Ibn Hajar al-Haytami

Ibn Hajar al-Haytami (909-974 AH / c. 1503-1566 CE) was a Sunni jurist of the Shafi'i madhhab (one of the four classical Sunni schools of law) whose writings shaped how that school is taught to this day. Sources report he was born in a village of the Nile Delta in western Egypt — usually named Abu al-Haytam (Mahallat Abi al-Haytam), the source of his nisba "al-Haytami." Tradition holds that his father died when he was young and that he was raised under guardians, beginning his schooling at the shrine of the saint Ahmad al-Badawi in Tanta before advancing to al-Azhar in Cairo. There he studied with leading Shafi'i scholars of the age, among them Zakariyya al-Ansari and Shihab al-Din al-Ramli.

He made the pilgrimage (hajj) to Mecca and, after earlier visits, settled there permanently around 940 AH / 1533 CE, where he taught, issued fatwas (legal responsa) and wrote for the rest of his life. His best-known work, Tuhfat al-Muhtaj, is a commentary on al-Nawawi's Minhaj al-Talibin; later Shafi'is treated it as one of the principal references for the school's mu'tamad (relied-upon) rulings. In creed he is generally counted an Ash'ari. He died in Mecca in 974 AH / 1566 CE and is reported to have been buried in the Ma'la cemetery. He should not be confused with the earlier hadith master Ibn Hajar al-'Asqalani.