al-Qaffāl al-Marwazī

Abū Bakr ʿAbdallāh ibn Ahmad al-Qaffāl al-Marwazī ( Arabic أبو بكر عبد الله بن أحمد القفال المروزي, DMG Abū Bakr ʿAbdallāh ibn Aḥmad al-Qaffāl al-Marwazī ; born 938 ; died 1026 in Merw ) was the leading Shafiite jurist of Khorasan in his day . To distinguish it from the well-known Transoxan scholar al-Qaffāl asch-Shāschī (d. 976) he is also called “al-Qaffāl, the younger” (al-Qaffāl aṣ-ṣaġīr) . He was considered the head of the " Tarīqa of the Khorasans " (ṭarīqat al-Ḫurāsānīyīn) in Fiqh , as well as Abū Hāmid al-Isfarāyīnī (d. 1016) head of the “Tarīqa of the Iraqis” (ṭarīqat al-ʿIrāqīyīn) . He is also attributed to having won the Ghaznavid ruler Mahmūd of Ghazna (r. 998-1030), who was previously a follower of the Hanafis and Karrāmites , for the Shafiite Madhhab .

Life

Al-Qaffāl worked as a locksmith (qaffāl) in his youth . The traces of the blisters that he developed while working as a craftsman are said to have remained visible on his hands throughout his life. As an example of his skill, it is mentioned that he once made a lock with a key that weighed only four Habba in total .

It was not until the age of 30 that al-Qaffāl began to study law . His best known teacher in Fiqh was Abū Zaid al-Fāschānī (d. 981/82). He also heard hadith from him and from the Qādī al-Khalīl ibn Ahmad al-Sidschzī . He also heard hadith from teachers in Merw , Bukhara , Baikand and Herat . Al-Qaffāl lived very ascetically. He was blind in one eye, which he considered to be a bad, God-given fate.

Al-Qaffāl had numerous students who also came from other cities to learn Fiqh with him. Among his disciples known by name were Abū ʿAbdallāh Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Malik al-Masʿūdī (d. 1029), Abū ʿAlī al-Husain ibn Shuʿaib as-Sindschī, Abū l-Qāsim ʿAbd ar-Rahmān ibn Muhammad ibn-Marzān, the Qādī Husain ibn Muhammad and Abū Muhammad al-Juwainī, the father of Imām al-Haramain al-Juwainī . Some of his students were active in Merw as muhtasibs , and they also proceeded against the entourage of the governor appointed by Mahmūd of Ghazna . When Mahmūd was sued for this, he expressly approved the conduct of al-Qaffāl and his disciples.

Towards the end of his life, al-Qaffāl also transmitted hadiths and dictated them for writing. He died in Jumādā II 417 (= July / August 1026) and was buried in the Sandschadān cemetery in Merw.

Works

• Fatāwā , fatwa collection, edited in 2011 by Muḥafā Maḥmūd al-Azharī ( digitized version ).
• Commentary on the Furūʿ Abū Bakr Muhammad ibn al-Haddād al-Misrī, which were probably one of the most common manuals of the Merwer Shafiites.
• Commentary on the Talḫīṣ by Ibn al-Qāss in several volumes.

Conversion of the Mahmūd of Ghazna to the Shafiite Madhhab

According to a report, the Al-Juwayni in his work Muġīṯ al-ḫalq fī tarǧīḥ al-qaul al-Haqq ( "savior of the people with regard to the preference of the true speech") it was al-Qaffāl al-Marwazi that the Ghaznavids - Ruler Mahmūd of Ghazna (r. 998-1030) won for the Shafiite Madhhab after this had previously followed the Hanafi Madhhab . The decisive factor was therefore that al-Qaffāl performed the ritual prayer twice in the presence of the ruler , the first time he adhered to the minimum requirements of the Shafiites and the second time to the minimum requirements of the Hanafis. The report reads as follows:

