Imam Ahmad Zayn al-Din al-Malibari زين الدين بن عبد العزيز المليباري

Imam Ahmad Zayn al-Din ibn Muhammad al-Malibari rahimahullah (938-987 AH / 1531-1579 CE) was the leading Shafi'i authority of the Malabar Coast of southwestern India during the late tenth Islamic century. He studied under Imam Ibn Hajar al-Haytami in Makka before returning to Malabar, where he taught at the Ponnani madrasa, the foremost center of Islamic learning on the coast. His Fath al-Muin is an expanded commentary on his own primer Qurrat al-Ayn and covers the major chapters of Shafi'i fiqh including worship, transactions, marriage, inheritance, penal law, and judicial proceedings. For four centuries it has served as the foundational Shafi'i teaching text across the Malabar Coast, Hadhrami communities, Indonesia, and Malaysia. Beyond Fath al-Muin, his Tuhfat al-Mujahidin is an important historical document chronicling the Portuguese invasion of the Malabar Coast and the resistance mounted by the local Muslim population.