Said al-Kamali

Said bin Muhammad al-Kamali (born 1972) is a Moroccan jurist, hadith scholar, preacher and university professor from Rabat. He teaches at Mohammed V University, supervises the Imam Malik chair at the al-Sunna Mosque in Rabat, where he explains Imam Malik's Muwatta every week, and his recorded lessons in jurisprudence and hadith circulate widely in Morocco and abroad. ^{1 2}

Said al-Kamali was born in Rabat on 8 Rabi' al-Akhir 1392 AH, corresponding to 21 May 1972. He took his preparatory and secondary education at the Dar es Salaam and Moulay Youssef schools in Rabat, then studied management of tourism contracting in Tangier before enrolling at Mohammed V University in Rabat, where he earned the 'alamiyya degree, then a master's with a thesis titled "Sharia Rules in Air Travel", and then a doctorate on "Contemporary Ijtihad and Human Problems", defended before a committee that included Farouk Hamada and awarded with the highest honours and a recommendation to print. ^{1 2}

Al-Kamali memorised the Qur'an as a boy and, over six years, travelled every week to Marrakesh to the reciter Abd al-Rahim al-Nabulsi, who licensed him in the ten readings; he also memorised foundational texts in grammar, morphology, rhetoric, jurisprudence, hadith, readings, logic and literature. ¹

He studied with scholars in Morocco and the Mashriq, among them Farouk Hamada, Muhammad al-Rooki and Mustafa al-Najjar, and the hadith scholar Muhammad al-Amin Bukhabza licensed him in the Six Books and in all the transmissions of his own teacher Ahmad ibn al-Siddiq al-Ghumari. He travelled to the scholars of Shinqit in Mauritania, meeting Muhammad Salim wuld Abd al-Wadud and Ahmad wuld al-Murabit, and studied under Muhammad al-Hasan al-Dedew, who licensed him in the Muwatta in the narrations of Yahya al-Laythi and Abu Mus'ab al-Zuhri, in the Six Books, in the Alfiyya of al-Iraqi and other works, and gave him a general ijaza. He also travelled to Egypt, attending lessons of al-Azhar scholars, and to Saudi Arabia, where he met Atiya Muhammad Salim, Abd al-Muhsin al-Abbad, Muhammad al-Mukhtar al-Shanqiti and Muhammad ibn Salih al-Uthaymeen. ^{1 3}

Al-Kamali has taught at Mohammed V University in Rabat, in the Islamic Studies division of the Faculty of Letters and Humanities, giving lessons in jurisprudence, hadith, inheritance law, grammar, legal theory and literature. He supervises the Imam Malik chair at the al-Sunna Mosque in Rabat, explaining the Muwatta there every Friday between the evening prayers, and he delivers the Friday sermon at the al-Masira al-Khadra Mosque in Rabat's Ya'qub al-Mansur district. He also explains the Maliki textbook As-hal al-Masalik in weekly lessons in Rabat and has supervised study courses on the jurisprudence of fasting and on rhetoric, among other subjects. He preaches and gives courses in mosques in Europe, and has visited and lectured in countries including the Emirates, Kuwait, Algeria, Malaysia and Bahrain. ¹

His printed books include "Sharia Rules in Air Travel", his master's thesis; "Jana al-Thamarat", a commentary on the versified Waraqat; and "Al-Naqd wa-l-Ta'lil", on building rulings upon what is established in al-Bayan wa-l-Tahsil. ^{1 3}