“It is said that Sultan Tamīm ad-Daula and Amīn al-Milla Abū l-Qāsim Mahmūd, the son of Sebüktigin , followed the Hanafi madhhab and were enthusiastic about hadith science. Hadiths were heard from the sheikhs in his presence. He too listened and had the hadith explained to him. He got the impression that most of the hadith corresponded to the teaching of al-Shafidis . So the idea occurred to him to convene the legal scholars of the two parties in Merw and ask them to dispute which of the two disciplines should be preferred. It was agreed that the ruler should be given two prayer cycles according to the Shafiite and two according to the Hanafi madhhab, so that he could see for himself and decide which was better based on his own deliberation. Thereupon al-Qaffāl al-Marwazī performed a prayer of the Shafiites with proper purity , according to the recognized requirements of the sutra and turning to the qibla , with full consideration of all essential elements, forms, Sunna obligations, rules of propriety and Fard obligations. Such was the form of prayer declared admissible by al-Shafiʿī alone. Afterwards, al-Qaffāl prayed two cycles according to what Abū Hanīfa had declared permissible. He dressed himself in a tanned dog fur, sprinkled a quarter of it with impure (naǧāsa) and performed the ritual cleansing with date wine . As it was in the middle of summer in the desert, flies and mosquitoes gathered on the fur. He performed the ritual washing in the wrong order. Then he chose the direction of prayer, entered the state of consecration without Nīya , spoke the takbīr in Persian, then recited as Koran verse in Persian "... two green leaves ..." ( Sura 55:64 ), nodded hastily twice the head, like a rooster pecking grains, without separation and trunk bend (rukūʿ) , and raised the index finger to the Shahāda and farted at the end, but said no greeting. Thereupon al-Qaffāl said: "Look, O ruler, this is the prayer of Abu Hanīfa". He replied: "If you had not said that, I would have killed you, because no rational person declares such a prayer admissible." Since the Hanafis present denied that this was a Hanafi prayer, al-Qaffāl gave instructions to read the books to bring the two parties. Then the ruler had a Christian secretary read the books of the two schools of law, and indeed the prayer according to the Hanafi madhhab was as al-Qaffāl had reported. The ruler then turned away from the Hanafi madhhab and accepted the Shafiite madhhab. "

- al- Juwainī : Muġīṯ al-ḫalq fī tarǧīḥ al-qaul al-ḥaqq . 1934, pp. 57-59

Tādsch ad-Dīn as-Subkī writes that al-Qaffāl himself brought up this story in his fatwa collection; from there she took over al-Juwainī. However, the narrative is not included in the modern print edition of the collection. Tilman Nagel , who has dealt with this story in detail in his monograph on al-Juwainī, suspects that his father, who was a student of al-Qaffāl, transmitted it from him.

The second prayer performed by al-Qaffāl was evidently intended to expose the laxity of the Hanafi regulations. It also emphasized the well-known points of contention between Hanafis and Shafiites regarding ritual prayer and the ritual ablution that precedes it. The fact that al-Qaffāl spoke the takbīr in Persian during this prayer and then recited the Koran verse 55:64 in Persian is emphasized, for example, because, in contrast to the Hanafis, the Shafiites themselves did not accept the Persian wording during prayer and recitation of the Koran if he reproduces their meaning exactly. Also the detail that al-Qaffāl recited Quran verse 55:64 during the second prayer, which consists of a single word in the Arabic text, has to do with such madhhab disputes. In this case, they concern the recitation of the Quran to be performed during the ritual prayer. Ash-Shāfidī demanded that the first sura and then freely chosen sections of the Koran be recited on this occasion . The Hanafis, on the other hand, were of the opinion that a single verse of their own was sufficient at this point.

literature

Arabic sources

• Abū ʿĀṣim al-ʿAbbādī: Ṭabaqāt al-fuqahāʾ aš-Šāfiʿīya. Ed. G. Vitestam. Brill, Leiden, 1964. p. 105.
• Shams ad-Dīn aḏ-Ḏahabī : Siyar aʿlām al-nubalāʾ. Ed. Shuʿaib al-Arnaʾūṭ and ʿAlī Abū Zaid. Beirut 1986. Vol. XVII, pp. 405-407. Digitized
• Al-Ǧuwainī : Muġīṯ al-ḫalq fī tarǧīḥ al-qaul al-ḥaqq . Al-Maṭbaʿa al-Miṣrīya, Cairo, 1934. pp. 57–59. Digitized
• Ibn Ḫallikān : Wafayāt al-wa-A'yan anbā' abnā' az Zaman . Ed. Iḥsān ʿAbbās. Dār Ṣādir, Beirut n. D. Vol. III, p. 46. Digitized
• Ibn aṣ-Ṣalāḥ: Ṭabaqāt al-fuqahāʾ aš-Šāfiʿīya. Ed. Muḥyī d-Dīn ʿAlī Naǧīb. Dār al-Bašāʾir al-islāmīya, Beirut, 1992. Vol. I, pp. 496-500. Digitized
• Tāǧ ad-Dīn as-Subkī : Ṭabaqāt aš-Šāfiʿīya al-kubrā . Ed. Maḥmūd Muḥammad aṭ-Ṭanāḥī, ʿAbd al-Fattāḥ Ḥilw. Al-Bābī al-Ḥalabī, Cairo, 1964. Vol. V, pp. 53-62. Digitized

