Al-Layth ibn Sa'd

An independent jurist (mujtahid mutlaq) and hadith scholar; in his day the greatest jurist and traditionist of Egypt, one of the fuqaha al-amsar whose views served as a basis for legal opinion and judgment. His full name is Abu al-Harith al-Layth b. Sa'd b. Abd al-Rahman al-Fahmi.

He was born in Sha'ban 94 (May 713) in the village of Qarqashanda (Qalqashanda) in the district of Tukh, in the province of Qalyubiyya near Cairo in Lower Egypt. It appears that his family came originally from the district of Marbin or Tabna near Isfahan in Iran and were clients of the Banu Fahm in Egypt. His father Sa'd b. Abd al-Rahman al-Fahmi was from Isfahan; he was born in 42 (662) and died after 100 (718-19). The Banu Fahm, to whom he was attached by clientage, held great influence in Egypt in the Umayyad period; in his youth three grandsons of Khalid b. Thabit al-Fahmi had served as governors of Egypt, and the source notes that they played a part in his upbringing.

He studied with many scholars in Egypt and the Hijaz and also travelled to centres of learning such as Damascus, Jerusalem and Baghdad. On his first pilgrimage, in 113 (732), he met in Mecca scholars such as Ata b. Abi Rabah, Ibn Abi Mulayka, Ibn Shihab al-Zuhri, Abu al-Zubayr, Imran b. Abi Anas and Nafi', the client of Ibn Umar. Among his hadith teachers were also Hisham b. Urwa, Sa'id b. Abi Sa'id al-Maqburi, Yazid b. Abi Habib, Yahya b. Sa'id al-Ansari and Abd al-Aziz al-Majishun. It is related that he met and benefited from more than fifty of the Successors and some 150 persons of the following generation and after.

While still young he won the esteem of the leading scholars of Egypt, and under both the Umayyads and the Abbasids he enjoyed great standing with caliphs and statesmen. The governors of Egypt would take no final decision on a matter without consulting him. When the Umayyad caliph Marwan II wrote to the Egyptians asking them to choose someone to assist Hawthara b. Suhayl, whom he had appointed governor, Layth was chosen unanimously, although two of his teachers were still alive. In 140 (758), when the caliph al-Mansur was in Jerusalem on his return from the pilgrimage, Layth came before him as envoy at the head of a delegation; the caliph offered him the governorship (or the judgeship) of Egypt, and Layth declined, saying he was not equal to the task and was of client status. It is also related that he held certain official posts, such as membership of the Diwan al-Ata, the governorship of the Jazira and the administration of a diwan.

He had influence on some important political and religious decisions of his time. He brought about the dismissal of Isma'il b. al-Yasa' al-Kindi, a pupil of Abu Hanifa and the first judge of Egypt, by complaining to the caliph al-Mahdi that in abolishing endowments in line with his teacher's view he had acted against the Sunna and the practice of the Companions. When the Christian churches of Egypt demolished in 170 by the governor Ali b. Sulayman were to be rebuilt, the new governor Musa b. Isa gave permission a year later after consulting Layth and Ibn Lahi'a; the two scholars said they regarded church building as part of the country's development and stated that the churches of Egypt had been built in the Islamic period, in the time of the Companions and the Successors.

His daily programme was divided into four activities: meeting the governor and dealing with the religious problems he faced, narrating hadith to his students, resolving the religious questions of the people, and helping those in need. The sources record his generosity: although his annual income was 20-25,000 dinars, he distributed his wealth as alms before the year was out, so that zakat never became due from him and at times he was even in debt; it is related that he gave substantial help to scholars such as Ibn Lahi'a, Imam Malik and Mansur b. Ammar al-Wa'iz.

He died on 14 Sha'ban 175 (16 December 791). The governor of Egypt, Musa b. Isa al-Hashimi, led his funeral prayer, and he was buried in al-Qarafa al-Sughra, south of Cairo.

