ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn al-Mardāwī

ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn Abū al-Ḥasan Sulaymān ibn Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad al-Saʿdī al-Mardāwī al-Dimashqī al-Ṣāliḥī al-Ḥanbalī

Early Life and Education

Al-Mardāwī was born in the town of Marda, in Palestine, in the year 817 AH. He spent his early years there before moving to Hebron, where he resided in the zāwiyah of Shaykh ʿUmar al-Mujarrid and completed his recitation of the Qurʾān. His initial studies were under the jurist of Marda, al-Shihāb Aḥmad ibn Yūsuf al-Mardāwī.

In 838 AH, he traveled to Damascus, residing at the madrasah of Shaykh Abī ʿUmar in the Ṣāliḥiyyah district. There he devoted himself to the study of Islamic sciences, including jurisprudence (fiqh), creed (ʿaqīdah), ḥadīth, tafsīr, and Arabic language. He performed Ḥajj in 855 AH, studying with scholars of Mecca, and returned to Damascus. In 867 AH, he traveled to Cairo, where he met the distinguished Ḥanbalī jurist Qāḍī ʿIzz al-Dīn al-Kinānī, who praised him highly, advised his students to study under him, and appointed him as his deputy judge. After studying with several Cairene scholars, he returned to Damascus, performed another Ḥajj in 875 AH, and was later appointed nāʾib al-qaḍī (deputy judge) in Damascus. He remained there until his death in 885 AH.

Teachers

Al-Mardāwī studied under a large number of eminent scholars representing various disciplines and schools of law. Among his most notable teachers were:

• ʿAlī ibn Ḥusayn ibn ʿUrwah al-Dimashqī al-Ḥanbalī (d. 837 AH) – ḥadīth.

• ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Sulaymān Abī al-Karam al-Maqdisī al-Ḥanbalī (Abū Shaʿār) (d. 844 AH) – tafsīr, ḥadīth, fiqh, and grammar.

• Aḥmad ibn Yūsuf al-Mardāwī al-Ḥanbalī (d. 850 AH) – fiqh.

• Aḥmad ibn Ḥasan ibn ʿAbd al-Hādī al-Ḥanbalī (d. 856 AH) – ḥadīth.

• Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad al-Nuwayrī al-Mālikī (d. 857 AH) – uṣūl al-fiqh.

• Ḥasan ibn Ibrāhīm al-Ṣafadī al-Ḥanbalī (al-Khayyāṭ) (d. 858 AH) – grammar and morphology.

• ʿIzz al-Dīn Aḥmad ibn Ibrāhīm al-Kinānī al-Asqalānī al-Ḥanbalī (d. 876 AH) – fiqh.

• Ibrāhīm ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Mufliḥ al-Dimashqī al-Ḥanbalī (d. 884 AH) – legal sciences.

Students

A large group of prominent scholars studied under al-Mardāwī, among them:

• Yūsuf ibn Ḥasan ibn ʿAbd al-Hādī al-Maqdisī al-Ḥanbalī, known as Ibn al-Mubarrad (d. 909 AH).

• Aḥmad ibn ʿAlī al-Shīshīnī al-Midānī al-Ḥanbalī (d. 919 AH).

• ʿAbd al-Wahhāb ibn Aḥmad al-Ṭarābulusī al-Dimashqī al-Ḥanbalī (d. 921 AH).

• Aḥmad ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-ʿAskarī al-Ṣāliḥī al-Ḥanbalī (d. 910 AH).

• Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Qādir al-Jaʿfarī al-Nābulusī (d. 889 AH).

Scholarly Works

Al-Mardāwī authored numerous influential works across the fields of jurisprudence, legal theory, and devotional literature. His most notable writings include:

• Al-Inṣāf fī Maʿrifat al-Rājiḥ min al-Khilāf – A landmark Ḥanbalī reference identifying the strongest opinions within the school; it became the principal corrective work for earlier fiqh texts.

• Al-Taḥrīr fī Uṣūl al-Fiqh (also titled Taḥrīr al-Manqūl wa Tahdhīb al-Uṣūl) – A systematic work on legal theory.

• Al-Taḥbīr Sharḥ al-Taḥrīr – His own commentary on al-Taḥrīr.

• Tashīḥ al-Furūʿ – A critical recension and correction of Ibn Mufliḥ’s al-Furūʿ.

• Al-Tanqīḥ al-Mushbiʿ fī Taḥrīr Aḥkām al-Muqniʿ – A refined and analytical study of the rulings found in al-Muqniʿ.

• Sharḥ al-Ādāb – A commentary on Ibn ʿAbd al-Qawī’s poem on manners and etiquette.

• Sharḥ Mukhtaṣar al-Ṭūfī – A commentary on al-Ṭūfī’s abridgment in uṣūl al-fiqh.

• Al-Kunūz (or al-Ḥuṣūn) al-Muʿaddah al-Wāqiyah min Kulli Shiddah – A large compilation of supplications and litanies, containing around six hundred ḥadīths.

• Al-Manhal al-ʿAdhb al-Ghazīr fī Mawlid al-Hādī al-Bashīr ﷺ – A treatise on the Prophet’s birth and virtues.

Positions and Roles

Al-Mardāwī held several important scholarly and judicial posts:

• Teaching: He taught from an early age, with many later scholars of the Ḥanbalī school studying under him.

• Fatwa Issuance: He was recognized as the Muftī al-Ḥanābilah (chief jurisconsult of the Ḥanbalīs) during his lifetime.

• Judgeship: He served as deputy judge (nāʾib al-qaḍī) for Qāḍī ʿIzz al-Dīn al-Kinānī in Cairo and later for Ibn Mufliḥ in Damascus.

• Authorship: His prolific writings deeply shaped later Ḥanbalī legal scholarship.

Character and Scholarly Reputation

Contemporaries and later scholars held al-Mardāwī in the highest regard.

• Al-ʿUlaymī described him as:

“The Shaykh, the Imām, the learned, pious, accomplished scholar, the peerless researcher, the wonder of his age, the Imām of the madhhab, its corrector and refiner — indeed, the Shaykh al-Islām without exception.”

• Ibn ʿAbd al-Hādī, his student, said:

“The Imām, the jurist, the master of legal theory, the grammarian, the expert in inheritance law, the ḥadīth scholar, and the reciter of the Qurʾān.”

• Al-Sakhāwī wrote in al-Ḍawʾ al-Lāmiʿ:

“He was a jurist who preserved the branches of the Ḥanbalī school.”

Passing

After a lifetime devoted to knowledge, teaching, and authorship, al-Mardāwī passed away in Damascus on Friday, 6 Jumādā al-Ulā 885 AH (1480 CE). He was prayed over at the Ḥanbalī Jāmiʿ al-Muzaffarī and buried at the foot of Mount Qāsiyūn.

May Allah have mercy upon him and reward him for his service to sacred knowledge.