An Introduction to the Hanbali Madhhab

Abd al-Qadir ibn Ahmad ibn Badran al-Sa'di al-Dimashqi was a prominent late-Ottoman Damascene scholar of Hanbali law, Arabic grammar, and the rational sciences. Born in the town of Duma near Damascus in 1280 AH / 1864 CE into a family of Hanbali jurists — his father and grandfather were both noted scholars — he received his earliest education from them before moving to Damascus to broaden his studies under leading scholars of the Levant.

Ibn Badran taught in the Umayyad Mosque and other major institutions of Damascus, lecturing on fiqh, tafsir, mathematics, and the Arabic sciences. He played an important role in the late-19th and early-20th-century revival of Hanbali scholarship outside the Arabian Peninsula, a school that had largely faded from the Levant in earlier centuries. His best-known work, al-Madkhal ila Madhhab al-Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal (An Introduction to the Hanbali Madhhab), remains a standard reference on the school's history, principles, and key works. He also wrote extensively on Arabic literature, history, and Islamic legal theory.

He died in Damascus in 1346 AH / 1927 CE, leaving no children. His personal library, accumulated over a lifetime of scholarship, was destroyed in the unrest that followed the French withdrawal from Syria. His writings have seen renewed interest in recent decades, with several major works now translated into English.