al-Zarnuji برهان الدين الزرنوجي

Imam al-Zarnuji (rahimahullah) is known by the agnomen Burhan al-Din al-Zarnuji (Proof of the Religion), a byname so closely associated with him that his actual given name is uncertain; biographical collections suggest it may have been al-Nu'man ibn Ibrahim al-Zarnuji. He originated from Zarnuj, a significant town located beyond the Oxus river in what is now the Turkistan region of Kazakhstan, close to the present-day borders of Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan. He pursued learning under several of the most eminent scholars of his time and region: Shaykh Ali ibn Abi Bakr al-Marghinani (d. 593 AH / 1197 CE), the celebrated author of al-Hidaya on Hanafi fiqh; Shaykh Qawamuddin Hammad ibn Ibrahim al-Saffar; Shaykh Hasan ibn Mansur Qadikhan; and others. He returned to Allah around 620 AH / 1223 CE in Bukhara. He is known to have authored only one surviving work: 'Ta'lim al-Muta'allim Tariq al-Ta'allum' (Instruction of the Student: The Method of Learning), a brief but enormously influential manual on the etiquette and method of seeking Islamic knowledge that has been studied across the Muslim world for centuries.