Abū l-Hasan al-Qābisī

Abu ʾl-Ḥasan ʿAlī ibn Muḥammad ibn Khalaf al-Maʿāfirī al-Qābiṣī (935–1012) was a leading Ifrīqiyan scholar (uṣūlī) of the Mālikī school of Islamic jurisprudence (fiḳh). In 996, he succeeded his first cousin Ibn Abī Zayd as leader (shaykh) of the school in al-Qayrawān (Kairouan).

Al-Qābiṣī's father was born in the village of al-Maʿāfiriyyīn near Qabis (Gabès) and his mother was from al-Qayrawān. According to oral tradition, he was the first cousin of Ibn Abī Zayd and Muḥriz ibn Khalaf, the sons of his mother's sisters. He was blind.

Al-Qābiṣī's authority and reputation rose after the death of Ibn Abī Zayd (996) and Ibn Shiblūn (999) and he became the leading jurisconsult in northern Africa and al-Andalus. At the time of his death he was still teaching eighty students. His successors, who carried on his work, were Abū Bakr ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān and Abū Imrān al-Fāsī. The culmination of the work of these Mālikī scholars of al-Qayrawān was the triumph of the Mālikī school in Africa west of Egypt and the breach between the Mālikī Zīrids and the Shīʿa Fāṭimids.