Imam al-Haramayn al-Juwayni

1028 CE–1085 CE · Nishapur

Abu'l-Ma'ali 'Abd al-Malik al-Juwayni (1028-1085 CE / 419-478 AH) was one of the foremost Sunni jurists and theologians of the eastern Islamic world. He is widely known by the honorific Imam al-Haramayn, "leading master of the two sanctuaries" (Mecca and Medina), a title associated with years he spent teaching there. Born near Nishapur in Khurasan (today's northeastern Iran) into a distinguished scholarly family, he trained first under his father, a noted master of Shafi'i law, one of Sunni Islam's four schools of jurisprudence (madhhabs).

Al-Juwayni followed the Ash'ari school of theology (kalam, speculative theology). Reports hold that during the rule of the Saljuq sultan Tughril Beg, the vizier al-Kunduri instituted a public denunciation, or mihna, of the Ash'aris in Nishapur around the early 1050s, prompting al-Juwayni and other scholars (among them al-Qushayri) to leave the city. After a period that some accounts place in Baghdad, he spent about four years in the Hijaz, teaching at Mecca and Medina, the cities associated with his honorific.

When the pro-Ash'ari vizier Nizam al-Mulk rose to power, al-Juwayni returned to Nishapur to head its new Nizamiyya college, where he taught for the rest of his life — a span of roughly two decades. His most celebrated works are al-Burhan on legal theory (usul al-fiqh) and Nihayat al-Matlab on Shafi'i law; he also wrote the theological al-Irshad. His most famous student was Abu Hamid al-Ghazali. He died in Nishapur in 1085.

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Stop 1 of 51028–1053Born

Nishapur

What they did here

Born in 1028 CE (419 AH) in a village near Nishapur (Bushtaniqan, in the Juwayn district) in Khurasan. He was raised and first educated there, studying under his father, a prominent Shafi'i jurist, and rising to scholarly prominence in the city's thriving learned milieu. The birth year is well attested; the year he left is an estimate tied to the onset of the mihna.

About Nishapur

Nishapur (Naysabur), in the Khurasan region of northeastern Iran, was one of the four great cities of medieval Khurasan and a major centre of Shafi'i law, hadith, and Sufism. The hadith master Muslim ibn al-Hajjaj (d. 875), compiler of the Sahih, was born and died there, and the Shi'i imam Ali al-Rida (d. 818) passed through it on his way to Tus.

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