al-Shaykh al-Mufid

Abu 'Abd Allah Muhammad ibn Muhammad ibn al-Nu'man ibn 'Abd al-Salam al-'Ukbari al-Baghdadi (Arabic: أَبُو عَبْدِ ٱللّٰهِ مُحَمَّدُ بْنُ مُحَمَّدٍ بْنِ ٱلنُّعْمَانِ بْنِ عَبْدِ ٱلسَّلَامِ ٱلْحَارِثِيُّ ٱلْعُكْبَرِيُّ ٱلْبَغْدَادِيُّ), known as al-Shaykh al-Mufid (Arabic: الشیخ المفید) and Ibn al-Mu'allim (c. 948–1022 CE), was a prominent Twelver Shia Muslim scholar, jurist (faqīh) and theologian of Iraqi descent. His father was a teacher (mu'allim), hence his nickname Ibn al-Mu'allim ("son of the teacher"). The title "al-Mufid" ("the beneficient [one]") was given to him either by Muhammad al-Mahdi, the twelfth Shia Imam, or by al-Rummani, a Mu'tazilite scholar, after a discussion with him. The leader of the Shia community at his time, he was a staunch mutakallim, theologian, and jurist.

He studied and was taught by the prominent Shia scholars al-Shaykh al-Saduq and Ibn Qulawayh, as well as Mutazilite scholars Abu al-Husayn al-Basri and al-Rummani. His students included Sharif al-Murtaza and Shaykh Tusi, both of whom became important scholars in their own right. Only 10 of his 200 works have survived, among which are Amali, Al-Irshad, Al-Muqni'ah, and Tashih al-Itiqadat.