Shaykh Abdullah bin Bayyah was born in Mauritania, West Africa, and is the son of
a great scholar, Shaykh Mahfudh (may Allah have mercy on his soul). From a very
young age, he showed extreme intellectual gifts and a profound ability to absorb
vast amounts of information and text. He memorized most of the texts taught in the
varying subjects including the Qur’an, Hadith, grammar, logic, rhetoric, semantics,
philosophy and poetry. While still quite young, he was appointed to study legal
judgements in Tunisia.
When he returned to Mauritania, he became Minister of Education and later, Minister
of Justice. He was also one of the Vice Presidents to the first President of Mauritania.
However, due to the conditions in Mauritania and the military change of governments
that took place, he began to teach and ended up going to Saudi Arabia to become
a distinguished professor at The University of Usool al-Fiqh.
Shaykh Abdallah bin Bayyah is also involved in writing. He has written several books
and has delivered lectures all over the world. One of the areas of his expertise
is in Fiqh al-Aqaliyaat, which is the juristic rulings related to minority Muslims.
Shaykh Abdullah bin Bayyah is a member of several legal bodies worldwide, such as
the European Council of Legal Opinion and the Supreme Fiqh Council. He resides in
Jeddah, Saudi Arabia with his family and teaches Islamic Legal Methodology, Qur’an
and Arabic at the King Abdal Aziz University. website: www.binbayyah.net