al-Maqdisi, Ibn Abi Hafiz
- Died
- 490 AH
- Born in
- -
Ibn Abi Hafiz al-Maqdisi (d. 490 AH / 1097 CE) was a hadith scholar and jurist associated with Jerusalem, known for his specialized treatise Tahrim Nikah al-Mut'a (The Prohibition of Temporary Marriage).
Scholarly Transmission and Teachers
Ibn Abi Hafiz transmitted hadith from a number of contemporary scholars across the Levant and Egypt. Among his teachers was Sulaym ibn Ayyub (Abu al-Fath), from whom he received numerous narrations . He also studied under Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Ja'far ibn 'Ali al-Mimasi, reading to him directly at his residence in Ascalon (Ashkelon) .
Other scholars from whom he directly took narrations include Abu al-Hasan 'Ali ibn Musa ibn al-Khashshab, Abu Muhammad 'Abd al-'Aziz ibn Ahmad, Abu al-Fath Nasr ibn Masrur al-Ruhawi, Abu al-Hasan 'Abd al-Wahhab ibn Muhammad al-Misri, Abu al-Qasim al-Khadir ibn 'Ali al-Fariqi, and Abu al-Hasan Muhammad ibn 'Awf al-Muzani . Through these chains, his transmissions linked to earlier hadith compilations and authorities such as al-Bukhari, al-Shafi'i, al-Daraqutni, and Ibn Abi Dawud .
Juristic Methodology
In his legal writing, Ibn Abi Hafiz focused on legal hadith criticism and the principles of abrogation (naskh). In Tahrim Nikah al-Mut'a, he treated legal abrogation as an established foundational principle of Islamic jurisprudence found in the Quran and the Prophetic Sunnah . He argued that God legislates what is most beneficial for His servants and abrogates rulings as He wills; whenever abrogation of a ruling is confirmed through scripture or the Sunnah, that abrogation remains perpetual ('ala al-ta'bid) and universally binding upon the Muslim community until the Day of Resurrection, drawing an analogy to the permanent abrogation of the prayer direction toward Jerusalem in favor of the Kaaba .
Employing these legal principles, he assembled chains of transmission to demonstrate the invalidity and prohibition of temporary marriage, categorizing its practice as an error and a sin contrary to Prophetic commands, and detailing the subsequent establishment of standard marital regulations governing marriage, divorce, waiting periods, and inheritance .
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List of Works
Tahrim Nikah al-Mut'a (The Prohibition of Temporary Marriage) is a specialized legal and hadith treatise dedicated to establishing the permanent prohibition and abrogation of temporary marriage (mut'a) in Islamic law.