al-Mufid

Abu 'Abd Allah Muhammad ibn Muhammad ibn al-Nu'man, known as al-Shaykh al-Mufid ("the beneficial one") and Ibn al-Mu'allim ("son of the schoolteacher"), was the foremost scholar of Twelver (Imami) Shia Islam in his generation. Twelver Shia are the largest Shia branch, who hold that religious authority passed through twelve designated Imams from the family of the Prophet Muhammad. Sources report he was born in 336 AH (948 CE) in 'Ukbara, a town north of Baghdad, though the later scholar al-Tusi gives 338 AH; he moved as a youth to Baghdad, then ruled by the Buyids, a dynasty sympathetic to Shia scholarship, and spent his whole career there.

Al-Mufid led the Imami community of Baghdad as both jurist (faqih) and theologian. He is remembered for bringing the disciplined methods of kalam (speculative theology), partly learned from Mu'tazili teachers, to bear on Shia doctrine, while parting from the Mu'tazila over the Imamate. His students al-Sharif al-Murtada and al-Shaykh al-Tusi became pillars of later Shia learning. Many works are attributed to him; among those that survive are the legal compendium al-Muqni'a, the creedal Awa'il al-Maqalat, Tashih al-I'tiqad, and al-Irshad on the Imams.

He died in Baghdad on 3 Ramadan 413 AH (1022 CE). Tradition holds that an immense crowd attended his funeral, led by al-Murtada. He was buried near the shrine of the Imams at al-Kazimiyya, where his tomb remains.