Abu Ja'far al-Tahawi

Abu Ja'far al-Tahawi was one of medieval Egypt's leading Muslim scholars, remembered above all as a jurist (faqih) and a specialist in hadith — the reports of what the Prophet Muhammad said and did. He was born in the village of Taha in Upper Egypt, from which his name "al-Tahawi" comes. His birth year is uncertain: 239 AH (853 CE) is the date most often given, but several biographers report 229, 230, or 238 AH instead, so any single year should be treated as an estimate.

He began his studies under his maternal uncle al-Muzani, a prominent follower of the Shafi'i school of law. As a young man he left that school for the Hanafi school (the legal tradition tracing back to Abu Hanifa), studying under its leading Egyptian authority, Ahmad ibn Abi Imran. Around 268 AH (882 CE) he traveled to Syria, becoming a pupil of Abu Khazim, the chief judge (qadi) of Damascus; biographers also report hadith-gathering visits to towns such as Gaza, Ascalon, and Jerusalem.

He spent his career in Fustat (Old Cairo) and was widely regarded as the foremost Hanafi jurist of Egypt in his generation. His hadith works Sharh Ma'ani al-Athar and Sharh Mushkil al-Athar weigh seemingly conflicting traditions, and his short creed, al-Aqida al-Tahawiyya, remains widely taught among Sunni Muslims today. He died in Egypt, reported as 5 November 933 (321 AH), and was buried in the al-Qarafa cemetery of Cairo.