'Abd al-Haqq al-Sunbati

The scholar Abd al-Haqq ibn Muhammad ibn Abd al-Haqq al-Sunbati al-Qahiri al-Shafii, known like his father as Ibn Abd al-Haqq. He was born in one of the two Jumadas in the year 842 in Sunbat. He memorised the Qur'an and the Minhaj al-Furi, and his father brought him to Cairo, where he memorised al-Umda, the two Alfiyyas, the two Shatibiyyas, the Minhaj al-Asli, the summary of al-Miftah, al-Jabariyya and al-Khazrajiyya. He studied with many leading scholars, and Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani and Badr al-Aini and others gave him a licence to teach and to issue fatwas. He took up teaching recitation at al-Azhar mosque ¹.

As al-Nur records, he was the Shaykh al-Islam and the choice of the leading scholars. He settled in Mecca with his children, family, relatives and grandchildren, wishing to die in one of the two Holy Sanctuaries. Through him the region flourished, and people took knowledge from him generation after generation, until the grandchildren were counted among the scholars of the previous generation. He died in Mecca at dawn on Friday, the first day of Ramadan, and was buried in al-Mu'alla cemetery, and people grieved for him deeply ¹.