Ibn Daqiq al-'Id

Taḳī al-Dīn Abū ’l-Fatḥ Muḥammad b. ʿAlī b. Wahb b. Muṭīʿ b. Abi ’l-Ṭāʿa, commonly known as Ibn Daqiq al-'Id (Arabic: ابن دقيق العيد; 1228–1302), was a Sunni Egyptian scholar. He is widely accounted as one of Islam's great scholars in the fundamentals of Islamic law and belief, and was the foremost authority in the Shafi'i legal school. He was a prominent jurist with several major works of law to his credit. He was also equally proficient in hadith. He was a highly acclaimed muhaddith and a prolific writer on hadith and ilm al-rijal. He was known as the leading traditionist in his time and it is claimed he was "the most respected scholar of hadith in the thirteenth century." Although Ibn Daqiq al-'Id mastered Shafi'i jurisprudence under Ibn 'Abd al-Salam, he was also well-versed in Maliki fiqh. He served as chief judge of the Shafi'i school in Egypt. He was regarded as a highly esteemed and pious judge in his own day. He excelled in numerous Islamic sciences and was an authority in Arabic language and scholastic theology. He was also known for his great skills in poetry, oratory, and literature. According to Taqi al-Din al-Subki, there was an consensus among Muslims that Ibn Daqiq al-'Id "was a mujtahid mutlaq (absolute/autonomous mujtahid) with complete knowledge of legal sciences" as well as the mujaddid in the 8th Islamic century.