Abu Ya'la ibn al-Farra'

Abū Yaʿlā Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥusayn Ibn al-Farrāʾ (April 990 – 15 August 1066), commonly known as al-Qāḍī Abū Yaʿlā or simply as Ibn al-Farrāʾ, is a great Hanbali Jurist, Athari theologian and a major authority in the Hanbali school of Jurisprudence, titled by some as 'The Pillar of the School'. He was a Mujaddid and Mujtahid scholar, and one of the early Muslim jurists who played dynamic roles in formulating a systematic legal framework and constitutional theory on Islamic system of government during the first half of the 5th/11th Century in Baghdad. From amongst his students was the great Imam Mahfūz al Kalwadhānī, another leading major Hanbali Mujtahid scholar.

He is also a prominent theologian whose works are favoured and taught by Hanbali jurists, but are also sometimes used by Ash'ari theologians. His works defends the Sunni creed according to the early theory of al-Ithbat wa-l-Tafwid, by which the theologian affirms attributes to God without interpreting them metaphorically, while rejecting anthropomorphism and corporealism at the same time and demonstrating that the coloration is unnecessary. However, despite rejecting anthropomorphism and corporealism in the totality of his works, his book Ibtal al-ta'wilat was misinterpreted as corporealistic and caused dispute among scholars like ibn al jawzi. This has caused a major controversy at his time and prompted Ibn al-Jawzi to write his book Daf' shubhat al-tashbih to repel the popular belief that most Hanbali jurists are anthropomorphist. That said, Abū Yaʿlā remains a major authority and his other theological works studied.