A jurist from Margilan whose al-Hidaya became one of the most authoritative textbooks of Hanafi law, studied from Central Asia to India.
A jurist from Fergana
Burhan al-Din Ali al-Marghinani was born in 1123 near Margilan, in the Fergana Valley, into a family of scholars. He studied in Samarkand and Bukhara, the great centres of Hanafi law in Central Asia, and became a mufti whose rulings were trusted across the region. His name means "the proof of the faith", and his contemporaries used it without irony.
The Guidance
His masterpiece, al-Hidaya — "The Guidance" — is a commentary on his own shorter text. For each question of law it sets out the ruling, the views of the school's founders and the reasoning behind them, so that students learned not only what the law was but how to think it through. It quickly became the standard textbook in madrasas from Central Asia to India.
From the madrasa to the courtroom
Al-Hidaya was commented on dozens of times and translated into Persian under the Mughals; in 1791 an English version made from the Persian was published for the courts of British India, which applied it in cases between Muslims. Al-Marghinani died in Samarkand in 1197. Margilan honours him as its most famous son.
Key achievements
- Wrote al-Hidaya, the most influential textbook of Hanafi law
- Set out each ruling with its reasoning, a method madrasas used to train jurists for centuries
- His book was translated into English in 1791 and used by the courts of British India