Abu ʾl-Ḥasan ʿAlī ibn Muḥammad ibn Khalaf al-Maʿāfirī al-Qābiṣī (935–1012) was a leading Ifrīqiyan scholar ('' uṣūlī'') of the Mālikī school of

Islamic jurisprudence ''Fiqh'' (; ) is the term for Islamic jurisprudence.Fiqh
Encyclopædia Britannica ''Fiqh'' is of ...

(''fiḳh''). In 996, he succeeded his first cousin Ibn Abī Zayd as leader (''

shaykh Sheikh ( , , , , ''shuyūkh'' ) is an honorific title in the Arabic language, literally meaning "elder (administrative title), elder". It commonly designates a tribal chief or a Muslim ulama, scholar. Though this title generally refers to me ...

'') of the school in al-Qayrawān (Kairouan). Al-Qābiṣī's father was born in the village of al-Maʿāfiriyyīn near Qabis (Gabès) and his mother was from al-Qayrawān. According to oral tradition, he was the first cousin of Ibn Abī Zayd and Muḥriz ibn Khalaf, the sons of his mother's sisters. He was blind. In Africa al-Qābiṣī was taught by Abu ʾl-ʿAbbās al-Ibyānī, a

Shāfiʿī The Shafi'i school or Shafi'i Madhhab () or Shafi'i is one of the four major schools of fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence), belonging to the Ahl al-Hadith tradition within Sunni Islam. It was founded by the Muslim scholar, jurist, and traditionist al ...

scholar from

Tunis Tunis (, ') is the capital city, capital and largest city of Tunisia. The greater metropolitan area of Tunis, often referred to as "Grand Tunis", has about 2,700,000 inhabitants. , it is the third-largest city in the Maghreb region (after Casabl ...

; Darrās al-Fāsī, an Ashʿarī; and Ibn Masrūr al-Dabbāgh. Accompanied by Darrās al-Fāsī and the Andalusian al-Aṣīlī, he went on a lengthy '' riḥla'' (journey) in the east from 963 until 968. During his journey, because he was blind, his companions acted as his secretaries. Before he took up jurisprudence, al-Qābiṣī taught '' qirāʾāt'' (recitation of the

Qurʾān The Quran, also romanized Qur'an or Koran, is the central religious text of Islam, believed by Muslims to be a revelation directly from God (''Allāh''). It is organized in 114 chapters (, ) which consist of individual verses ('). Besides i ...

). As a jurist he was a traditionist with Ashʿarī leanings and partial to the writings of Ibn al-Mawwāz. He had deep knowledge of the ''

ḥadīth Hadith is the Arabic word for a 'report' or an 'account f an event and refers to the Islamic oral tradition of anecdotes containing the purported words, actions, and the silent approvals of the Islamic prophet Muhammad or his immediate circle ...

''s. He helped spread the ''Ṣaḥīḥ'' of al-Bukhārī, a collection of ''ḥadīth''s, in northern Africa and wrote for it a '' riwāya'', an account of its transmission. His other works include a collection of ''ḥadīth''s of the '' Muwaṭṭaʾ'', popular in al-Andalus; a treatise on the conduct of schoolmasters, inspired by the writings of Saḥnūn; an incomplete collection of traditions of ''fiḳh''; and numerous letters on everything from Qurʾānic exegesis, the architecture of ''

ribāṭ A ribāṭ (; hospice, hostel, base or retreat) is an Arabic term, initially designating a small fortification built along a frontier during the first years of the Muslim conquest of the Maghreb to house military volunteers, called ''murabitun' ...

''s, the rituals of the '' ḥajj'', the theology of

al-Ashʿarī Abu al-Hasan al-Ash'ari (; 874–936 CE) was an Arab Muslim theologian known for being the eponymous founder of the Ash'ari school of kalam in Sunnism. Al-Ash'ari was notable for taking an intermediary position between the two diametrically op ...

and refuting the Bakrites (i.e., the Khārijites). In his old age, he is said to have introduced the young Ibn Sharaf to poetry. Al-Qābiṣī's authority and reputation rose after the death of Ibn Abī Zayd (996) and Ibn Shiblūn (999) and he became the leading jurisconsult in northern Africa and al-Andalus. At the time of his death he was still teaching eighty students. His successors, who carried on his work, were Abū Bakr ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān and Abū Imrān al-Fāsī. The culmination of the work of these Mālikī scholars of al-Qayrawān was the triumph of the Mālikī school in Africa west of Egypt and the breach between the Mālikī Zīrids and the Shīʿa

Fāṭimid The Fatimid Caliphate (; ), also known as the Fatimid Empire, was a caliphate extant from the tenth to the twelfth centuries CE under the rule of the Fatimids, an Isma'ili Shi'a dynasty. Spanning a large area of North Africa and West Asia, it ...

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{{Authority control 935 births 1012 deaths Blind scholars and academics Tunisian Maliki scholars 10th-century jurists 11th-century jurists Blind lawyers