Al-Qadi Abu Ya'la

Abū Yaʿlā Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥusayn Ibn al-Farrāʾ (April 990 – 15 August 1066), commonly known as al-Qāḍī Abū Yaʿlā or simply as Ibn al-Farrāʾ, is a great Hanbali Jurist, Athari theologian and a major authority in the Hanbali school of Jurisprudence, titled by some as 'The Pillar of the School'. He was a and scholar, and one of the early Muslim jurists who played dynamic roles in formulating a systematic legal framework and constitutional theory on Islamic system of government during the first half of the 5th/11th Century in Baghdad.
From amongst his students was the great Imam Mahfūz al Kalwadhānī, another leading major Hanbali scholar.

He is also a prominent theologian whose works are favoured and taught by Hanbali jurists, but are also sometimes used by Ash'ari theologians. His works defends the Sunni creed according to the early theory of , by which the theologian affirms anthropomorphic attributions to God () without interpreting them metaphorically, while rejecting anthropomorphism and corporealism at the same time and demonstrating that the coloration is unnecessary. However, despite rejecting anthropomorphism and corporealism in the totality of his works, he has briefly expressed a preference for viewing corporealism as indeed necessary in the end of his book Ibtal al-ta'wilat where he also affirms very dubious hadiths. This has caused a major controversy at his time and prompted Ibn al-Jawzi to write his book to repel the popular belief that most Hanbali jurists are anthropomorphist. That said, Abū Yaʿlā remains a major authority and his other theological works studied.

Works

al-Qāḍī Abū Yaʿlā authored many works, including:
* ''Kitāb al-muʿtamad fī uṣūl al-dīn''
* ''al-Aḥkām al-sulṭāniyya''
* ''Ibṭāl al-taʾwīlāt li-aḫbār al-ṣifāt''
* ''al-ʿUdda fī uṣūl al-fiqh''

See also

*Hanbali
*List of Islamic scholars

References

11th-century Muslim scholars of Islam
Sunni Muslim scholars
Atharis
1066 deaths
990 births
11th-century jurists

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