Al-Nuʿmān served as a secretary or official of some type under the first Fatimid ruler, al-Mahdī (r. 296–322/909–34), for nine years, that is, from ca. 313/925, and throughout the reign of the second caliph, al-Qāʾim (r. 322–34/934–46). Shortly after coming to power, the third caliph, al-Manṣūr (r. 334–41/946–53), appointed al-Nuʿmān to the judgeship of Tripoli, in what is now Libya. In 337/948, the caliph moved the capital to al-Manṣūriyyah and made al-Qāḍī al-Nuʿmān supreme judge, serving as judge of the new capital as well as of the earlier capitals al-Mahdiyyah and Qayrawān, with the right to appoint other judges in Fatimid territory. Al-Manṣūr also authorized him to deliver the addresses of “the Sessions of Knowledge” (majālis al-ḥikmah), which were held in the palace every week after Friday prayer and intended to edify the congregation in Ismaʿili doctrine and the religious sciences. After al-Muʿizz li-Dīn Allāh (r. 341–65/953–75), the fourth Fatimid caliph, acceded to the caliphate, al-Qāḍī al-Nuʿmān was confirmed in his position of supreme judge in Fatimid territory. In a decree in 343/954 which al-Qāḍī al-Nuʿmān presents verbatim in Ikhtilāf uṣūl al-madhāhib, the caliph granted him additional duties, charging him with overseeing the grievance court and hearing appeals from throughout the Empire, and he served in this capacity for several decades. The reign of al-Muʿizz was the apogee of al-Qāḍī al-Nuʿmān’s career. After the Fatimid conquest of Egypt in 358/969 and the construction of a new capital city at Cairo, al-Qāḍī al-Nuʿmān accompanied al-Muʿizz to Egypt in 362/973. He died in Cairo the next year, in Jumada II 363/March 974.6 His sons and their descendants went on to serve al-Muʿizz and subsequent Fatimid caliphs as prominent judges and in other official capacities until the mid-eleventh century.
AL-QĀḌĪ AL-NUʿMĀN’S WORKS ON LAW AND LEGAL THEORY
Al-Qāḍī al-Nuʿmān devoted a great deal of energy to the composition of legal works. His earliest such work was entitled Kitāb al-Īḍāḥ; al-Qāḍī al-Nuʿmān compiled it while working under al-Mahdī, that is, between 313/925 and 323/934. Containing 3,000 folios, it was a comprehensive collection of oral reports attributed to the Imams, arranged by legal topic, that drew on Zaydi and Imami Shiʿi sources. The extant section of this work, a substantial fragment from the chapter on ritual prayer, was examined by Wilferd Madelung, who discussed the sources on which al-Qāḍī al-Nuʿmān drew, identifying over twenty works devoted to Shiʿi law and to reports from the Imams and other ʿAlids. Most of these works were compiled in Kufa in southern Iraq in the third/ninth century, by authors who belonged to the Zaydi, Imami, and similar subsects of Shiʿism and who related material mainly from Kufan transmitters. It thus contrasts with the canonical collections of the Twelver Shiʿah such as al-Kāfī by Muḥammad ibn Yaʿqūb al-Kulaynī (d. 329/941) and Man lā yaḥḍuruhu al-faqīh by Ibn Bābawayh al-Qummī (d. 381/991), which rely heavily on transmitters from Qum instead. Overall, the material that al-Qāḍī al-Nuʿmān used in compiling this work suggests that it represents a compromise between the Zaydi and Imami traditions of Shiʿism. One may generalize this characterization to Ismaʿili law in general.7 The extant fragment of Kitāb al-Īḍāḥ has recently been published.8 This work was designed to serve as a comprehensive source of oral reports for use in determining the rulings on the points of law, parallel to the six books of the Sunnis: the Ṣaḥīḥ of al-Bukhārī (d. 256/870), the Ṣaḥīḥ of Muslim (d. 261/851), the Sunan of Abū Dāwūd al-Sijistānī (d. 275/889), the Sunan of Ibn Mājah (d. 273/886), al-Jāmiʿ al-ṣaḥīḥ of al-Tirmidhī (d. 279/892), and the Sunan of al-Nasāʾī (d. 303/915). It was a fundamental part of al-Qāḍī al-Nuʿmān’s project to establish the foundations of Ismaʿili law and to put it on a par with Sunni Islamic law. It was exactly contemporary with the first main canonical collection of oral reports of the Twelver Shiʿi, al-Kāfī by Muḥammad ibn Yaʿqūb al-Kulaynī (d. 329/941), which served a similar purpose.
