Abu'l-Husayn al-Basri (died 436/1044) was a Mu'tazilitejurist and theologian. He wrote al-Mu'tamad fi Usul al-Fiqh (The Canon of the Foundations of Jurisprudence), a major source of influence in informing the foundations of Islamic jurisprudence until Fakhr al-Din al-Razi's al-Mahsul fi 'Ilm al-Usul (The Compilation of the Fundamentals of the Legal Sciences).
He was a physician as well as a disciple of the Mu'tazilite judge Abd al-Jabbar in Rey. He challenged some of his master's teachings and eventually compiled a huge (two volumes; 1500 pages) critical review of the arguments and proofs used in Islamic scholastic theology. This, he summarised in al-Mu'tamad and included a critique of the qualifications of a legist. His works were generally handed down among students of medicine, and it was a century before his teachings were revived and espoused by the Mu'tazili scholar Ibn al-Malahimi in Khorezm in Central Asia, where they gained recognition as a school of Mu'tazilitheology.
References
^"al-Basri, Abu'l Husayn". The Biographical Encyclopaedia of Islamic Philosophy. Oxford Reference. 3 August 2011. Retrieved 22 June 2020. Muhammad b. 'Ali Abu'l Husayn al-Basri was born in Basra, and died in Baghdad on 5 Rabi al-Akhir 436 / 30 October 1044. He was a Mu'tazilite theologian and an important Hanafite jurist.
^Jalali-Moqaddam, Masoud; Negahban, Farzin (2008). "Abū al-Ḥusayn al-Baṣrī". In Wilferd Madelung; Farhad Daftary (eds.). Encyclopaedia Islamica. doi:10.1163/1875-9831_isla_COM_0087. ISBN978-90-04-16860-2. Retrieved 22 June 2020. Abū al-Ḥusayn al-Baṣrī, Muḥammad b. ʿAlī b. Ṭayyib (d. 436/1044), was a Muʿtazilī theologian and a scholar of Ḥanafī jurisprudence.
Madelung, W and Schmidtke, S (eds) Abu-I-Husayn al-Basri's Mu'tazili Theology among the Karaites in the Fatimid Age BRILL Amsterdam September 2006 ISBN90-04-15177-X
