al-Fanārī, Shams al-Dīn Muḥammad b. Ḥamza (751–834/1350–1451), the first person to hold the office of Shaykh al-Islām (in Turkish, Şeyhülislâm) of the Ottoman empire, jurist, writer on Sufism, and major exponent of the metaphysical doctrine of waḥdat al-wujūd (‘oneness of being’) in Anatolia. Turkish sources call him Molla Fenarî (Ramazanzade, 2/326).

The historian Beliğ Efendi (p. 239) states that al-Fanārī was descended from ʿUmar b. al-Khaṭṭāb. He probably inherited the nisba from his forefathers, but there is no unanimity as to its origin. Al-Suyūṭī (1/97) rel…