Ibn Abidin

Ibn 'Abidin (Arabic: ابن عابدين; full name: Muḥammad Amīn ibn ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz ibn Aḥmad in ʿAbd ar-Raḥīm ibn Najmuddīn ibn Muḥammad Ṣalāḥuddīn al-Shāmī, died 1836 CE / AH 1252), known in the Indian subcontinent as al-Shami, was an Islamic scholar and Jurist who lived in the city of Damascus in Syria during the Ottoman era. He was the authority of the fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence) of the Hanafi madhhab (school of law). He was a state employee with the title of Amin al-fatwa. This meant that he was the mufti that people would go to when they had legal questions in Damascus. He composed over 50 works consisting of a major fatwa (legal statement) collection, many treatises, poems, and several commentaries on the works of others. His most famous work was the Radd al-Muhtar 'ala al-Durr al-Mukhtar. This is still considered the authoritative text of Hanafi fiqh today.