Burhān ad-DīnIbrāhīm ibn Muḥammad ibn Ibrāhīmal-Ḥalabī (برهان الدين ٳبراهيم بن محمد بن ٳبراهيم الحلبى) was an Islamic jurist (faqīh) who was born around 1460 in Aleppo, and who died in 1549 in Istanbul. His reputation as one of the most brilliant legists of his time chiefly rests on his work entitledMultaqā al-Abḥur, which became the standard handbook of theḤanafī school of Islamic law in the Ottoman Empire.

Not many details are known about the life of Ibrāhīm al-Ḥalabī, with the available contemporary sources offering only an outline of his career. All known facts are presented by Has (1981),^[2] virtually all of them found in a single source, the biographical dictionaryal-Shaqā’iq al-Nu‛māniyya compiled byṬāshköpri-Zāda (d. 1561).

Al-Ḥalabī'snisba refers to his origin from Aleppo (in Arabic, Ḥalab), then part of theMamluk Sultanate, where he was born around 1460. He received his initial education in the Islamic sciences in his hometown, and he also attended lectures in Damascus. This qualified him to work for some time as a prayer leader (imām) and orator (khaṭīb) in Aleppo.

In order to pursue his studies, late in the fifteenth century he moved to Cairo, the capital of the Mamluk Sultanate. In Cairo he probably attended lectures at theal-Azhar University, which offered a curriculum in Ḥanafī jurisprudence. He also studied with the famous scholar and prolific author Jalāl al-Dīnal-Suyūṭī (d. 1505), renowned for his studies ontafsīr andḥadīth.

Around the year 1500, al-Ḥalabī moved to Istanbul, capital of the Ottoman Empire. His scholarly qualifications were apparently soon recognized, and he held the posts ofimām andkhaṭīb in various mosques, until he was finally appointed to the same posts in the prestigiousFātiḥ Mosque. He was also appointed as teacher in the newDār al-Qurrā’ "House of Reciters" established byShaykh al-Islām Sa‛dī Chelebī (d. 1539). It is in Istanbul that al-Ḥalabī wrote and published his most famous work,Multaqā al-Abḥur (ملتقى الأبحر).^[3]

Having lived the greater part of his life in Istanbul, and having attained a reputation among his contemporaries as one of the greatest jurists of the age, al-Ḥalabī died at the reported age of ninety in the year 1549. He is buried in theEdirnekapı neighbourhood of Istanbul.

The Austrian diplomat and historianJoseph von Hammer-Purgstall (1774–1856) includes al-Ḥalabī in his top ten of "profound legists" of the sixteenth century, the Ottoman golden age.^[4]

An extensively annotated list of al-Ḥalabī's writings is presented by Has.^[5] This list contains important additions and corrections to earlier lists, in particular the one provided by Brockelmann.^[6] Apart fromMultaqā al-Abḥur (on which see the next sections), the other books and treatises known to have been written by al-Ḥalabī are listed below.

Two works of al-Ḥalabī gained wide currency as schoolprimers, because of the simple Arabic in which they are written:

• Ghunyat al-Mutamallī, known in Turkish asHalebi-i Kebir "great Ḥalabī", a commentary onMunyat al-Muṣallī, a text on ritual prayer by Sadīd al-Dīn Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad al-Kāshgharī (d. 1305).
• Mukhtaṣar Ghunyat al-Mutamallī, an abridgement of the previous text, known in Turkish asHalebi-i Sağir "small Ḥalabī".^[7]

Three other book-length works probably originated as working notes made by al-Ḥalabī during his studies of Ḥanafī jurisprudence:

• al-Fawā’id al-Muntakhaba min al-Fatāwā al-Tātārkhāniyya, an anthology offatwās selected from a larger, authoritative collection^[8] compiled by order of Khān-i A‛ẓam Tātārkhān, a nobleman at the court of Muḥammad Shāh II (r. 1325-1351) of theṬughlāq dynasty in northern India.
• Mukhtaṣar Fatḥ al-Qadīr,^[9] a summary ofFatḥ al-Qadīr by Muḥammad ibn ‛Abd al-Wāḥid Ibn al-Humām (d. 1457),^[10] a voluminous commentary on al-Marghīnānī'sHidāya, one of the sources of al-Ḥalabī'sMultaqā.
• Mukhtaṣar al-Jawāhir al-Muḍiyya fī Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanafiyya, an abridgement of a work by Abū Muḥammad ‛Abd al-Qādir ibn Abī al-Wafā’ (d. 1373) containing biographical and bibliographical information on the "classes" (ṭabaqāt) of scholars belonging to the Ḥanafī school.

