Al-Juwayni: Imam al-Haramayn and the Ash'ari Tradition

Abd al-Malik ibn Yusuf al-Juwayni, known as Imam al-Haramayn (Imam of the Two Holy Cities, for his extended residence in Mecca and Medina), was born near Nishapur in Khurasan in 419 AH (1028 CE) and died in Nishapur in 478 AH (1085 CE). He is universally recognized as one of the greatest scholars in the history of Islamic jurisprudence and theology, and his influence on subsequent Shafi'i scholarship — particularly through his most famous student, al-Ghazali — was enormous.

Al-Juwayni's scholarly formation was in the Shafi'i tradition, and he was recognized as the leading Shafi'i jurist of his generation in the Eastern Islamic world. His theological formation was Ash'ari — he studied under al-Ash'ari's students and became the foremost Ash'ari theologian of his day, producing major works in systematic theology including the Irshad (a comprehensive theology) and the more advanced Shamil. His dual mastery of Shafi'i jurisprudence and Ash'ari theology gave him the combined command of both traditions that would prove so productive in Al-Burhan.

His life was disrupted by the political conflicts surrounding the anti-Ash'ari policies of the Seljuk vizier al-Kunduri in the 1050s. Forced to leave Nishapur, he traveled to Baghdad and then to the Hijaz, where he spent years teaching in Mecca and Medina — an experience that gave him the honorific 'Imam al-Haramayn.' The political change brought by Nizam al-Mulk's assumption of the vizierate reversed the anti-Ash'ari policies, and al-Juwayni returned to Nishapur where he taught at the Nizamiyya madrasa until his death.

Al-Ghazali, who studied under al-Juwayni for nearly twenty years and regarded him as his intellectual father, called him 'the ocean from which I drew water.' This testimony from one of the greatest scholars in Islamic history gives some indication of al-Juwayni's intellectual stature. Al-Burhan fi Usul al-Fiqh is the most comprehensive and philosophically sophisticated expression of his legal-theoretical thinking.