Al-ʿAbbādī, Abū ʿĀṣim Muḥammad b. Aḥmad b. Muḥammad b. ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿAbbād (d. Shawwāl 458/September 1066), was a Shāfiʿī qāḍī from Herat and the author of the first ṭabaqāt (a biographical dictionary arranged by generations) about Shāfiʿī fuqahāʾ (jurists). He also figured prominently in the intellectual confrontations between the Shāfiʿīs and the Ḥanafīs.

The title ‘al-ʿAbbādī’ was derived from a forebear some five generations earlier, ʿAbbād (al-Samʿānī, 4/123). It would appear that the ʿAbbādī family were included among the dignitaries of Hera…