Imam Muhammad Zahid al-Kawthari محمد زاهد بن الحسن الكوثري

Imam Muhammad Zahid b. al-Hasan al-Kawthari (1296-1371 AH / 1879-1952 CE) rahimahullah was the foremost late-Ottoman Hanafi-Maturidi scholar of his generation. Born in Caucasia, he received a thorough classical education and rose to serve as Deputy Shaykh al-Islam of the Ottoman state in the empire's final years, the highest scholarly office beneath the Shaykh al-Islam himself. After the fall of the Ottoman Empire, he settled in Cairo, where he devoted the remainder of his life to the defense of the traditional Sunni-Hanafi-Maturidi-Sufi heritage against the then-rising Salafi movement. His Maqalat - a substantial collection of scholarly essays - remains a major contemporary reference for the Sunni position on numerous contested theological and legal questions. His Tarajim Alam al-Hanafiyya, a biographical dictionary of the Hanafi school's luminaries from Abu Hanifa through the subsequent centuries, exemplifies his characteristic precision in biographical sources, critical engagement with conflicting reports, and sustained defense of the Hanafi school.