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al-Shatibi

al-Shatibi

?–1388 CE · Granada

Abu Ishaq Ibrahim ibn Musa al-Shatibi (died 8 Sha'ban 790 AH / 1388 CE) was a legal scholar of Granada, the last Muslim kingdom in the Iberian peninsula. His family name, "al-Shatibi," points to the town of Xativa (Arabic Shatiba) in eastern Iberia, but the sources hold that he was neither born nor lived there; his ancestors had most likely moved to Granada generations before he was born. Unusually for a scholar of his age, he is reported never to have left Granada — neither for the customary study-travels (rihla) nor for the pilgrimage to Mecca (Hajj) — pursuing his entire education with the city's own teachers.

He followed the Maliki school of law (madhhab) and the Ash'ari school of theology, the mainstream of Andalusi Sunni learning. His best-known teacher was the jurist Abu Sa'id ibn Lubb, Granada's preacher and mufti, with whom he later disagreed sharply over questions such as certain state taxes and religious "innovation" (bid'a).

Al-Shatibi is remembered above all for two books. In al-Muwafaqat he set out, more systematically than anyone before him, a theory of the "higher objectives" of the law (maqasid al-shari'a) — the idea that the law aims to protect core human goods. In al-I'tisam he criticised what he regarded as unwarranted innovations in religion. His works drew limited notice in his lifetime; al-Muwafaqat was first printed only in 1884, after which it became deeply influential in modern Islamic legal thought.

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Stop 1 of 11388Born / Lived / Studied / Taught / Died

GranadaגרנדהAl-Andalus, Spain

What they did here

Granada was al-Shatibi's lifelong home: the sources hold he was born there (year unknown; modern estimates put it c. 720-730 AH / c. 1320-1330 CE), studied entirely with its scholars, taught and issued legal opinions there, and died there on 8 Sha'ban 790 AH / 1388 CE. He is reported never to have travelled outside Granada, neither for study (rihla) nor for the Hajj. His death date is attested by his student Abu Yahya ibn 'Asim. Granada was then the capital of the Nasrid kingdom, the last Muslim state in the Iberian peninsula.

About Granada

Granada is a city in Andalusia, southern Spain, at the foot of the Sierra Nevada. It became a major city of al-Andalus in the 11th century as capital of the Zirid taifa kingdom, where the Jewish statesman and poet Samuel ibn Naghrillah served as grand vizier; a massacre of the city's Jews followed in 1066. From the 13th century Granada was capital of the Nasrid emirate, the last Muslim-ruled state in Iberia, whose rulers built the Alhambra and whose court attracted Muslim scholars. The Catholic Monarchs took the city in 1492, and it became Christian over the 16th century; the Carmelite John of the Cross was prior of a monastery there and wrote major works in Granada.

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The world in their lifetime

Thinkers and teachers of other traditions whose lives overlapped with al-Shatibi’s — a glimpse of the wider world they lived in. Drawn purely from recorded birth and death years.

Works(4)