Abū Muḥammad ʿAbd al-ʿAẓīm ibn ʿAbd al-Qawī Zakī al-Dīn al-Mundhirī (), commonly known as Al-Mundhirī (; 656–581 AH/ 1185–1258 CE) was a

Sunni Sunni Islam is the largest branch of Islam and the largest religious denomination in the world. It holds that Muhammad did not appoint any successor and that his closest companion Abu Bakr () rightfully succeeded him as the caliph of the Mu ...

Egyptian ''Egyptian'' describes something of, from, or related to Egypt. Egyptian or Egyptians may refer to: Nations and ethnic groups * Egyptians, a national group in North Africa ** Egyptian culture, a complex and stable culture with thousands of year ...

scholar A scholar is a person who is a researcher or has expertise in an academic discipline. A scholar can also be an academic, who works as a professor, teacher, or researcher at a university. An academic usually holds an advanced degree or a termina ...

Syrian Syrians () are the majority inhabitants of Syria, indigenous to the Levant, most of whom have Arabic, especially its Levantine and Mesopotamian dialects, as a mother tongue. The cultural and linguistic heritage of the Syrian people is a blend ...

origin. He was an influential

jurist A jurist is a person with expert knowledge of law; someone who analyzes and comments on law. This person is usually a specialist legal scholar, mostly (but not always) with a formal education in law (a law degree) and often a Lawyer, legal prac ...

, hadith specialist,

historian A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human species; as well as the ...

, muhaqqiq (researcher), and well-versed in the

Arabic Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...

language. He is regarded as the greatest hadith scholar of his time.

Biography

Al-Mundhirī's family origin was from

Levant The Levant ( ) is the subregion that borders the Eastern Mediterranean, Eastern Mediterranean sea to the west, and forms the core of West Asia and the political term, Middle East, ''Middle East''. In its narrowest sense, which is in use toda ...

( Shām) but he was born in

Fustat Fustat (), also Fostat, was the first capital of Egypt under Muslim rule, though it has been integrated into Cairo. It was built adjacent to what is now known as Old Cairo by the Rashidun Muslim general 'Amr ibn al-'As immediately after the Mus ...

Egypt Egypt ( , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country spanning the Northeast Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to northe ...

in the year of the 1st Sha'ban 581 corresponding to 28 October 1185. He was proficient in Islamic etiquette and

law Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior, with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been variously described as a science and as the ar ...

and had memorised the

Qur'an The Quran, also romanized Qur'an or Koran, is the central religious text of Islam, believed by Muslims to be a revelation directly from God ('' Allāh''). It is organized in 114 chapters (, ) which consist of individual verses ('). Besides ...

. He started studying the sciences of hadith and excelled in it. He studied under a number of scholars including Umar bin Tabarzad, Ghiyáth al-Muqri’, Aba ‘Umar bin Qudámah, Muwaffaq ad-Din ibn Qudámah and Sitt al-Katbah bint 'АН bin as-Sarrah. His most important teacher was Ibn al-Mufaddhal, a major hadith scholar in his time. He stayed with him for a while and completed his education with him. After he completed his studies, he began travelling to peruse further knowledge and visited many cities such as

Mecca Mecca, officially Makkah al-Mukarramah, is the capital of Mecca Province in the Hejaz region of western Saudi Arabia; it is the Holiest sites in Islam, holiest city in Islam. It is inland from Jeddah on the Red Sea, in a narrow valley above ...

Medina Medina, officially al-Madinah al-Munawwarah (, ), also known as Taybah () and known in pre-Islamic times as Yathrib (), is the capital of Medina Province (Saudi Arabia), Medina Province in the Hejaz region of western Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, ...

Damascus Damascus ( , ; ) is the capital and List of largest cities in the Levant region by population, largest city of Syria. It is the oldest capital in the world and, according to some, the fourth Holiest sites in Islam, holiest city in Islam. Kno ...

Harran Harran is a municipality and Districts of Turkey, district of Şanlıurfa Province, Turkey. Its area is 904 km2, and its population is 96,072 (2022). It is approximately southeast of Urfa and from the Syrian border crossing at Akçakale. ...

Edessa Edessa (; ) was an ancient city (''polis'') in Upper Mesopotamia, in what is now Urfa or Şanlıurfa, Turkey. It was founded during the Hellenistic period by Macedonian general and self proclaimed king Seleucus I Nicator (), founder of the Sel ...

Alexandria Alexandria ( ; ) is the List of cities and towns in Egypt#Largest cities, second largest city in Egypt and the List of coastal settlements of the Mediterranean Sea, largest city on the Mediterranean coast. It lies at the western edge of the Nile ...

and others, prior to beginning to teach in the Al-Zafiri Mosque in

Cairo Cairo ( ; , ) is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Egypt and the Cairo Governorate, being home to more than 10 million people. It is also part of the List of urban agglomerations in Africa, largest urban agglomeration in Africa, L ...

. After that, he served as

Shafi'i The Shafi'i school or Shafi'i Madhhab () or Shafi'i is one of the four major schools of fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence), belonging to the Ahl al-Hadith tradition within Sunni Islam. It was founded by the Muslim scholar, jurist, and traditionis ...

professor of hadith sciences at Dar al-Hadith al-Kamiliyya mosque for about 20 years. He then focused on authoring and narrating ahadith. He died on the 4 Dhu 'l-Qa'da 656/3 November 1258.