His Circle of Influence — Among those who learned from him were Hushaym b. Bashir, Abd Allah b. al-Mubarak, Ibn Wahb, Ibn Lahi'a, al-Qa'nabi, Ibn al-Qasim, Ashhab al-Qaysi, Qutayba b. Sa'id, Abd Allah b. Salih, known as the Scribe of Layth, Yahya b. Bukayr and Yahya b. Yahya al-Laythi. His son Shu'ayb and his grandson Abd al-Malik were among the scholars trained in law and hadith; Muslim and Abu Dawud narrated hadith from Layth through them. In his day he was regarded as the imam of the people of Egypt in hadith and law; Imam Malik too, in the letter he sent him, stresses his leadership in his homeland and the people's trust in his legal opinions. Al-Shafi'i says that the science of transmission circulated among Malik, Layth and Sufyan b. Uyayna. Despite this standing, no school formed around his legal views; al-Shafi'i ascribes this to his students' failure to spread them. The rise of the Maliki and Shafi'i schools in Egypt led to his unsystematised views being forgotten over time; yet Andalusian scholars such as Muhammad b. Bashir al-Ma'afiri and Yahya b. Yahya al-Laythi followed him on some points where he differed from Malik, and several of his views found wide application in al-Andalus. The reports he transmitted are found in all six canonical collections; with repetitions, al-Bukhari's al-Jami' al-sahih comes first with more than 450.

His Poetry and Sufi Line — Layth was not a poet but a jurist and traditionist; this section gives his scholarly line. A peer of Imam Malik, raised in almost the same milieu, Layth stood essentially close to the Medinan school of hadith while also being influenced by the Kufan school of opinion: he attended the circle of Rabi'a b. Abd al-Rahman and, meeting Abu Hanifa on the pilgrimage, put legal questions to him. The soundest source for his legal theory is the treatise he wrote in reply to Imam Malik on the practice of the people of Medina: Malik had sent a letter arguing that Medinan practice had the character of the practice of the Prophet and his Companions; Layth, after stating his respect for the Medinan scholars, recalled that from the Companions' time the Muslim armies that went to Egypt, Syria and Iraq had included experts versed in the Qur'an, the Sunna and reasoned opinion, that the Companions and Successors had differed on many questions, and listed examples contradicting Medinan practice. The source states that this shows Layth regarded practice with caution and gave greater weight to transmitted report; al-Shafi'i's saying "Layth follows the transmitted report more than Malik" has this sense. He did not approve of departing from consensus and gave particular weight to the agreement of the Medinan scholars. Little is known of his theological views; it is stated that he favoured accepting the ambiguous reports without interpretation, that though he reached the age of eighty he never entered into disputation, and that in Egypt he dispelled hostility to Uthman by narrating reports on his virtues. In technique of transmission he was among the first traditionists to use the method of ard; unlike most traditionists, he held transmission by writing (kitaba) and handing over (munawala) permissible. His reports from Aisha through Ata, from Ibn Abbas through Ibn Abi Mulayka, from Ibn Umar through Nafi' and from Abu Hurayra through al-Maqburi were the highest chains of his time. He sifted Abu al-Zubayr's books of reports from Jabir by having him mark those he had heard directly.

His Works — Ibn al-Nadim records two works of Layth, the Kitab masa'il al-fiqh and the Kitab al-tarikh; according to some reports the Masa'il al-fiqh was a critique of Imam Malik's views. The Kitab al-tarikh, from which al-Kindi quotes, is known to have survived down to the VI (XII) century; the historical reports from Layth in the books of many authors are probably based on it. A hadith collection (asl) made up of hadiths he gathered from various teachers and a Kitab al-riqq, apparently containing reports on slavery, are also recorded. His letter to Imam Malik is important not only for legal theory but also because it contains some ten of his legal views. The hadiths he narrated were gathered into fascicles by Abu Musa Zughba al-Tujibi, Ibn al-Muqri al-Isfahani and Ibn Qutlubugha; Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani too, at the end of his work on Layth's biography, transmitted forty hadiths reaching him from Layth through high chains.

His Tomb and Complex — His grave in al-Qarafa al-Sughra is still one of the important places of visitation in Egypt; for his tomb the source refers to al-Maqrizi's Khitat and gives no further information on the building.