High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Abu Hanifa al-Nu man ibn Muhammad ibn Mansur ibn Ahmad ibn Hayyun al-Tamimi, generally known as al-Q al-Nu m n (d. 974 CE/ 363 AH) was an Isma'ili jurist and the official historian of the Fatimid caliphs. Born in North Africa, he converted to Isma'ili Islam and began his career in Ifriqiya (modern-day Tunisia, western Libya and eastern Algeria) under the first caliph, al-Mahdi Billah (r. 909-934 CE/ 297-322 AH), quickly rising to become the most prominent judge (qadi) of the Fatimid state. In his fifty years of service to the Fatimids, he wrote a vast number of books under the encouragement of the caliphs on history, biography, jurisprudence (fiqh) and the interpretation of scripture (ta'wil). After the Fatimid conquest of Egypt and Syria, al-Nu'man left Ifriqiya and travelled to the newly-founded city of al-Qahira (Cairo) where he died in 974 CE/ 363 AH. Al-Nu'man's most prominent work, the Da'a'im al-Islam ('The Pillars of Islam'), which took nearly thirty years to complete, is an exposition of the Fatimid jurisprudence.