Abu al-Wafa Ali Ibn Aqil ibn Ahmad al-Baghdadi (1040–1119) was an Islamic theologian from

Baghdad Baghdad (; ar, بَغْدَاد , ) is the capital of Iraq and the second-largest city in the Arab world after Cairo. It is located on the Tigris near the ruins of the ancient city of Babylon and the Sassanid Persian capital of Ctesiphon ...

Iraq Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to Iraq–Turkey border, the north, Iran to Iran–Iraq ...

. He was trained in the tenets of the

Hanbali The Hanbali school ( ar, ٱلْمَذْهَب ٱلْحَنۢبَلِي, al-maḏhab al-ḥanbalī) is one of the four major traditional Sunni schools ('' madhahib'') of Islamic jurisprudence. It is named after the Arab scholar Ahmad ibn Hanba ...

school (''madhab'') for eleven years under scholars such as the

Qadi A qāḍī ( ar, قاضي, Qāḍī; otherwise transliterated as qazi, cadi, kadi, or kazi) is the magistrate or judge of a '' sharīʿa'' court, who also exercises extrajudicial functions such as mediation, guardianship over orphans and mino ...

Abu Ya'la. Despite this, Ibn Aqil was forced into hiding by the Hanbalis for frequenting the circles of groups who were at odds with the Hanbali tradition. In one of his reminiscences, he remarks that his Hanbali companions wanted him to abandon the company of certain scholars, and complains that it hindered him from acquiring useful knowledge.

Creed

Ibn 'Aqil leaned strongly toward Ash'arism; he had signed, around 455, the

fatwa A fatwā ( ; ar, فتوى; plural ''fatāwā'' ) is a legal ruling on a point of Islamic law (''sharia'') given by a qualified '' Faqih'' (Islamic jurist) in response to a question posed by a private individual, judge or government. A jurist ...

protesting against its

persecution Persecution is the systematic mistreatment of an individual or group by another individual or group. The most common forms are religious persecution, racism, and political persecution, though there is naturally some overlap between these ter ...

, and it was he who, in 476, performed the ablutions on the body of his friend, Abu Ishaq al-Shirazi, the Ash'arite rector of the Nizamiyya. His forced retraction represents one episode in the struggle carried on by conservative Hanbalites against Ash'arite

Shafi'ites The Shafii ( ar, شَافِعِي, translit=Shāfiʿī, also spelled Shafei) school, also known as Madhhab al-Shāfiʿī, is one of the four major traditional schools of religious law (madhhab) in the Sunnī branch of Islam. It was founded by ...

, who got back at them five years later when Abu Ishaq al-Shirazi succeeded in getting Abu Ja'far ibn Abi Musa arrested.

Works

Among his works of

jurisprudence Jurisprudence, or legal theory, is the theoretical study of the propriety of law. Scholars of jurisprudence seek to explain the nature of law in its most general form and they also seek to achieve a deeper understanding of legal reasoning ...

that have survived are ''Wadih fi usul al-fiqh'' and (in part) ''Kitab al-funun'', a huge collection of anecdotes about the attitudes and customs of his times, in one hundred volumes. John L. Esposito, The Oxford Dictionary of Islam, Oxford University Press, 2003, and George Makdisi (ed.), ''The Notebooks of Ibn 'Aqil: Kitab al Funun'', 2 vols., Beirut 1970-71

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Aqil, Ibn Asharis Hanbalis 12th-century Muslim theologians Sunni imams Sunni Muslim scholars Ibn Aqil 11th-century Muslim theologians 11th-century people from the Abbasid Caliphate 11th century in Iraq Ibn Aqil Ibn Aqil

Creed

Works

See also

Notes