Abu al-Yusr al-Bazdawi ( ar, أبو الْيُسر الْبَزْدَوي) (c.1030-c.1100), who was given the honorific title of ''Sadr al-Islam'', was a prominent Central Asian

Hanafi The Hanafi school ( ar, حَنَفِية, translit=Ḥanafiyah; also called Hanafite in English), Hanafism, or the Hanafi fiqh, is the oldest and one of the four traditional major Sunni schools ( maddhab) of Islamic Law (Fiqh). It is named aft ...

Maturidi Māturīdī theology or Māturīdism ( ar, الماتريدية: ''al-Māturīdiyyah'') is one of the main Sunnī schools of Islamic theology, founded by the Persian Muslim scholar, Ḥanafī jurist, reformer (''Mujaddid''), and scholastic th ...

scholar and a

qadi A qāḍī ( ar, قاضي, Qāḍī; otherwise transliterated as qazi, cadi, kadi, or kazi) is the magistrate or judge of a '' sharīʿa'' court, who also exercises extrajudicial functions such as mediation, guardianship over orphans and mino ...

(judge) in

Samarqand fa, سمرقند , native_name_lang = , settlement_type = City , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from the top: Registan square, Shah-i-Zinda necropolis, Bibi-Khanym Mosque, view inside Shah-i-Zin ...

in the late eleventh century. He was a teacher to several well-known Hanafi scholars, such as

Najm al-Din 'Umar al-Nasafi Najm ad-Dīn Abū Ḥafṣ 'Umar ibn Muḥammad an-Nasafī ( ar, نجم الدين أبو حفص عمر بن محمد النسفي‎; 1067–1142) was a Muslim jurist, theologian, mufassir, muhaddith and historian. A Persian scholar born in pr ...

and 'Ala' al-Din al-Samarqandi (who was a teacher to

Al-Kasani 'Ala' al-Din al-Kasani ( ar, علاء الدين الكاساني), known as Al-Kasani or al-Kashani, was a 12th Century Sunni Muslim Jurist who became an influential figure of the Hanafi school of Sunni jurisprudence, which has remained the ...

Name

Abu al-Yusr Muhammad b. Muhammad b. al-Hussein b. 'Abd al-Karim b. Musa b. Mujahid al-Nasafi al-Bazdawi. The attribution al-Bazdawi indicates that he or his family originated from Bazda or Bazdawa, a small town with a castle on the road between

Nasaf Qarshi ( uz, Qarshi/Қарши, ; fa, نخشب ''Nakhshab'') is a city in southern Uzbekistan. It is the capital of Qashqadaryo Region. Administratively, Qarshi is a district-level city, that includes the urban-type settlement Qashqadaryo. It ...

and

Bukhara Bukhara (Uzbek language, Uzbek: /, ; tg, Бухоро, ) is the List of cities in Uzbekistan, seventh-largest city in Uzbekistan, with a population of 280,187 , and the capital of Bukhara Region. People have inhabited the region around Bukhara ...

. He was the younger brother of Fakhr al-Islam Abu al-Hassan al-Bazdawi, the author of ''Kanz al-Wusul'', also known as ''Usul al-Bazdawi''.

Birth

He was born around the year 421 A.H. (1030 A.D.) and received his earliest education in Maturidism disciplines from his father. His grandfather Abu Muhammad 'Abd al-Karim b. Musa al-Bazdawi (d. 390 AH/1000–1001 CE), who was a student of

al-Maturidi Abū Manṣūr Muḥammad b. Muḥammad b. Maḥmūd al-Ḥanafī al-Māturīdī al-Samarḳandī ( fa, أبو منصور محمد بن محمد بن محمود الماتریدي السمرقندي الحنفي; 853–944 CE), often referred t ...

, and his elder brother Fakhr al-Islam 'Ali b. Muhammad al-Bazdawi (d. 482–483 AH/1089–1090 CE) were leading Hanafi scholars and wrote many books.

