al-Quduri

Al-Quduri (Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn Ahmad ibn Ja'far al-Quduri al-Baghdadi, 362–428 AH / 973–1037 CE) was a jurist of the Hanafi school — one of the four main Sunni traditions of Islamic law (fiqh) — who lived and worked in Baghdad. His name is usually explained as an ascription to the trade in cooking-pots (qudur), though other explanations were offered by medieval biographers. Sources differ over his kunya (the "father of" by-name): the Encyclopaedia of Islam and many manuscript title-pages call him Abu'l-Husayn, while some references give Abu'l-Hasan.

According to the biographers, leadership of the Hanafis in Iraq came to rest with him, and he became a respected transmitter of hadith; the historian al-Khatib al-Baghdadi, who compiled the great history of Baghdad, is reported to have studied with him and narrated traditions on his authority.

He is remembered above all for al-Mukhtasar ("the abridgment"), a compact statement of Hanafi rulings that became one of the school's foundational teaching texts. For centuries it served as a beginner's manual and the kernel around which later commentaries and expansions were built; it is still studied today.

He died in Baghdad — reported on 5 Rajab 428 AH (April 1037) — and was buried in the city, tradition holding that he was laid near the Hanafi jurist Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Khwarizmi.