Students

Many scholars would study and narrate Hadith from him. Among his most famous students; *

Ibn Daqiq al-'Id Taḳī al-Dīn Abū ’l-Fatḥ Muḥammad b. ʿAlī b. Wahb b. Muṭīʿ b. Abi ’l-Ṭāʿa, commonly known as Ibn Daqiq al-'Id (; 1228–1302), was a Sunni Egyptians, Egyptian scholar. He is widely accounted as one of Islam's great scholars ...

Al-Dimyati al-Dimyāṭī, ʿAbd al-Muʾmin b. K̲h̲alaf S̲h̲araf al-Dīn al-Tūnī al-Dimyāṭī al-S̲h̲āfiʿī (), commonly known as Al-Dimyāṭī was regarded as the leading muhaddith, traditionist in Egypt in the 13th century. Young man who expl ...

* Ibn al-Munayyir * Shihab al-Din al-Qarafi *

Ibn Khallikan Aḥmad bin Muḥammad bin Ibrāhīm bin Abū Bakr ibn Khallikān (; 22 September 1211 – 30 October 1282), better known as Ibn Khallikān, was a renowned Islamic historian of Kurdish origin who compiled the celebrated biographical encyclopedi ...

* Ibn al-Dawadari * Abu Ḥusayn al-Yunini * Isma'il Ibn `Asakir

From the Events of His Life

In Egypt, he used to issue

Fatawa A fatwa (; ; ; ) is a legal ruling on a point of Islamic law (sharia) given by a qualified Islamic jurist ('' faqih'') in response to a question posed by a private individual, judge or government. A jurist issuing fatwas is called a ''mufti'', ...

(religious verdicts). He then stopped passing such judgements. He refused to make a religious determination for a bizarre reason, which reveals to us his justice, the softness of his soul, and his ability to identify virtue in those who possess it.

Taj al-Din al-Subki Abū Naṣr Tāj al-Dīn ʻAbd al-Wahhāb ibn ʿAlī ibn ʻAbd al-Kāfī al-Subkī (), or Tāj al-Dīn al-Subkī () or simply Ibn al-Subki (1327–1370) was a leading Sunni Islamic scholar based in Egypt and Levant. He was a highly regarded jur ...

hinted at this and said: “I heard my father (

Taqī al-Dīn al-Subkī Abu Al-Hasan Taqī al-Dīn Ali ibn Abd al-Kafi ibn Ali al-Khazraji al-Ansari al-Subkī (), commonly known as Taqī l-Dīn al-Subkī () was a Sunni Egyptian polymath and foremost leading Shafi'i jurisconsult, traditionist, Quranic exegete, l ...

) saying that al-Shaykh ʿIzz al-Dīn ibn ʿAbd al-Salām used to teach ḥadīth for a short period in Damascus. Then, when he entered Cairo, he gave up teaching and began attending the gathering of al-Shaykh Zakī al-Dīn al-Mundhirī. He would sit in al-Mundhirī's lessons and listen to him among the general attendees, and he would not teach anything. Al-Shaykh Zakī al-Dīn al-Mundhirī also gave up issuing legal verdicts during this time. He said: ‘Wherever al-Shaykh ʿIzz al-Dīn enters (i.e., a town, city or region), then the people there have no need of me!’”

Reception

ʿIzz al-Dīn ibn ʿAbd al-Salām said: “He was without equal in his knowledge of the sciences of ḥadīth in all their various branches. He was deeply knowledgeable regarding the authentic and weak reports, their hidden defects, and their chains of transmission. He was thoroughly grounded in the legal rulings derived from them, their meanings, their problematic aspects, and obscure expressions. He was precise in understanding rare expressions, grammar, and variant wordings. He excelled in the knowledge of narrators, their criticism and accreditation (''al-jarḥ wa al-taʿdīl''), their dates of birth and death, and their biographies. He was an imām, a firm authority (''ḥujjah''), trustworthy, pious, scrupulous in speech, and meticulous in what he narrated.”

Al-Dhahabi Shams ad-Dīn adh-Dhahabī (), also known as Shams ad-Dīn Abū ʿAbdillāh Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad ibn ʿUthmān ibn Qāymāẓ ibn ʿAbdillāh at-Turkumānī al-Fāriqī ad-Dimashqī (5 October 1274 – 3 February 1348) was an Atharism, Athari ...

said: “There was no one in his time who had memorized more (Ahadith) than him.”

Works

:# '' At-Targhīb wa at-Tarhīb'' ("The Encouragements and Warnings") :# ''Mukhtaṣar Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim'' ("Abridgement of Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim") :# ''Mukhtaṣar Sunan Abī Dāwūd'' ("Abridgement of Sunan Abī Dāwūd") :# ''Sharḥ al-Tanbīh'' ("Commentary on al-Tanbīh") :# ''Arbaʿūna Ḥadīthan fī Faḍl Iṣṭināʿ al-Maʿrūf'' ("Forty Ḥadīths on the Virtue of Doing Good Deeds") :# ''Al-Aʿlām bi-Akhbār Shaykh al-Bukhārī Muḥammad ibn Sālim'' ("The Account of the Scholar of Bukhārā, Muḥammad ibn Sālim") :# ''Muʿjam al-Shuyūkh'' ("Dictionary of the Shaykhs eachers) :# ''ʿAmal al-Yawm wa al-Laylah'' ("The Daily and Nightly Devotions")

References