Abd al-Rahman al-Awzai

Abū ʿAmr ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn ʿAmr al-ʾAwzāʿī ( ar, أبو عمرو عبدُ الرحمٰن بن عمرو الأوزاعي) (707–774) was an Islamic scholar, traditionalist and the chief representative and eponym of the ʾAwzāʿī school of Islamic jurisprudence. ʾAwzāʿī was referred to by his tribe "''ʾAwzā''" (الأوزاع), part of Banu Hamdan.

Biography

He was probably born in Baalbek (in modern-day Lebanon) in 707, although the biographer and historian Al-Dhahabi reports that Awzāʿī was originally from Sindh. Very little of al-Awzāʿī's writings survive, but his style of Islamic jurisprudence (''usul al-fiqh'') is preserved in Abu Yusuf's book ''Al-radd ʿala siyar al-Awzāʿī'', in particular his reliance on the "living tradition," or the uninterrupted practice of Muslims handed down from preceding generations. For Awzāʿī, this was the true Sunnah of Muhammad. Awzāʿī's school flourished in Syria, the Maghreb, and Al Andalus but was eventually overcome and replaced by the Maliki school of Islamic law in the 9th century. He died in 774 and was buried near Beirut, Lebanon, where his tomb is still visited.

Views

Theologically, he was known as a persecutor of the Qadaris, but also one of the main historical witnesses of them. He alleged that the Qadaris merely appropriated heretical doctrines from the Christians. Awzāʿī had met their founder Maʿbad.

Al-Awzāʿī differed with all the other schools of ''fiqh'' in holding that apostates from Islam ought not be executed unless their apostasy is part of a 'plot to take over the State', i.e. treason.

In the introduction to his work ''al-Jarh wa-l-ta'dil'', Ibn Abi Hatim al-Razi (d. 938 (AH 327)) preserves a corpus of ten letters attributed to al-Awzāʿī. In these letters, al-Awzāʿī addresses a series of high ranking officials, in order to plead the cause of individuals and groups. Among other things, he encouraged the Abbasids to ransom Muslims who were captured by the Byzantines in Erzurum, and to increase the wages of the Syrian soldiers in charge of protecting the Levantine coast.

Further reading

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References

External links

Biodata at MuslimScholars.info

{{DEFAULTSORT:Al-Awzai, Abd-Al-Rahman
707 births
774 deaths
Sunni Muslim scholars
Atharis
Taba‘ at-Tabi‘in hadith narrators
Religious leaders from Beirut
Scholars from the Umayyad Caliphate
8th-century jurists
8th-century Arabs