Other, lesser known works are:

• Naẓm Sīrat al-Nabī wa-Sharḥuh, a versified biography of Muḥammad in 63 verses, with the author's own commentary.
• al-Ḥilya al-Sharīfa, on Muḥammad and his virtues, mainly based on the famousKitāb al-Shifā’ byQāḍī ‛Iyāḍ (d. 1149).
• Kitāb Fuṣūl al-Arba‛īn, a selection of traditions (ḥadīth) arranged in forty chapters, concerned with various aspects of Islamic ritual (attributed, authorship not certain).
• A commentary on an ode (qaṣīda) composed by Sharaf al-Dīn Ismā‛īl ibn Muqri’ al-Yamanī (d. 1433), a Shāfi‛ī scholar.

A notable aspect of al-Ḥalabī's conservative views is his opposition against the philosophy and works ofIbn ‛Arabī (d. 1240), thesufi mystic. This took the form of two of lengthy treatises containing hard criticisms of Ibn ‛Arabī's famous workFuṣūṣ al-Ḥikam, and another treatise against extreme sufi practices such as dancing (raqṣ) andwhirling (dawarān):

• Ni‛mat al-Dharī‛a fī Nuṣrat al-Sharī‛a.
• Tasfīh al-Ghabī fī Tanzīh Ibn ‛Arabī.
• al-Rahṣ wa-l-Waqṣ li-Mustaḥill al-Raqṣ.

More conventional treatises on arcane legal matters are:

• al-Qiyām ‛inda Dhikr Wilādat Rasūl Allāh, against the practise of standing up when the birth of Muḥammad is mentioned during the celebration of themawlid.
• Risāla fī al-Masḥ ‛alā al-Khuffayn, on the lawfulness of the practice of rubbing footwear during ritual purification, a much debated issue at the time.
• Risāla fī al-Radd ‛alā man I‛taqada Islām Āzār, on the question of whether there were infidels among the ancestors of Muḥammad.
• Risāla fī Ḥaqq Abaway Nabiyyinā (‛alayh al-salām), on the question of whether any of the people who died before the mission of Muḥammad could be regarded as true believers.
• Risālat al-Himmaṣa, on the lawfulness of using a concoction of chick peas as a poultice.
• Risāla fī Tawjīh al-Tashbīh.^[11]
• Risāla fī Sharaf al-Qurashī Nabiyyinā.^[12]

The following works are among those which have been wrongly attributed to Ibrāhīm al-Ḥalabī:^[13]

• Silk al-Niẓām, by Ibrāhīm ibn Muṣṭafā al-Ḥalabī (d. 1776)^[14] a commentary onJawāhir al-Kalām, a philosophical text by ‛Aḍud al-Dīn ‛Abd al-Raḥmān ibn Aḥmad al-Ījī (d. 1355).^[15]
• Durrat al-Muwaḥḥidīn wa-Dirrat al-Mulḥidīn by Ibrāhīm ibn Shaykh al-Islām Mūsā al-Ḥalabī,^[16] a pamphlet exhorting SultanBāyazīd II (r. 1481-1512) to take action against the persecution of Sunni Muslims under the PersianSafavids.
• Tuḥfat al-Akhyār by Ibrāhīm ibn Muṣṭafā al-Ḥalabī (d. 1776), a supercommentary on al-Ḥaṣkafī's (d. 1677) commentaryal-Durr al-Mukhtār onTanwīr al-Abṣār wa-Jāmi‛ al-Biḥār by al-Timirtāshī (d. 1595).^[17]
• Risāla fī Mas’alat al-Jabl min Awā’il Sharḥ Qāḍī-Zāda ‛alā Mulakhkhaṣ al-Jaghmīnī, a text composed in 1411 (i.e. before al-Ḥalabī's birth) by another, otherwise unidentified Ibrāhīm al-Ḥalabī.^[18] The text is a treatise on an issue brought up by Qāḍī-Zāda (d. 1412) in his commentary on theMulakhkhaṣ of al-Jaghmīnī (d. 1212).^[19]

Al-Ḥalabī's most famous work is entitledMultaqā al-Abḥur "Confluence of the Seas", completed by the author on 23 Rajab 923 (11 September 1517).^[20] The work is a condensation of a number of earlier standard compilations of Ḥanafī jurisprudence (the "seas" of the title). The author neatly points out where these sources agree, and where they disagree, and provides guidance by indicating which legal opinions in his estimation are most correct (aṣaḥḥ), strongest (aqwā), or preferable (arjaḥ), and indicating which opinion is preferred in formal legal opinion (al-mukhtār li-l-fatwā).^[21]

Usually referred to as theMultaqā (in Turkish,Mülteka), the work is comprehensive yet concise,^[22] and written in a simple style. These qualities earned it a reputation as a convenient reference-book among judges, and made it a standard textbook in the Ottoman madrasas from the reign of sultanSüleyman I "the Magnificent" (r. 1520-1566), replacing al-Nasafī'sKanz al-Daqā’iq.^[23] The book would retain its pre-eminence for three centuries.