Teachers

* Shams al-A'imma 'Abd al-'Aziz al-Halwai (d. 456/1064) who was also a teacher to

Al-Sarakhsi Muhammad b. Ahmad b. Abi Sahl Abu Bakr al-Sarakhsi ( fa, محمد بن احمد بن ابي سهل ابو بكر السرخسي), was a Persian jurist and also an Islamic scholar of the Hanafi school of thought. He was traditionally known as Sham ...

.Hanif, Sohail, 2019, "Al-Hadith al-Mashhur: A Hanafi Reference to Kufan Practice?", in ''Locating the Shari'a: Legal Fluidity in Theory, History and Practice'' by Sohaira Siddiqui (ed.), Brill Publications, Leiden, 2019. * Fakhr al-Islam al-Bazdawi (d. 482 AH) who was his elder brother.

Students

Some of his well known students were

and 'Ala' al-Din al-Samarqandi (who was a teacher to 'Ala' al-Din al-Kasani).

Works

He was the author of several works on law, including a commentary on the major work of

Abu Hanifa Nuʿmān ibn Thābit ibn Zūṭā ibn Marzubān ( ar, نعمان بن ثابت بن زوطا بن مرزبان; –767), commonly known by his '' kunya'' Abū Ḥanīfa ( ar, أبو حنيفة), or reverently as Imam Abū Ḥanīfa by Sunni Mus ...

, after whom the

school was named, and a commentary on a work of Abu Hanifa's student

Muhammad al-Shaybani Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan ibn Farqad ash-Shaybānī ( ar, أبو عبد الله محمد بن الحسن بن فرقد الشيباني; 749/50 – 805), the father of Muslim international law, was an Arab jurist and a dis ...

, who was one of the founders of the Hanafi school. The most important of his books which remain is Kitab Usul al-Din (edited with a biographical introduction by Hans-Peter Linss). Al-Bazdawi’s Kitab Usul al-Din, as described by Hans-Peter Linss, comprises: # a short review of all literature of the heretics on dogma and

theology Theology is the systematic study of the nature of the divine and, more broadly, of religious belief. It is taught as an academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itself with the unique content of analyzing the ...

Islam Islam (; ar, ۘالِإسلَام, , ) is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic Monotheism#Islam, monotheistic religion centred primarily around the Quran, a religious text considered by Muslims to be the direct word of God in Islam, God (or ...

; # a Hanafi-

Sunni Sunni Islam () is the largest branch of Islam, followed by 85–90% of the world's Muslims. Its name comes from the word '' Sunnah'', referring to the tradition of Muhammad. The differences between Sunni and Shia Muslims arose from a disagr ...

orthodoxy defence against the dissenting opinions and teachings of the heretical sects; and # a study on the heterodox factions in Islam, their subdivisions and their most important leaders. Al-Bazdawi was also the author of ''Ma'rifat al-Hujaj al-Shar'iyya'' ( ar, معرفة الحجج الشرعية) in

Usul al-Fiqh Principles of Islamic jurisprudence, also known as ''uṣūl al-fiqh'' ( ar, أصول الفقه, lit. roots of fiqh), are traditional methodological principles used in Islamic jurisprudence (''fiqh'') for deriving the rulings of Islamic law ('' ...

. Dr. Haytham Abdul-Hamid Khazna ( ar, هيثم عبد الحميد خزنة) said in his book ''Tatawur al-Fikr al-Usuli al-Hanafi'' ( ar, تطور الفكر الأصولي الحنفي) that this book should not be attributed to Abu al-Yusr al-Bazdawi, because the books of Tarajim (biographies and bibliographies) didn't mention it, and because the book is weak in style analysis.

Death

After serving for a period of time as a magistrate in

, he eventually moved to

and died there in 493 A.H. (1100 A.D.).

References

External links

Islamic Pedia - Abu al-Yusr al-Bazdawi

Ebü’l-Yüsr el-Pezdevî

(Usul-üd-Din) Ebü’l-Yüsr el-Pezdevî’nin (ö. 493/1100) kelâma dair eseri
{{Authority control Hanafis Maturidis 11th-century Muslim theologians Sunni imams Sunni Muslim scholars of Islam Hanafi fiqh scholars Uzbekistani Muslims 1030s births 1100 deaths