Ebussuud Efendi

Timeline

1. 1490–1532Iskelepi · Rum EyaletReceived training in Hanafi jurisprudence and Qur'anic exegesis in Iskelepi and Istanbul, inheriting his father Muhyiddin's Sufi-Qur'anic scholarly tradition, and taught for many years, building the reputation needed to enter the judicial ranks.
2. 1533–1545Istanbul · IstanbulIn the 1530s he served as kadı of Bursa and Istanbul, and then as kazasker of Rumelia, responsible for the appointment of judges and appeals in the European provinces. During this stage he brought local customary law into the Hanafi framework and participated in the juridical exposition of kanunnames in places like Buda, preparing the way for the later comprehensive reconciliation of sharia and kanun.
3. 1545–1574Istanbul · IstanbulIn 1545 Suleiman appointed him Sheikh al-Islam, and he held the post for nearly thirty years. He held that judges derived their judicial authority from the sultan and that rulings must follow the kanunnames; at the same time he gave fatwas providing sharia grounds for administrative measures such as state land tenure and cash waqf, making the code of "the legislator Suleiman" and Hanafi law mutually supporting. This framework became the core of the classical Ottoman legal order.