The popularity of theMultaqā can be gauged from the large number of commentaries written over the following centuries, and from the fact that the text was translated into Turkish. The canonical status of theMultaqā was also noted by several European observers, with Farley remarking that "The Sultan rules over the Turks, but the Koran and the Multeka rule over Sultan."^[24]

TheMultaqā retained its importance right up to the very last years of the Ottoman Empire. TheMecelle, the Ottoman civil code promulgated in 1877, incorporates more passages translated directly from theMultaqā than from any other single source.^[25] Also, twelve printed editions of the text were produced in Istanbul between 1836 and 1898.^[26]

The German-British scholarJoseph Schacht used theMultaqā as the primary source for the systematic section in his seminalIntroduction to Islamic law (1964). He describes theMultaqā as "one of the latest and most highly esteemed statements of the doctrine of the [Ḥanafī] school, which presents Islamic law in its final, fully developed form".^[27]

The contents of theMultaqā are arranged according to the conventional divisions of a Ḥanafī lawbook, with the main subjects treated in 57 books (kitāb, listed below), and with further subdivisions into chapters (bāb) and sections (faṣl).

In his brief introduction to theMultaqā, the author mentions the four central texts on which his work is mainly based. He refers to these texts asal-kutub al-arba‛a "the four books"; in Ḥanafī tradition they are also known asal-mutūn al-arba‛a "the four texts". They are:

• al-Mukhtaṣar by Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad al-Qudūrī (d. 1037).^[28]
• al-Mukhtār li-l-Fatwā by Abū al-Faḍl Majd al-Dīn ‛Abd Allāh ibn Maḥmūd al-Mawṣilī (d. 1284).^[29]
• Kanz al-Daqā’iq fī al-Furū‛ by Ḥāfiẓ al-Dīn Abū al-Barakāt ‛Abd Allāh ibn Aḥmad al-Nasafī (d. 1310).^[30]
• Wiqāyat al-Riwāya fī Masā’il al-Hidāya by Burhān al-Dīn Maḥmūd ibn ‛Ubayd Allāh al-Maḥbūbī (d. 1312).^[31]

To the materials taken from these sources al-Ḥalabī added (in his words) "whatever is needed" and "a small portion" respectively from two other well-known Ḥanafī works:

• Majma‛ al-Baḥrayn wa-Multaqā al-Nayyirayn by Muẓaffar al-Dīn Aḥmad ibn ‛Alī al-Baghdādī, known as Ibn al-Sā‛ātī "son of the clockmaker" (d. 1294).^[32]
• al-Hidāya fī Sharḥ al-Bidāya by Burhān al-Dīn ‛Alī ibn Abī Bakral-Marghīnānī (d. 1197).^[33]

These six sources are part of the vast and complex network of texts on Ḥanafī jurisprudence already existent at the time. The nature of the many intertextual relationships can be illustrated with al-Ḥalabī's sources: al-Qudūrī'sMukhtaṣar, as its title indicates, is a "synopsis" of earlier works; al-Mawṣilī'sMukhtār is an anthology of fatwās, mainly those ofAbū Ḥanīfa (d. 767CE), the founder of the Ḥanafī school; al-Nasafī'sKanz is an abridgement of his ownKitāb al-Wāfī, which in turn is modelled on al-Marghinānī'sHidāya; al-Maḥbūbī'sWiqāya is excerpted from al-Marghīnānī'sHidāya, which in turn is a commentary on its author's own popular textbookBidāyat al-Mubtadi’, which used Qudūrī'sMukhtaṣar as one of its two main sources; finally, theMajma‛ of Ibn al-Sā‛ātī is based on two sources, al-Qudūrī'sMukhtaṣar and theManẓūma by Najm al-Dīn Abū Ḥafṣ ‛Umaral-Nasafī (d. 1068).^[34]

The prime characteristic of theMultaqā which gave the book its central place is its comprehensiveness. This made the book into a sort of "one stop shop" for judges, obviating the need for them to enter the thicket of existing, usually much more voluminous works, and thus saving them a lot of time and effort. It has to be borne in mind here that medieval books are generally not furnished with tables of contents, indexes or numbered chapters and sections.

