Muwaffaq ad-Din Abu Muhammad Abdullah ibn Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn Qudamah al-Maqdisi al-Jamma'ili

Abdullah ibn Ahmad ibn Qudamah was born in Jamma'il, a village near Jerusalem, in 1147 CE (541 AH). His family migrated to Damascus when he was ten years old, fleeing the Crusader occupation of Palestine. In Damascus, they settled on Mount Qasiyun in a community of Palestinian scholars that became an important center of Hanbali learning. He studied under numerous scholars in Damascus before traveling extensively to Baghdad, Makkah, and elsewhere to pursue hadith and fiqh.

Ibn Qudamah's magnum opus, Al-Mughni (The Enricher), is a monumental work of comparative jurisprudence structured as a commentary on the Hanbali primer Al-Muqni' (also authored by him). What makes Al-Mughni exceptional is its comprehensive treatment of Hanbali law in the context of the other three schools — for virtually every legal question, Ibn Qudamah presents the Hanbali position alongside the views of the Hanafi, Maliki, and Shafi'i schools, evaluating the evidence for each. This comparative approach makes Al-Mughni invaluable not only for Hanbali scholars but for any student of Islamic jurisprudence seeking to understand the range of scholarly opinion.

Beyond jurisprudence, Ibn Qudamah authored important works on creed (Lum'at al-I'tiqad), spirituality (Kitab at-Tawwabin), and hadith. He also participated in the military campaigns against the Crusaders alongside Salah ad-Din al-Ayyubi (Saladin). He died in Damascus in 1223 CE (620 AH), leaving a scholarly legacy that defines Hanbali jurisprudence to this day.