Abū ʿAmr ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn ʿAmr al-ʾAwzāʿī ( ar, أبو عمرو عبدُ الرحمٰن بن عمرو الأوزاعي) (707–774) was an Islamic scholar, traditionalist and the chief representative and eponym of the
ʾAwzāʿī school of
Islamic jurisprudence. ʾAwzāʿī was referred to by his tribe "''ʾAwzā''" (الأوزاع), part of
Banu Hamdan
Banu Hamdan ( ar, بَنُو هَمْدَان; Musnad: 𐩠𐩣𐩵𐩬) is an ancient, large, and prominent Arab tribe in northern Yemen.
Origins and location
The Hamdan stemmed from the eponymous progenitor Awsala (nickname Hamdan) whose desc ...
.
Biography
He was probably born in
Baalbek (in modern-day
Lebanon
Lebanon ( , ar, لُبْنَان, translit=lubnān, ), officially the Republic of Lebanon () or the Lebanese Republic, is a country in Western Asia. It is located between Syria to Lebanon–Syria border, the north and east and Israel to Blue ...
) in 707, although the biographer and historian
Al-Dhahabi
Shams ad-Dīn adh-Dhahabī (), also known as Shams ad-Dīn Abū ʿAbdillāh Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad ibn ʿUthmān ibn Qāymāẓ ibn ʿAbdillāh at-Turkumānī al-Fāriqī ad-Dimashqī (5 October 1274 – 3 February 1348) was an Islamic historia ...
reports that Awzāʿī was originally from
Sindh. Very little of al-Awzāʿī's writings survive, but his style of Islamic jurisprudence (''usul al-fiqh'') is preserved in
Abu Yusuf
Ya'qub ibn Ibrahim al-Ansari () better known as Abu Yusuf ( ar, أبو يوسف, Abū Yūsuf) (d.798) was a student of jurist Abu Hanifa (d.767) who helped spread the influence of the Hanafi school of Islamic law through his writings and the gove ...
's book ''Al-radd ʿala siyar al-Awzāʿī'', in particular his reliance on the "living tradition," or the uninterrupted practice of
Muslims
Muslims ( ar, المسلمون, , ) are people who adhere to Islam, a monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God of Abrah ...
handed down from preceding generations. For Awzāʿī, this was the true
Sunnah of
Muhammad
Muhammad ( ar, مُحَمَّد; 570 – 8 June 632 CE) was an Arab religious, social, and political leader and the founder of Islam. According to Islamic doctrine, he was a prophet divinely inspired to preach and confirm the mo ...
. Awzāʿī's school flourished in
Syria, the
Maghreb
The Maghreb (; ar, الْمَغْرِب, al-Maghrib, lit=the west), also known as the Arab Maghreb ( ar, المغرب العربي) and Northwest Africa, is the western part of North Africa and the Arab world. The region includes Algeria, ...
, and
Al Andalus but was eventually overcome and replaced by the
Maliki
The ( ar, مَالِكِي) school is one of the four major schools of Islamic jurisprudence within Sunni Islam. It was founded by Malik ibn Anas in the 8th century. The Maliki school of jurisprudence relies on the Quran and hadiths as primary ...
school of Islamic law in the 9th century. He died in 774 and was buried near
Beirut, Lebanon, where his tomb is still visited.
Views
Theologically, he was known as a persecutor of the
Qadaris, but also one of the main historical witnesses of them. He alleged that the Qadaris merely appropriated heretical doctrines from the Christians. Awzāʿī had met their founder
Maʿbad.
Al-Awzāʿī differed with all the other schools of ''fiqh'' in holding that
apostates from Islam ought not be executed unless their apostasy is part of a 'plot to take over the State', i.e. treason.
In the introduction to his work ''al-Jarh wa-l-ta'dil'', Ibn Abi Hatim al-Razi (d. 938 (AH 327)) preserves a corpus of ten letters attributed to al-Awzāʿī. In these letters, al-Awzāʿī addresses a series of high ranking officials, in order to plead the cause of individuals and groups. Among other things, he encouraged the
Abbasids to ransom Muslims who were captured by the Byzantines in
Erzurum
Erzurum (; ) is a city in eastern Anatolia, Turkey. It is the largest city and capital of Erzurum Province and is 1,900 meters (6,233 feet) above sea level. Erzurum had a population of 367,250 in 2010.
The city uses the double-headed eagle as ...
, and to increase the wages of the Syrian soldiers in charge of protecting the Levantine coast.
Further reading
*
References
External links
Biodata at MuslimScholars.info
{{DEFAULTSORT:Al-Awzai, Abd-Al-Rahman
707 births
774 deaths
Sunni Muslim scholars
Atharis
Taba‘ at-Tabi‘in hadith narrators
Religious leaders from Beirut
Scholars from the Umayyad Caliphate
8th-century jurists
8th-century Arabs