Ibn Qudamah

Imam Ibn Qudāmah
A 2010 photograph of the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus, where Ibn Qudamah frequently taught and prayed
Jurisconsult, Theologian, Mystic; Shaykh of Islam, Champion of Hanbalism, Prince of the Qadiriyya Saints, Great Master of Hanbalite Law
Venerated in	All of Sunni Islam, but particularly in the Hanbali school (Salafi Sunnis honor rather than venerate him).
Major shrine	Tomb of Imam Ibn Qudāmah, Damascus, Syria

Ibn Qudāmah al-Maqdīsī Muwaffaq al-Dīn Abū Muḥammad ʿAbd Allāh b. Aḥmad b. Muḥammad (Arabic ابن قدامة, Ibn Qudāmah; 1147 - 7 July 1223), often referred to as Ibn Qudamah or Ibn Qudama for short, was a Sunni Muslim ascetic, jurisconsult, traditionalist theologian, and religious mystic. Having authored many important treatises on jurisprudence and religious doctrine, including one of the standard works of Hanbali law, the revered al-Mug̲h̲nī, Ibn Qudamah is highly regarded in Sunnism for being one of the most notable and influential thinkers of the Hanbali school of orthodox Sunni jurisprudence. Within that school, he is one of the few thinkers to be given the honorific epithet of Shaykh of Islam, which is a prestigious title bestowed by Sunnis on some of the most important thinkers of their tradition. A proponent of the classical Sunni position of the "differences between the scholars being a mercy," Ibn Qudamah is famous for having said: "The consensus of the Imams of jurisprudence is an overwhelming proof and their disagreement is a vast mercy."

Ibn Qudamah was born in Palestine in Jammain, a town near Jerusalem (Bayt al-Maqdīs in the Arabic vernacular, whence his extended name), in 1147 to the revered Hanbali preacher and mystic Aḥmad b. Muḥammad b. Qudāmah (d. 1162), "a man known for his asceticism" and in whose honor "a mosque was [later] built in Damascus." Having received the first phase of his education in Damascus, where he studied the Quran and the hadith extensively, Ibn Qudamah made his first trip to Baghdad in 1166, in order to study law and Sufi mysticism under the tutelage of the renowned Hanbali mystic and jurist Abdul-Qadir Gilani (d. ca. 1167), who would go onto become one of the most widely-venerated saints in all of Sunni Islam. Although Ibn Qudamah's "discipleship was cut short by the latter’s death ... [the] experience [of studying under Abdul-Qadir Gilani] ... had its influence on the young" scholar, "who was to reserve a special place in his heart for mystics and mysticism" for the rest of his life.