Khayr ad-Din ar-Ramli

Khayr ad-Din ibn Ahmad ibn Nur ad-Din ar-Ramli al-Hanafi al-Maqdisi (993-1081 AH / 1585-1671 CE) was a leading Hanafi jurist and the Hanafi chief mufti of Palestine during the Ottoman period, widely regarded as the foremost Hanafi authority in the Levant of his era. He was the son of the celebrated Shafii scholar Shams ad-Din ar-Ramli but himself followed the Hanafi school, achieving a level of mastery that established him as the principal reference for the entire region.

Khayr ad-Din studied under senior Hanafi scholars of the Ottoman Levant and Egypt, mastering both Hanafi substantive law and its theoretical foundations in usul al-fiqh. He served as the Hanafi chief mufti (mufti al-Hanafiyyah) based in Ramla, Palestine, and his legal opinions were sought from across Greater Syria, Egypt, and the broader Ottoman Arab world. His fatawa are remarkable for their grounding in actual social conditions and their practical applicability to the realities of Ottoman-period Palestine.

His best-known work is al-Fatawa al-Khayriyyah li-Naf al-Bariyyah (The Beneficial Responsa for the Welfare of Creation), an extensive collection of legal responsa addressing a wide range of practical questions faced by Muslims in Ottoman Palestine and Syria. The collection covers commercial transactions, inheritance and family law, endowments (awqaf), land tenure under Ottoman administrative structures, criminal matters, and many other domains. His responsa are noted for their sensitivity to the social conditions and administrative realities of Ottoman governance.

His work provides historians with a rich picture of everyday legal life, commercial practices, communal organization, and the application of Islamic law in seventeenth-century Ottoman Palestine. For legal scholars, his fatawa are authoritative Hanafi determinations from a period when the school's practice in the Arab Levant was being consolidated under Ottoman influence.

Khayr ad-Din ar-Ramli passed away in Ramla in 1081 AH (1671 CE). He is remembered as one of the most important Hanafi scholars of Palestine and a pivotal figure in the history of Ottoman-era Islamic jurisprudence.