Muhammad ash-Shawkani
| Muhammad ibn Ali ibn Abdullah al-Shawkani | |
|---|---|
| Personal Details | |
| Born | 1759 CE /1173 AH |
| Died | 1839 CE /1250 AH Sana'a, Yemen |
| Ethnicity | Yemeni |
| Occupation | Historiographer, bibliographer. |
| Religion | Islam |
| Denomination | Sunni |
| Movement | Salafi |
| Main interest(s) | Fiqh |
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| Arabic name | |
|---|---|
| Personal (Ism) | Muḥammad محمد |
| Patronymic (Nasab) | ibn ʻAlī ibn Muḥammad ibn ʻAbd Allah بن علي بن محمد بن عبدالله |
| Teknonymic (Kunya) | Abu ʻAlī أبو علي |
| Toponymic (Nisba) | Al-Shawkānī الشوكاني |
Muhammad ash-Shawkani (1759–1839 [1]) was a Yemeni scholar of Islam, jurist and reformer.
Name
His full name was Muhhammad Ibn Ali ibn Muhammad ibn Abdullah al-Shawkani.[2] The surname "ash-Shawkani" is derived from Hijrah ash-Shawkan, which is a town outside San‘a’[3]
Biography
Born into a Zaydi Shi'a Muslim family, ash-Shawkani later on adopted the ideology within Sunni Islam and called for a return to the textual sources of the Quran and hadith. As a result, he opposed much of the Zaydi doctrine.[4] He also opposed Sufism.[5] He is considered as a mujtahid, or authority to whom others in the Muslim community have to defer in details of religious law. Of his work issuing fatwas, ash-Shawkani stated "I acquired knowledge without a price and I wanted to give it thus."[6] Part of the fatwa-issuing work of many noted scholars typically is devoted to the giving of ordinary opinions to private questioners. Ash-Shawkani refers both to his major fatwas, which were collected and preserved as a book, and to his "shorter" fatwas, which he said "could never be counted" and which were not recorded.[7]
He is credited with developing a series of syllabi for attaining various ranks of scholarship and used a strict system of legal analysis based on Sunni thought. He insisted that any jurist who wanted to be a mujtahid fī'l-madhhab (a scholar who is qualified to exercise ijtihad within a school of Islamic law), was required to do ijtihad, which stemmed from his opposition to taqlid for a mujtahid, which he deemed to be a vice with which the Shariah had been inflicted.[8]
Legacy
Salafis in Saada, would later claim ash-Shawkani as an intellectual precursor, and future Yemeni regimes would uphold his Sunnization policies as a unifier of the country[9] and to undermine Zaydi Shi'ism.[10]
Beyond Yemen, his works are widely used in Sunni schools.[11] He also profoundly influenced the Ahl al-Hadith in the Indian subcontinent (such as Siddiq Hasan Khan) and Salafis in Saudi Arabia and across the globe.[12]
Works
- Nayl al-Awtar
- Fath al-Qadir, a well known tafsir (exegesis)
- al-Badr at-tali [13]
- Tuhfatu al-Dhakirin – Sharh Uddatu Hisna al-Haseen: a superb one volume commentary on the collection "Uddatu Hisna al-Haseen", on ahadith of Adhkar, by Ibn Al-Jazari (d. 833H)
- Al-Fawaid al-Majmu'ah Fil Ahadith ul Mau'zoo'ah a collection of fabricated hadith
- Irshad ul Fuhool – a book on Usul al-fiqh
- Ad-Durur ul-Bahiyyah fil-Masaa'il il-Fiqhiyyah - a concise Fiqh manual
- Ad-Daraaree Al-Mudhiyyah Sharh ud-Durur il-Bahiyyah - his detailed explanation of his Fiqh manual, Ad-Durur
- Adab ut-Talab wa Muntaha al-Arab - advice on the etiquette and manners of one who is seeking Islamic knowledge
- Al-Qawl ul-Mufeed fee Hukm it-Taqleed - An explanation of the ruling regarding blind following (Taqleed) of the opinions of Fiqh schools (Madhaahib) and its harms.
- Al-Sayl al-jarrar - includes the denunciation of a text written by the Zaydi Imam Al-Mahdi Ahmad bin Yahya.[14]
See also
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Arabic Wikisource has original text related to this article: |
References
- Revival and Reform in Islam: The Legacy of Muhammad al-Shawkani by Bernard Haykel
- ↑ Fatwa / What does "family" mean?
- ↑ “Dogs in the Islamic Tradition and Nature” (Article Included)
- ↑ al-Badr at-Taali' bi Mahaasin man Ba'd al-Qarn as-Sabi' , vol. 2 pg.214
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- ↑ cited in Messick, Brinkly The Calligraphic State:Textual Domination and History in a Muslim Society, Berkeley 1993, p.145
- ↑ cited in Messick, Brinkly The Calligraphic State:Textual Domination and History in a Muslim Society, Berkeley 1993, p.150
- ↑ On his call for ijtihad and opposition to taqlid, see Hallaq 1984:32–33
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
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- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
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- ↑ Fatawa of the rightly guided Imams on Mawlid
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