Secondary literature

• Heinz Halm : The expansion of the šāfiʿite school of law from the beginning to the 8th / 14th Century . Ludwig Reichert, Wiesbaden, 1974. p. 115.
• Tilman Nagel : The fortress of faith. Triumph and Failure of Islamic Rationalism in the 11th Century. Munich 1988. pp. 179f.
• Cengiz Kallek: "Kaffâl, Abdullah b. Ahmed" in Türkiye Diyanet Vakfı İslâm ansiklopedisi Vol. XXIV, p. 146. Digitized
• Fuat Sezgin : History of Arabic Literature. 1. Volume: Qur'ānwissenschaften, Hadīṯ, Geschichte, Fiqh, Dogmatik, Mystik up to approx. 430 H. Leiden 1967. S. 500f.
• Ferdinand Wüstenfeld : "The Imam el-Schâfi'í and his followers. V. The learned Schâfi'íts of the 5th century" in treatises of the Royal Society of Sciences in Göttingen Vol. 37, Dept. 3 (1891) P. 21– 23. Digitized

Individual evidence

1. ↑ aḏ-Ḏahabī: Siyar aʿlām al-nubalāʾ. 1986, Vol. XVII, p. 406.
2. ↑ Ibn al -Ṣalāḥ: Ṭabaqāt al-fuqahāʾ aš-Šāfiʿīya. 1992, p. 498.
3. ↑ Wüstenfeld: The Imam el-Schâfi'í and his followers. 1891, p. 21.
4. ↑ Ibn Ḫallikān: Wafayāt al-aʿyān . Vol. III, p. 46.
5. ↑ aḏ-Ḏahabī: Siyar aʿlām al-nubalāʾ. 1986, Vol. XVII, p. 406.
6. ↑ Ibn al -Ṣalāḥ: Ṭabaqāt al-fuqahāʾ aš-Šāfiʿīya. 1992, p. 500.
7. ↑ aḏ-Ḏahabī: Siyar aʿlām al-nubalāʾ. 1986, Vol. XVII, p. 406.
8. ↑ Ibn al -Ṣalāḥ: Ṭabaqāt al-fuqahāʾ aš-Šāfiʿīya. 1992, p. 499.
9. ↑ as-Subkī: Ṭabaqāt aš-Šāfiʿīya al-kubrā . 1964, Vol. V, 53f.
10. ↑ aḏ-Ḏahabī: Siyar aʿlām al-nubalāʾ. 1986, Vol. XVII, p. 406.
11. ↑ Ibn Ḫallikān: Wafayāt al-aʿyān . Vol. III, p. 46.
12. ↑ aḏ-Ḏahabī: Siyar aʿlām al-nubalāʾ. 1986, Vol. XVII, p. 407.
13. ↑ Ibn al -Ṣalāḥ: Ṭabaqāt al-fuqahāʾ aš-Šāfiʿīya. 1992, p. 500.
14. ↑ aḏ-Ḏahabī: Siyar aʿlām al-nubalāʾ. 1986, Vol. XVII, p. 407.
15. ↑ Ibn al -Ṣalāḥ: Ṭabaqāt al-fuqahāʾ aš-Šāfiʿīya. 1992, p. 500.
16. ^ Halm: The expansion of the Sāfiite school of law . 1974, p. 84.
17. ↑ as-Subkī: Ṭabaqāt aš-Šāfiʿīya al-kubrā . 1964, Vol. V, 316.
18. ↑ as-Subkī: Ṭabaqāt aš-Šāfiʿīya al-kubrā . 1964, Vol. V, 316.
19. ↑ Nagel: The fortress of faith. 1988, p. 180.
20. ↑ Nagel: The fortress of faith. 1988, p. 194.
21. ↑ Nagel: The fortress of faith. 1988, pp. 184f.