Ibn Hazm
Abū Muḥammad ʿAlī ibn Aḥmad ibn Saʿīd ibn Ḥazm (994–1064) was an Andalusian Muslim polymath renowned for his contributions to Islamic jurisprudence, theology, philosophy, history, and literature, particularly as the chief codifier of the Ẓāhirī school, which mandates adherence to the explicit, apparent meanings (ẓāh ir) of the Qurʾān and prophetic traditions while rejecting analogical reasoning (qiyās) and uncritical emulation (taqlīd).[1][2]
Born in Córdoba amid the cultural flourishing of the Umayyad Caliphate, Ibn Ḥazm navigated a turbulent era of political fragmentation following the caliphate's collapse, serving in various administrative roles before dedicating himself to scholarship after repeated imprisonments and banishments from Córdoba due to his uncompromising stances in doctrinal and political disputes.[1]
His prodigious output encompassed some 400 volumes spanning 80,000 pages on topics from ethics and logic to genealogy and comparative religion, with surviving masterpieces including Al-Fiṣal fī al-Milal wa-al-Aḥwāʾ wa-al-Niḥal, a critical survey of sects and creeds, and Ṭawq al-Ḥamāma, a psychological treatise on love drawing from personal experience.[3][1] Ibn Ḥazm's insistence on independent reasoning (ijtihād) grounded solely in primary texts challenged prevailing scholastic traditions, fostering a legacy of rigorous textual fidelity that influenced subsequent thinkers despite the eventual decline of the Ẓāhirī madhhab in Al-Andalus.[2][1]