Qadi ‘Iyad

Last updated • 4 min readFrom Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia
Qāḍī ʿIyāḍ
lqDy `yD.png
TitleShaykhul Islam
Personal
Born1083
Died1149
Religion Islam
Era Islamic Golden Age
Denomination Sunni
Jurisprudence Maliki
Occupation Qadi
Marrakech,QadiAyyad.jpg

‘Iyad ibn Musa (1083–1149) (Arabic : القاضي عياض بن موسى, formally Abu al-Fadl ‘Iyad ibn Amr ibn Musa ibn ‘Iyad ibn Muhammad ibn ‘Abdillah ibn Musa ibn ‘Iyad al-Yahsubi al-Sabti Arabic : أبو الفضل عياض بن موسى بن عياض بن عمرو بن موسى بن عياض بن محمد بن عبد الله بن موسى بن عياض اليحصبي السبتي [2] ), born in Ceuta, [3] then belonging to the Almoravid dynasty, was the scholar of Maliki fiqh and great imam of that city and, later, a qadi in the Emirate of Granada.

Contents

Biography

Iyaḍ was born into an established family of Arab origin in Ceuta. [4] As a scion of a notable scholarly family, ʿIyad was able to learn from the best teachers Ceuta had to offer. The judge Abu ʿAbd Allah Muhammad b. ʿIsa (d. 1111) was ʿIyad’s first important teacher and is credited with his basic academic formation. Growing up, ʿIyad benefited from the traffic of scholars from al-Andalus, the Maghrib, and the eastern Islamic world. He became a prestigious scholar in his own right and won the support of the highest levels of society. [5]

In his quest for knowledge, Iyad spent part of 1113 and 1114 visiting Cordoba, Murcia, Almeria, and Granada. He received ijāzas from the most important traditionist of his time, Abū ʿAlī al-Ṣadafī (d. 1120) in Murcia, and met with some of the most celebrated scholars of the moment, such as Ibn al-Hajj (d. 1134), Ibn Rushd (d. 1126), and Ibn Hamdin (d. 1114). [6]

ʿIyad was appointed judge of Ceuta in 1121 and served in the position until 1136. During his tenure as judge of Ceuta he was extremely prolific. Iyad's overall fame as a jurist and as a writer of fiqh (positive law) was based on the work he did in this city. [7]

Iyad was also appointed the judge of Grenada where he worked for just over a year. [8]

In doctrine Iyad to known have influenced later scholars like Ibn Taymiyyah and Taqī ad-Dīn as-Subkī (d.1355) in expanding the definition of heresy in apostasy, being the first to called for the death penalty for those Muslims guilty of “disseminating improprieties about Muḥammad or questioning his authority in all questions of faith and profane life” (according to Tilman Nagel). [9]

He headed a revolt against the coming of the Almohades to Ceuta, but lost and was banished to Tadla and later Marrakech. He was a pupil of Abu Abdillah ibn Isa, Abu Abdillah ibn Hamdin and Abu al-Hassan ibn Siraj, and was a teacher of Averroes and Ibn Maḍāʾ.

He died in 1149. [10] He refused to acknowledge Ibn Tumart as the awaited Mahdi. Sources disagree on how and where he died. Some sources, including one written by his son, Muhammad, describe how he ingratiated himself with the Almohads in Marakech and eventually died of sickness during a military campaign. Other sources describe how he died a natural death while acting as a rural judge near Tadla, while later sources tend to assume a violent death at the hands of the Almohads. [11] Although he was opposed to the Almohads and the ideas of Ibn Hazm, he did not hold enmity for the Zahirite school of Sunni Islam, which the Almohads and Ibn Hazm followed. Ayyad's comments on Ibn Hazm's teacher Abu al-Khiyar al-Zahiri were positive, as was Ayyad's characterization of his own father, a Zahirite theologian. [12]

Cadi Ayyad University, also known as the University of Marrakech, was named after him. Qadi Ayyad is also well known as one of the seven saints of Marrakech and is buried near Bab Aïlen.

Works

17th century manuscript of the Ash-Shifa copied for the Moroccan ruler Ismail ibn Sharif Khalili Collection Islamic Art mss 0359 fol 138b-139a.jpg
17th century manuscript of the Ash-Shifa copied for the Moroccan ruler Ismail ibn Sharif

He was one of the most famous scholars of Maliki law and author of the well-known Ash-Shifa [13] on the virtues of the prophet and Tartib al-mardarik wa-taqrib al-masalik li-marifat alam madhab Malik, a collection of biographies of eminent Malikis, a.o. Abu Bakr ibn al-Arabi. [14] Qadi `Iyad's other well-known works include:

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Bibliography