Inevitably, having become the most popular handbook of Ḥanafī jurisprudence, al-Ḥalabī's work spawned its own plethora of commentaries, supercommentaries and glosses. More than fifty such works have been identified.^[35] The earliest commentary, by Sulaymān ibn ‛Alī al-Qaramānī (d. 1518) was completed within a year of theMultaqā's completion, but no copies of it seem to have survived. The earliest still extant commentary was composed in 1587, while the most recent commentary dates from 1862. The most widely consulted commentaries are:

• Majma‛ al-Anhur by ‛Abd al-Raḥmān ibn Muḥammad ibn Shaykh Sulaymān, known as Shaykh-Zāda (d. 1667).^[36]
• al-Durr al-Muntaqā by ‛Alā’ al-Dīn Muḥammad ibn ‛Alī al-Ḥaṣkafī (d. 1677).^[37]

During the reign of SultanIbrāhīm (r. 1640-1648), a Turkish translation was made of al-Ḥalabī's text with Shaykh-Zāda's commentary, and with added annotations. It is entitledMevkufat,^[38] and was prepared by Muḥammad Mawqūfātī (Mevkufati Mehmed Efendi), by order of Grand VizierMuṣṭafā Pasha. The first printed editions of this work appeared inBūlāq (1838) and Istanbul (1852),^[39] and modern printed editions of theMevkufat, in Latin script, are still being published in Turkey.^[40] Several modern Turkish translations of theMultaqā, with fresh commentaries, are available as well.^[41]

In view of the central place which theMultaqā acquired in the Ottoman legal system, as noted at the time by European observers, it is a curious fact that no complete translation of it into a western European language was ever made. D'Ohsson (1788-1824, vol. 5-6) and Sauvaire (1882) offer a translation into French of only a few selected chapters. As Hammer-Purgstall remarked,^[42]

"a complete translation of [theMultaqā] will be perfectly adequate for a more thorough knowledge of Islamic civil legislation and Ottoman private law."

• Sharī‛a
• Madhhab
• Ḥanafī
• Fiqh
• Faqīh
• Fatwā
• Ottoman Empire

• Brockelmann, Carl (1937–1949).Geschichte der arabischen Litteratur. 2nd edition, vol. G I-II, S I-III, Leiden: Brill.ISBN 9789004230262.{{cite book}}:ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)CS1 maint: location (link)
• Davudoğlu, Ahmed (2013).Mevkufat: Mülteka Tercümesi. Istanbul: Sağlam Yayınevi.ISBN 9789759180812.
• Farley, James Lewis (1876).Turks and Christians. London: Simpkin, Marshall & Co.
• von Hammer, Joseph (1815).Des osmanischen Reichs Staatsverfassung und Staatsverwaltung. Wien: Camesinasche Buchhandlung.
• de Hammer, Joseph (1835–1843).Histoire de l'empire Ottoman. Vol. 1-18, Paris: Bellizard, Barthès, Dufour et Lowell.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location (link)
• Has, Şükrü Selim (1981).A study of Ibrāhīm al-Ḥalabī with special reference to the Multaqā. Edinburgh University: PhD thesis.
• Has, Şükrü Selim (1988)."The use of Multaqā 'l-Abḥur in the Ottoman madrasas and in legal scholarship"(PDF).Osmanlı Araştırmaları.VII–VIII:393–418. Archived fromthe original(PDF) on 2017-04-03. Retrieved2017-04-02.
• Khan, Aamir Shahzada (2014).Multaqā al-Abḥur of Ibrāhīm al-Ḥalabī (d. 1549): A Ḥanafī legal text in its sixteenth-century Ottoman context. Budapest Central European University: MA thesis.
• d'Ohsson, Ignatius Mouradgea (1788–1824).Tableau général de l'Empire Othoman. Vol. 1-7, Paris: Firmin Didot.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location (link)
• Redhouse, James (1968).Redhouse Yeni Türkçe-İngilizce Sözlük. Istanbul: Redhouse Yayınevi.
• Sauvaire, Henry (1882).Droit musulman (rite hanafite). Le moultaqa el abheur avec commentaire abrégé du Majma' el anheur. Marseille: Académie des sciences, belles-lettres et arts.
• Schacht, Joseph (1964).An Introduction to Islamic law. Oxford: Clarendon.ISBN 9780198254737.{{cite book}}:ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)
• Uysal, Mustafa (2000).İzahlı Mülteka el-Ebhur Tercümesi. Istanbul: Çelik Yayınevi.ISBN 9789756457917.
• Vanlıoğlu, Hüsameddin (2011).Mülteka Tercümesi. Istanbul: Yasin Yayınevi.ISBN 9786055719708.

[1] Manuscript ofMultaqā al-abḥur, dated 1102 AH (1691 AD). Free Library of Philadelphia, Rare Book Department, Lewis O 30.

• 1460 births
• 1549 deaths
• People from Aleppo
• 15th-century jurists
• 16th-century jurists
• Hanafis
• Maturidis
• Academic staff of Al-Azhar University
• Critics of Ibn Arabi

• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• CS1 errors: ISBN date
• CS1 maint: location
• CS1: long volume value