Ebussuud Efendi

Ebussuud Efendi (Mehmed Ebussuud el-Imadi, 1490-1574) was the most influential jurist of the classical Ottoman Empire. His nisba "el-Imadi" is most often traced to the village of İmâd near İskilip in north-central Anatolia, the home district of his father; some accounts instead connect the name to Imadiyya near Mosul, but the Anatolian derivation is the one most sources follow. He trained first under his father, a Sufi shaykh, and then under leading scholars of the imperial learned hierarchy. He taught in a series of madrasas (Islamic colleges) across Anatolia and the Ottoman capital, served as judge (qadi) of Bursa and then of Istanbul, became chief military judge (kazasker) of Rumelia, and in 1545 was appointed Shaykh al-Islam, the empire's highest religious-legal office, which he held for nearly three decades under Sultans Suleiman the Magnificent and Selim II. He is remembered for two things above all. As an exegete he wrote a celebrated commentary on the Qur'an, Irshad al-aql al-salim. As a jurist he is associated with efforts to reconcile the sharia with the sultan's administrative law (qanun), especially in land tenure and taxation, working within the Hanafi school of law. Scholars also note his fatwas (legal opinions) permitting cash endowments and his rulings against the Safavid-aligned Qizilbash, framed in the sectarian conflict of his day; these are matters of historical controversy. Sources differ on his exact birthplace. He was buried in the Eyup district of Istanbul.