others in the Muslim community have to defer in details of religious law. Of his work issuing fatwas, ash-Shawkani stated "I acquired knowledge without a price and I wanted to give it thus."[4] Part of the fatwa-issuing work of many noted scholars typically is devoted to the giving of ordinary opinions to private questioners. Ash-Shawkani refers both to his major fatwas, which were collected and preserved as a book, and to his "shorter" fatwas, which he said "could never be counted" and which were not recorded.[5]

He is credited with developing a series of syllabi for attaining various ranks of scholarship and used a strict system of legal analysis based on Sunni thought. He insisted that any jurist who wanted to be a mujtahid fī'l-madhhab (a scholar who is qualified to exercise ijtihad within a school of Islamic law), was required to do ijtihad, which stemmed from his opposition to taqlid for a mujtahid, which he deemed to be a vice with which the Shariah had been inflicted.[6]

[edit] Works

  • Nayl al-Awtar
  • Fath al-Qadir, a well known tafsir (exegesis)
  • al-Badr at-tali [7]
  • Tuhfatu al-Dhakirin – Sharh Uddatu Hisna al-Haseen: a superb one volume commentary on the collection "Uddatu Hisna al-Haseen", on ahadith of Adhkar, by Ibn Al-Jazari (d. 833H)
  • Al-Fawaid al-Majmu'ah Fil Ahadith ul Mau'zoo'ah a collection of fabricated hadith
  • Irshad ul Fuhoola book on Usul al-fiqh

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  • Revival and Reform in Islam: The Legacy of Muhammad al-Shawkani by Bernard Haykel
  1. ^ Fatwa / What does "family" mean?
  2. ^ “Dogs in the Islamic Tradition and Nature” (Article Included)
  3. ^ al-Badr at-Taali' bi Mahaasin man Ba'd al-Qarn as-Sabi' , vol. 2 pg.214
  4. ^ cited in Messick, Brinkly The Calligraphic State:Textual Domination and History in a Muslim Society, Berkeley 1993, p.145
  5. ^ cited in Messick, Brinkly The Calligraphic State:Textual Domination and History in a Muslim Society, Berkeley 1993, p.150
  6. ^ On his call for ijtihad and opposition to taqlid, see Hallaq 1984:32–33
  7. ^ Fatawa of the rightly guided Imams on Mawlid

[edit] Further reading