Salah al-Din al-Ala'i

Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn al-ʿAlāʾī
صلاح الدين العلائي
TitleShaykh al-Islām
Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn
Al-Ḥāfiẓ
Personal life
Born1295
Died1359 (aged 63–64)
Resting placeBab al-Rahma Cemetery
EraMamluk period
RegionLevant
Main interest(s)Hadith sciences, Islamic jurisprudence, Principles of Islamic jurisprudence, Tafsir, Islamic theology, History, Genealogy, Arabic grammar, Philology, Arabic literature
Religious life
ReligionIslam
DenominationSunni
JurisprudenceShafi'i
CreedAsh'ari
Muslim leader

Abū Saʿīd Khalīl b. Kaykaldī b. ʿAbdallāh al-ʿAlāʾī (Arabic: أبو سعيد خليل بن كيكالدي بن عبد الله العلائي), also known as Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn al-ʿAlāʾī (Arabic: صلاح الدين العلائي), was a Sunni polymath of the Mamlūk era. He was a distinguished Shāfiʿī jurist, legal theorist, ḥadīth master, historian, genealogist, Qurʾānic exegete, theologian, grammarian, philologist, poet, and man of letters. He was regarded as one of the most eminent ḥadīth scholars of his time, renowned for his profound mastery of isnād (chains of transmission), matn (textual analysis), rijāl (biographical evaluation of transmitters), and ʿilal (hidden defects in transmission).