al-Hajjawi
- Died
- 968 AH
- Born in
- -
Musa ibn Ahmad al-Hajjawi (c. 895–968 AH / 1490–1560 CE) was a Palestinian-born Hanbali jurist, legal theorist, and the mufti of the Hanbalis in Damascus, best known for his authoritative legal compendium al-Iqna fi Fiqh al-Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal .
Origin and Education
He was Sharaf al-Din Abu al-Naja Musa ibn Ahmad ibn Musa ibn Salim ibn Isa ibn Salim al-Hajjawi al-Maqdisi, later al-Salihi al-Dimashqi . He was born around 895 AH in Hajja, a village in the district of Nablus . He subsequently relocated to Damascus, taking up residence at the Madrasa of Shaykh al-Islam Abu Umar in the suburb of al-Salihiyya .
In Damascus and the Hijaz, al-Hajjawi studied jurisprudence and hadith under prominent scholars of his era . His teachers included Shihab al-Din Ahmad ibn Muhammad al-Shuwayki, Najm al-Din Umar ibn Ibrahim ibn Muflih, and the Meccan preacher Abu al-Barakat Ahmad ibn Muhammad al-Uqayli . He also studied hadith with the mufti of Dar al-Adl, Kamal al-Din Muhammad ibn Hamza al-Husayni, who granted him an authorization (ijazah) in Shawwal 931 AH after al-Hajjawi recited to him his compilation of forty hadiths, and he received an ijazah from the historian Ibn Tulun in 944 AH .
Scholarly Career and Students
Al-Hajjawi rose to become the chief authority of the Hanbali school in Damascus and served as its mufti and foremost legal reference across the Levant . Contemporaries described him as a devout, practicing, and ascetic scholar . He held the Hanbali teaching professorship at the Madrasa of Abu Umar and delivered lectures at the Umayyad Mosque .
Numerous jurists studied under him, including his son Yahya ibn Musa al-Hajjawi, Qadi Shams al-Din ibn Tarif, Qadi Shams al-Din al-Rujayhi, Qadi Shihab al-Din al-Shuwayki, and Qadi Ahmad al-Wafa'i al-Muflihi, who later assumed the Hanbali fatwa office in Damascus . His circle also attracted early scholars from Najd, such as Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn Musharraf, Zamil ibn Sultan, and Uthman ibn Muhammad ibn Ibrahim (known as Ibn Abi Humaydan), a transmission that facilitated the enduring circulation and study of his texts in the Arabian Peninsula .
Al-Hajjawi consolidated his reputation primarily through his major legal manual al-Iqna', in which he gathered and distilled the relied-upon positions of the Hanbali school without extraneous dispute, and through his concise primer Zad al-Mustaqni fi Ikhtisar al-Muqni .
Death
Al-Hajjawi died in Damascus in the month of Rabi' al-Awwal 968 AH (1560 CE); sources record the specific date as Friday night, 17 Rabi' al-Awwal, or Thursday, 22 Rabi' al-Awwal, while another report places his death in 960 AH . He was buried at the base of Mount Qasiyun (at the lower part of al-Rawdah), and his funeral was widely attended by notables and the local populace .
Answer updated
List of Works
al-Iqna fi Fiqh al-Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal (also titled al-Iqna li-Talib al-Intifa) is a comprehensive manual of Hanbali jurisprudence (fiqh). It serves as a definitive late reference text summarizing the relied-upon positions of the Hanbali school.
Majmu' fihi Arba' Rasa'il (A Collection Containing Four Treatises) is a compilation of four short Hanbali legal and didactic works, edited and published by Abd al-Salam ibn Muhammad al-Shuway'ir.
Zad al-Mustaqni fi Ikhtisar al-Muqni (Provision of the Sufficient in Abridging al-Muqni) is a foundational Hanbali legal manual composed as an abridgment of Ibn Qudamah's al-Muqni.