Also during this period al-Qāḍī al-Nuʿmān completed two abridgements of Kitāb al-Īḍāḥ, entitled Kitāb al-Akhbār [or perhaps al-Ikhbār], which contained 300 folios and omitted the chains of transmission attached to Prophetic reports, and Mukhtaṣar al-Īḍāḥ. The Kitāb al-Akhbār has been dated tentatively to 320–32/932–34. During the reign of al-Qāʾim (322–34/934–46), he wrote Kitāb al-Iqtiṣār, a short legal manual which is extant and has been published.9 We know that this work was used as a teaching text. During this period he also wrote al-Muntakhabah, or al-Urjūzah al-muntakhabah, another short work treating the law in rajaz verse, intended for memorization by students. This work is extant in manuscript but has not been published. It was intended to form a pair with al-Qāḍī al-Nuʿmān’s other didactic work in rajaz verse, on the Imamate, entitled al-Urjūzah al-mukhtārah, which has been edited and published.10 Al-Qāḍī al-Nuʿmān authored yet another short compenium of law during the reign of al-Manṣūr, entitled al-Yanbūʿ.11
During the reign of al-Muʿizz in the mid-tenth century, al-Qāḍī al-Nuʿmān wrote what are arguably his two greatest legal works, Ikhtilāf uṣūl al-madhāhib (Disagreements of the Jurists) and Daʿāʾim al-islām (The Pillars of Islam), the first a refutation of Sunni theories of legal interpretation and the second a manual of Ismaʿili law. Ikhtilāf uṣūl al-madhāhib is not dated in a colophon, but al-Qāḍī al-Nuʿmān includes in it the decree al-Muʿizz li-Dīn Allāh wrote to appoint him as chief judge that is dated 28 Rabiʿ al-Awwal 343/1 August 954. It is likely that he composed the Ikhtilāf soon after that date. He probably wrote it before compiling Daʿāʾim al-islām, which he finished around 349/960.12 He also wrote another work of oral reports, entitled Mukhtaṣar al-āthār or Kitāb al-Ikhtiṣār li-ṣaḥīḥ al-āthār ʿan al-aʾimmah al-aṭhār, which is extant but not published. Poonawala estimates that al-Qāḍī al-Nuʿmān completed this work about a year before Daʿāʾim al-Islām, in 348/959.13
Al-Qāḍī al-Nuʿmān wrote a number of other treatises, several of which are not extant but whose titles show his engagement with Sunni Islamic legal theory and which may have been connected with his research and preparation for writing Ikhtilāf uṣūl al-madhāhib. His Kitāb al-ittifāq wa-l-iftirāq was presumably a work on the disputed points of the law (khilāf), including both Sunni and Ismaʿili law. He abridged this work as Kitāb al-muqtaṣar.
Al-Qāḍī al-Nuʿmān authored a number of polemical works related to law and legal theory. One of these, his Risālah dhāt al-bayān fī al-radd ʿalā Ibn Qutaybah (An Expository Treatise in Refutation of Ibn Qutaybah), is extant and has been published.14 This short work, written in response to a question posed to him by the tutor of the Fatimid princes, refutes legal doctrines discussed in the famous manual and anthology for secretaries Adab al-kātib by Ibn Qutaybah (d. 276/885). Avraham Hakim, the editor, dates the treatise to some point during the reign of al-Muʿizz after 343/954, because it mentions Ikhtilāf uṣūl al-madhāhib in one passage, and the Ikhtilāf dates to after 343/954. Two mentions in the treatise of the book al-Ikhtilāf wa-l-iftirāq suggest that al-Qāḍī al-Nuʿmān was planning to write the book while he completed the refutation of Ibn Qutaybah or that he was writing the two works simultaneously.15 Risālah dhāt al-bayān presumably predates Daʿāʾim al-Islām, which is not mentioned in the work.
Certainly related to the law and legal theory was al-Risālah al-miṣriyyah fī al-radd ʿalā al-Shāfiʿī (The Egyptian Treatise, A Refutation of al-Shāfiʿī), which reportedly consisted of two large fascicles. Poonawala suggests that this must have been composed shortly after or just before the Fatimid conquest of Egypt, apparently on account of the reference to Egypt in the title and the relative unimportance of Shāfiʿīs in Tunisia as opposed to their significant presence in Egypt. It appears likely, and this is suggested by the use of the term Risālah in the title, that this was a refutation of the theory