Abu Yusuf

Abu Yusuf, born Yaqub ibn Ibrahim al-Ansari in Kufa in 729, was a Muslim jurist and one of the foremost authorities of the early Hanafi school of Islamic law. The leading student of Abu Hanifa, who also studied under Malik ibn Anas in Medina, he served as the first Qadi al-Qudat, or chief justice, under the Abbasid caliph Harun al-Rashid, a position from which he helped consolidate, systematize and spread Hanafi jurisprudence throughout the Abbasid Caliphate. His major work, Kitab al-Kharaj, written at the caliph's request, addressed taxation, public finance and governance under Islamic legal principles and is regarded as one of the earliest systematic treatises on Islamic fiscal law. He died in Baghdad in 798.