Ad-Dusuqi

Muhammad ibn Ahmad ibn Arafah ad-Dusuqi (1163-1230 AH / 1750-1815 CE) was a distinguished Maliki scholar and one of the most important jurists produced by al-Azhar in Cairo. Born in the village of Dusuq in the Egyptian Delta — from which he takes his nisba — he came from a scholarly family and traveled to Cairo to study at al-Azhar, where he became one of the leading authorities of the Maliki school in Egypt.

Ad-Dusuqi studied under many scholars at al-Azhar but his most formative and decisive relationship was with his teacher Ahmad ibn Muhammad ad-Dardir (d. 1201 AH / 1786 CE), the foremost Maliki authority of his generation in Egypt. Under ad-Dardir, ad-Dusuqi mastered both Maliki jurisprudence and Ashari theology, and it was through engaging deeply with his teacher's works that he would make his most enduring contribution to Islamic scholarship.

Ad-Dusuqi's most celebrated contribution is his Hashiyat ad-Dusuqi ala ash-Sharh al-Kabir (The Marginal Glosses of ad-Dusuqi on the Great Commentary). His teacher ad-Dardir had written two commentaries on Mukhtasar Khalil — the shorter Sharh as-Saghir and the more comprehensive ash-Sharh al-Kabir — and ad-Dusuqi wrote his detailed hashiyah on the latter. This hashiyah became so integral to the study of Maliki fiqh that it is inseparable from the Sharh al-Kabir; in published editions all three layers appear together: Khalil's original text (matn), ad-Dardir's extended commentary (sharh), and ad-Dusuqi's analytical glosses (hashiyah).

The hashiyah adds clarifications, reconciles apparently conflicting positions within the school, identifies the most relied-upon positions, addresses points of difficulty in the original commentary, and engages comparative analysis with other legal schools. It demonstrates ad-Dusuqi's thorough command of the entire Maliki tradition across all its major texts and scholars.

He also wrote a hashiyah on ad-Dardir's al-Kharidah al-Bahiyyah in Ashari theology. In the Maliki world, ad-Dusuqi's Hashiyah is among the final authoritative references for determining the school's relied-upon positions. It continues to be studied extensively at al-Azhar and across the Maliki scholarly world in North Africa, West Africa, and Sudan. He died in Cairo in 1230 AH (1815 CE).