Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad al-Isfarāyini, the senior authority of the Shāfiʿīs in Baghdad.
He was born in 344 AH.
He entered Baghdad when he was twenty and studied jurisprudence under Abū al-Ḥasan ibn al-Marzubān and Abū al-Qāsim al-Dārakī.
He became a master of the school, surpassed the earlier scholars, and enjoyed great favor with the rulers.
He narrated ḥadith from ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAdī and Abū Bakr al-Ismāʿīlī, and he heard the Sunan from al-Dāraquṭnī.
Narrators from him include his students: the Chief Judge Abū al-Ḥasan al-Māwardī (1), the jurist Sulaym al-Rāzī, Abū ʿAlī al-Sinjī, Abū al-Ḥasan al-Maḥāmilī (2), and others.
Shaykh Abū Isḥāq said in his “Ṭabaqāt”: “Religious and worldly leadership in Baghdad came to rest with him. Notes were taken from his exposition of al-Muzanī, and the land was filled with his followers; three hundred legal students would assemble in his session.” (3)
Shaykh Muḥyī al-Dīn al-Nawawī said: “The notebook of Shaykh Abū Ḥāmid runs to some fifty volumes. In it he cites the views of the scholars, lays out their proofs and the replies to them. A number of students studied under him, among them Abū ʿAlī al-Sinjī—who had also studied under al-Qaffāl. The two became the twin pillars of the Iraqi and Khurāsānī approaches, and the school spread through them.” (4)