Ibn al-Mulaqqin

He was born 723 A.H which corresponds to the year 1323 in Andalous (now known as modern-day Spain). His father called Nur al-Din Ali was an Andalusian by origin and was from a village called Wadi Ash in the province of Granada in southern Spain, where he was a famous scholar in Arabic Grammar and then moved to West Africa where he taught Qu'ran until he had accumulated enough income to immigrate to Cairo and he studied under al-Isnawiy. His father then passed away when Ibn Mulaqqin was young so he was raised and taken care by Shaykh 'Isa al-Maghribi who was requested by his father to look after his family after his death. Al-Maghribi who was a Qu'ran teacher married ibn al-Mulaqqin's mother and therefore raised him to which he became known as Ibn al-Mulaqqin.[3]

He memorised the whole Quran at a young age and studied famous books like Umdatul Ahkam in hadith and al-Minhaj in fiqh. Whilst he was still young, he also heard over a thousand small books or compilations on hadith alone. Ibn al-mulaqqin's stepfather decided he should study the Maliki jurisprudence, but his friends and colleagues advised him that he to be educated in the Shafi'i jurisprudence due to the fact that there were greater opportunities for employment in the Mamluk Sultanate.[5]

He travelled to Cairo, Alexandria, Aleppo, Damascus, Jerusalem, Hejaz (Mecca & Medina) and Yemen studying under numerous scholars and most prominently Shaykh al-Islam Taqi al-Din al-Subki and Jamal al-Din al-Isnawi.[4]

Ibn Al-Mulaqqin was appointed as the Shafi'i judge in the eastern district of Egypt and deputy chief judge in Cairo. He became a teacher at the mausoleum of al-Salih and taught Shafi'i jurisprudence there. He was given several preaching positions where he undertook them including at the al-Hakim mosque: and he taught hadith briefly in Dar al-Hadith (college of Hadith) in the Kaliliyya madrasa. But Ibn al-Mulaqqin dream was to become the Shafi'i chief judge of Egypt and he found connections through his friends and the future Sultan Barquq but that eventually caused him serious problems with his rival scholars who plotted against him, resulting in his brief imprisonment.[5]

He produced numerous scholars and some of his famous students include:

• Wali al-Din al-'Iraqi the son of Zain al-Din al-'Iraqi
• Ibn Hajar Al-Asqalani
• Jalal ad-Din al-Mahalli
• Al-Maqrizi
• Ibn Nasir al-Dimishqi
• Ibn al-'Ajmi

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Ibn Mulaqqin was a practising Sufi who transmitted the khirqa (a cloak placed on the head from master to disciple which indicates a spiritual lineage of Sufi tradition) and Ibn Mulaqqin claimed to have met the famous immortal saint called Al-Khadir.[5]

Despite being highly popular and respected by his contemporaries for his superb commentaries on legal sciences and due to his sheer volume of his writing skills, this sparked attention and led to some major criticism. The Syrian scholar, Ibn Hijji called him a sloppy scholar and accused him for plagiarism. Other Syrian scholars were also very critical of him dismissing him as a "copyist who makes many mistakes". Although such allegations were shut down by many major scholars of his time and those that came after him had defended his honour.[6]

Ibn Mulaqqin had a passion for writing and absolutely loved books. By the end of his life, he wrote and accumulated a huge collection but unfortunately, lost them due to a fire breaking out which severely broke him down mentally and leaving him despondent and isolated. Ibn Hajar wrote that "Ibn Mulaqqin was of sound mind before his books burned, but afterwards his son had to hide him." He passed away on a Friday evening on the 15th of October in the year of 1401. He was buried in the Sufi cemetery near his father outside of the Bab al-Nasr, in Cairo.[6]