Abu'l-Husayn al-Basri (died 436/1044) was a

Mu'tazili Muʿtazila ( ar, المعتزلة ', English: "Those Who Withdraw, or Stand Apart", and who called themselves ''Ahl al-ʿAdl wa al-Tawḥīd'', English: "Party of ivineJustice and Oneness f God); was an Islamic group that appeared in early Islamic ...

jurist A jurist is a person with expert knowledge of law; someone who analyses and comments on law. This person is usually a specialist legal scholar, mostly (but not always) with a formal qualification in law and often a legal practitioner. In the Uni ...

and theologian. He wrote ''al-Mu'tamad fi Usul al-Fiqh'' (''The Canon of the Foundations of Jurisprudence''), a major source of influence in informing the foundations of

Islamic jurisprudence ''Fiqh'' (; ar, فقه ) is Islamic jurisprudence. Muhammad-> Companions-> Followers-> Fiqh. The commands and prohibitions chosen by God were revealed through the agency of the Prophet in both the Quran and the Sunnah (words, deeds, and e ...

until Fakhr al-Din al-Razi's ''al-Mahsul fi 'Ilm al-Usul'' (''The Compilation of the Fundamentals of the Legal Sciences''). He was a

physician A physician (American English), medical practitioner (Commonwealth English), medical doctor, or simply doctor, is a health professional who practices medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring health through th ...

as well as a disciple of the Mu'tazilite judge Abd al-Jabbar in Rey. He challenged some of his master's teachings and eventually compiled a huge (two volumes; 1500 pages) critical review of the arguments and proofs used in Islamic scholastic theology. This, he summarised in ''al-Mu'tamad'' and included a critique of the qualifications of a legist. His works were generally handed down among students of

medicine Medicine is the science and practice of caring for a patient, managing the diagnosis, prognosis, prevention, treatment, palliation of their injury or disease, and promoting their health. Medicine encompasses a variety of health care pract ...

, and it was a century before his teachings were revived and espoused by the

scholar

Ibn al-Malahimi Rukn al-dīn Maḥmūd ibn Muḥammad al-Malāḥimī al-Khuwārazmī (died 19 October 1141) was a Khwārazmian Islamic theologian of the Muʿtazilī and Ḥanafī schools. He wrote six works known by title, but of these only one is completely p ...

Khorezm Khwarazm (; Old Persian: ''Hwârazmiya''; fa, خوارزم, ''Xwârazm'' or ''Xârazm'') or Chorasmia () is a large oasis region on the Amu Darya river delta in western Central Asia, bordered on the north by the (former) Aral Sea, on the ...

Central Asia Central Asia, also known as Middle Asia, is a subregion, region of Asia that stretches from the Caspian Sea in the west to western China and Mongolia in the east, and from Afghanistan and Iran in the south to Russia in the north. It includes t ...

, where they gained recognition as a school of

theology Theology is the systematic study of the nature of the divine and, more broadly, of religious belief. It is taught as an academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itself with the unique content of analyzing the ...

References

*Madelung, W and Schmidtke, S (eds) ''Abu-I-Husayn al-Basri's Mu'tazili Theology among the Karaites in the Fatimid Age'' BRILL Amsterdam September 2006 Mu'tazilites 11th-century writers Year of birth unknown 1044 deaths 11th-century Muslim scholars of Islam {{MEast-writer-stub