Ibn Sunayna al-Samiri
- Died
- 616 AH
- Born in
- Samarra
Abu Abd Allah Ibn Sunayna al-Samiri (535–616 AH / 1141–1219 CE) was an Iraqi Hanbali jurist, legal expert in inheritance law (fara'id), and judge, best known for his comprehensive legal manual al-Mustaw'ib and his treatise on juridical distinctions, al-Furuq.
Name and Early Life
His full name was Muhammad ibn Abd Allah ibn al-Husayn al-Samiri; the historian Ibn al-Najjar traced his ancestry as Muhammad ibn Abd Allah ibn Muhammad ibn al-Husayn ibn Ahmad ibn Qasim ibn Idris, while al-Dhahabi rendered it as Muhammad ibn Abd Allah ibn Muhammad ibn Idris. He bore the kunya Abu Abd Allah and was popularly known by the patronymic Ibn Sunayna (vocalized with a damma on the sin and fathas on the two nuns, though al-Qati'i recorded a corrupted variant as Ibn Busayna). He was initially given the honorific title Nasir al-Din, but when the vizier Nasir al-Din Nasir ibn Mahdi assumed authority and ordered him to alter it, he chose the title Mu'azzam al-Din instead.
Ibn Sunayna was born in Samarra in 535 AH (1141 CE).
Education and Public Career
Ibn Sunayna traveled to Baghdad to pursue his legal and religious education. He studied jurisprudence under the Hanbali master Abu Hakim al-Nahrawani and attached himself to him for an extended period, acquiring advanced proficiency in positive law and inheritance division. In hadith, he heard transmissions from Abu Hakim al-Nahrawani, Ibn al-Batti, and Abd al-Latif ibn Abi Sa'd. He served as a certified witness before the Chief Judge Abu al-Hasan Ali ibn Ahmad al-Damaghani in Ramadan 570 AH.
He was appointed to several judicial and administrative offices during his career:
- He was appointed judge of Samarra and its surrounding districts in 574 AH, holding office until his dismissal in 577 AH, though another historical report states that his judicial tenure there lasted seventeen years.
- In 585 AH, he was assigned as both judge and inspector of public morals and markets (hisba) in Baghdad.
- He was subsequently relieved of the judgeship while retaining the hisba, then removed from the hisba and appointed supervisor of the Bureau of Control (Diwan al-Zimam).
Following his eventual dismissal from public office, he was confined to his house in Baghdad for a time. He was later permitted to return to his home city of Samarra before moving back to Baghdad in his final years.
Scholarly Standing
Ibn Sunayna was regarded by biographers as a prominent jurist with deep mastery of Hanbali jurisprudence and comparative legal differences (ikhtilaf). Ibn al-Najjar characterized him as a venerable, noble scholar skilled in the school's doctrine and legal discrepancies, though he noted that Ibn Sunayna did not formally transmit hadith to students.
His major legal compendium, al-Mustaw'ib, synthesized the material of eight earlier foundational works of the Hanbali school into a comprehensive manual. He also authored al-Bustan, a specialized treatise devoted to the division of estates and inheritance law.
Death
Ibn Sunayna died in Baghdad on the night of Tuesday, 17 Rajab 616 AH (September 1219 CE) at the age of eighty-one; alternative reports place his death on the night of 27 Rajab or in Rabi' al-Awwal of the same year. His funeral prayer was conducted the following day at the al-Nizamiya madrasa, led by Abd al-Aziz ibn Dulaf, and he was buried in the Bab Harb cemetery.
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List of Works
al-Furuq is a specialized treatise on Hanbali jurisprudence dedicated to clarifying subtle differences in legal rulings between cases that appear identical or similar in outward form. The work elucidates their textual proofs, rationales, and underlying principles, articulating evidentiary bases and legal causes to ensure accurate analogical deduction.