al-Barkati
- Died
- 1395 AH
- Born in
- -
Muhammad Amim al-Ihsan al-Barkati (1329–1395 AH / 1911–1975 CE) was a Hanafi jurist and hadith scholar who served as the head teacher at the Madrasa Aliya in Dhaka and authored several legal treatises, notably Qawaid al-Fiqh (The Rules of Jurisprudence) .
Lineage and education
He was Abu al-Azim Muhammad Amim al-Ihsan ibn Muhammad Abd al-Mannan ibn Abd al-Nur ibn Mir Shahamat Ali ibn Muzaffar Ali al-Barkati al-Mujaddidi, and his lineage is traced to al-Husayn ibn Ali . He was born in 1329 AH in the village of Pachna in the district of Monghyr, Bihar, India, before his father moved the family to Calcutta, where they settled .
Al-Barkati completed reading the Quran at five years of age and studied preliminary Islamic disciplines under his uncle Shah Abd al-Dayyan and his father-in-law Barkat Ali Shah al-Bangali . In 1344 AH, he enrolled at Madrasa Aliya in Calcutta, where he studied Mishkat al-Masabih in 1349 AH and the Six Books of Hadith in 1351 AH . His teachers included Abu al-Hiffaz Muhammad Fasih al-Murshidabadi, Abd al-Sattar al-Bihari, Muhammad Ismail al-Bihari, Ismail al-Sanbhali, and Yahya al-Sahasrami . In addition to legal and traditional sciences, he studied calligraphy under Majid Ali and Abd al-Rashid Khan, Quranic recitation (tajwid) under Abd al-Sami, and traditional medicine under his father and Abd al-Rahman al-Danapuri .
Career and students
After completing his education, al-Barkati was appointed head teacher (sadr al-mudarrisin) at the Madrasa Qawmiyya near the Nakhoda Mosque in Calcutta, and in 1353 AH he was appointed imam and mufti of the Nakhoda Mosque . In 1361 AH, he joined Madrasa Aliya in Calcutta as an instructor, teaching hadith, jurisprudence, and Quranic exegesis . He later moved to Madrasa Aliya in Dhaka, where he was appointed head teacher in 1373 AH .
Among his notable students were Muhammadullah al-Kumillai, Dilawar Husayn al-Barisali, Abd al-Awwal al-Kumillai, Abd al-Hakim al-Kumillai, and Ruh al-Amin al-Nawkhali .
Scholarly contribution and death
Al-Barkati was regarded as a leading jurist and hadith scholar . His major compendium on legal rules, Qawaid al-Fiqh, included specialized treatises such as al-Tarifat al-Fiqhiyya (The Jurisprudential Definitions)—an alphabetically arranged dictionary explaining technical terminology used by jurists and legal theorists—and Adab al-Mufti (The Etiquette of the Mufti), an abridged manual outlining the guidelines for issuing legal opinions . Al-Barkati died in 1395 AH (1975 CE).
Answer updated
List of Works
al-Tarifat al-Fiqhiyya (The Jurisprudential Definitions) is a specialized dictionary of Islamic legal and theoretical terminology designed to explain the conventional vocabulary used by jurists and legal theorists.
Qawaid al-Fiqh (The Rules of Jurisprudence) is a compendium on Hanafi legal maxims, terminology, and mufti etiquette.