or any form. A versatile scholar, gifted in letters, he was removed from office after the death of al-Rāḍī bi-Allāh.

Ibn Ḥazm said: “He adopted the school of Dāwūd (the Ẓāhirī school), authored books in its defence, and was among the most fluent and eloquent. He was appointed judge at the age of twenty, wrote judicial instructions to his deputies in Egypt and Syria, and remained in office for four years, after which he and his brother al-Ḥusayn were dismissed. He is the author of the verses:

O trial sent by Allah, desist!
If you will not desist, then lighten!
I went out in search of my fortune,
Only to find it had already died. (1)

In another epistle he wrote: “We do not rank the scholar who begins his books and legal questions with the words, ‘Ibn al-Musayyab, al-Zuhrī and Rabīʿa say…,’ on a par with the one who opens with, ‘Allah and His Messenger say…, and there is consensus…’ — far from it!”

He died in 356 AH.

60 – Ibn Shaʿbān, Abū Isḥāq Muḥammad ibn al-Qāsim al-ʿAmmārī *

An erudite authority, Abū Isḥāq, the leading scholar of the Mālikīs.

His full name was Muḥammad ibn al-Qāsim ibn Shaʿbān ibn Muḥammad ibn Rabīʿa al-ʿAmmārī al-Miṣrī, a descendant of ʿAmmār ibn Yāsir. He was also known as Ibn al-Qurṭī, the surname deriving from a shop that sold earrings.

He produced a number of remarkable works, among them: the famous al-Zāhī in jurisprudence; Aḥkām al-Qurʾān (Legal Rulings of the Qur’an); a large volume entitled Manāqib Mālik (The Merits of Mālik); al-Mansak (The Pilgrim’s Manual); and other writings.