Ibrahim ibn Muhammad Ibn Nujaym was born in 926 AH/1520 CE in Cairo. He studied Hanafi jurisprudence under leading scholars of his era, excelling to become one of the foremost Hanafi jurists of the early Ottoman period in Egypt.
Ibn Nujaym became renowned for his mastery of the overarching legal maxims underlying Hanafi legal reasoning, authoring his reference work «Al-Ashbah wa'l-Naza'ir», which systematically formulates the school's most important legal principles and remains a foundational source in the broader science of Islamic legal maxims. He also compiled his major juristic encyclopedia «Al-Bahr al-Ra'iq Sharh Kanz al-Daqa'iq», a commentary on al-Nasafi's «Kanz al-Daqa'iq».
His Legacy
Ibn Nujaym died in Cairo in 970 AH/1563 CE, at a relatively young age of under forty, yet left a profound juristic legacy. Both «Al-Ashbah wa'l-Naza'ir» and «Al-Bahr al-Ra'iq» remain core texts studied by students of Hanafi jurisprudence today.
