The Qawaanin of Ibn Juzayy
Abū al-Qāsim Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad ibn Juzayy al-Kalbī al-Gharnāṭī al-Mālikī
One of the many master pieces of the Maliki library that studies cannot be complete without is the Qawaanin Al-Fiqhiyyah of the Polymath and Maliki Sage Ibn Juzayy Al-Kalbi.
He was born Abū al-Qāsim Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad ibn Juzayy al-Kalbī al-Gharnāṭī al-Mālikī on the 19th of Rabi Al-Awwal 693 years after the Hijrah to a very educated and learned family of Scholars.
His knowledge was taken from the Imams and Jurists of Granada and Shaatibah right from the very early childhoods of his life. He excelled his peers and distinguished himself right from his early days till he became a light and a guide and an Imaam, a Qaadi, a Jurist, a Muhaddith, an Usuli and a Mufassir.
He authored several works in the Sciences of Usul, Tafsir, Grammer, Poetry and Jurisprudence. His Tafsir At-Tas’hil Li ‘Ulumi At-Tanzil is a masterpiece for Tafsir and very recommended. Same with his book in Usul Taqrīb al-Wuṣūl ‘ilā ‘Ilm al-Uṣūl.
The Qawaanin is a book on Fiqh that is primarily featured on summarizing the Maliki Fiqh but in many ways it is a comparative manual of the Fiqh of the four madhhabs (Maliki, Hanafi, Shafi`i, Hanbali) with emphasis on the Maliki school and notices of the views of the Zahiri, the Schools of Sufyan Ath-Thawri, Al-Hasan Al-Basri, Abu Thawr, An-Nakha’i, Ibn Raahawayh, Al-Awzaa’i and others, highlighting places of agreement and places of divergence between the schools.
One very important use of this book is that it opens the heart of the Students of Knowledge who has been primarily schooled in the Maliki Madh’hab to the position of other schools of Fiqh highlighting for him the places where the other Imams varied with his School.
It is mentioned in Azhaaru Ar-Riyaadh that Ibn Juzayy passed away as Shahid in the Battle of Tarif on the 7th of Jumaad Al-Awwal 741 years after the Hijrah. Rahimahullah.
The Qawaanin is a very interesting book to study for he threaded a path between lengthy and concise, and between exhaustive and summary, making it easy for the student of Knowledge and the memorizers of Fiqh.
Barakallahu Fikum
Jazakumullahu Khayran
