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Abu al-Layth al-Samarqandi

Abu al-Layth al-Samarqandi

944 CE–983 CE · Samarqand

Abu al-Layth al-Samarqandi (Nasr ibn Muhammad ibn Ahmad, d. 373 AH / 983 CE) was a Sunni Hanafi jurist, Quranic exegete, and moralist active in Samarqand in Transoxiana (in present-day Uzbekistan). He is best known for Tanbih al-Ghafilin, a widely circulated work of admonition and Islamic ethics, and for the Quranic commentary Bahr al-Ulum, and he also composed works of Hanafi jurisprudence; later tradition honored him with the title Imam al-Huda ("Imam of Guidance"). He belonged to the Hanafi school of Central Asia, then a major center of legal and theological scholarship.

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Samarqand

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About Samarqand

Samarqand, in present-day Uzbekistan in the region of Transoxiana (Mawarannahr), was one of the great cities of the Silk Road and, under Timur (Tamerlane), the magnificent capital of the Timurid Empire in the late 14th-15th centuries, a centre of art, science, and the Ulugh Beg observatory. The Hanafi jurist-exegete Abu al-Layth al-Samarqandi (d. c. 983) took his nisba from it.

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