Ibn Aqil


Abu al-Wafa Ali Ibn Aqil ibn Ahmad al-Baghdadi was an Islamic theologian from Baghdad, Iraq. He was trained in the tenets of the Hanbali school for eleven years under scholars such as the Qadi Abu Ya'la. Despite this, Ibn Aqil was forced into hiding by the Hanbalis for frequenting the circles of groups who were at odds with the Hanbali tradition. In one of his reminiscences, he remarks that his Hanbali companions wanted him to abandon the company of certain scholars, and complains that it hindered him from acquiring useful knowledge.

Creed

Ibn 'Aqil leaned strongly toward Ash'arism; he had signed, arcund 455, the fatwa protesting against its persecution, and it was he who, in 476, performed the ablutions on the body of his friend, Abu Ishaq al-Shirazi, the Ash'arite rector of the Nizamiyya. His forced retraction represents one episode in the struggle carried on by conservative Hanbalites against Ash'arite Shafi'ites, who got back at them five years later when Abu Ishaq al-Shirazi succeeded in getting Abu Ja'far ibn Abi Musa arrested.

Works

Among his works of jurisprudence that have survived are Wadih fi usul al-fiqh and Kitab al-funun, a huge collection of anecdotes about the attitudes and customs of his times, in one hundred volumes.