Sahnun ibn Sa'id

Abd al-Salam ibn Sa'id, known as Sahnun (160–240 AH / 776–854 CE), was the foremost transmitter of the Maliki school in North Africa. He traveled from Qayrawan to study under Ibn al-Qasim in Egypt, who was the principal student of Imam Malik. Together with Ibn al-Qasim, he compiled al-Mudawwana al-Kubra (The Great Compilation), the foundational legal text of the Maliki school. Al-Mudawwana contains Sahnun's questions posed to Ibn al-Qasim about Maliki legal positions, and Ibn al-Qasim's answers based on Malik's teachings. This became the primary reference of the Maliki school for centuries. Sahnun served as the chief judge (qadi) of Qayrawan and trained generations of Maliki jurists in North Africa.