Ibn Qudamah

Muwaffaq ad-Din Abdullah ibn Ahmad ibn Qudamah al-Maqdisi (541-620 AH / 1147-1223 CE) was the greatest Hanbali jurist of his era and the author of al-Mughni, the most comprehensive work of Hanbali comparative jurisprudence ever written. Born in Jamma'il near Jerusalem, his family emigrated to Damascus during the Crusader occupation of Palestine. He studied in Damascus and later traveled to Baghdad, where he spent four years studying Hanbali fiqh and hadith under the leading scholars of the school.

Al-Mughni is a monumental work that presents the Hanbali position on every major legal question while systematically comparing it with the positions of the other three schools and their evidence. It is built as a commentary on the Mukhtasar of al-Khiraqi but far exceeds it in scope, discussing the evidence from the Quran, Sunnah, and reasoning of the early scholars with exceptional thoroughness. The work earned universal respect, with scholars of all four schools praising it. Ibn Qudamah also authored al-Kafi (a concise Hanbali fiqh manual), al-Umdah (a beginners' text), al-Muqni (an intermediate reference), and Rawdat an-Nadhir (on legal theory).

Ibn Qudamah was also a defender of the Athari creed and authored Lum'at al-Itiqad and Dhamm at-Tawil against theological innovation. He participated in the military campaigns of Salah ad-Din al-Ayyubi and was present at the liberation of Jerusalem. He died in Damascus in 620 AH (1223 CE). His al-Mughni remains the single most important reference work in Hanbali jurisprudence and one of the greatest achievements of Islamic legal scholarship.