Sheikh Muhammad bin Sulaiman al-Kurdi

Martin van Bruinessen writes,

Sleman Kurdi or, more correctly, Muhammad b. Sulayman al-Kurdi, was born in Damascus in 1715 and at a very young age followed his father to Medina, where he spent most of his life and died in 1780. He became the city's Shafi`i mufti and wrote several important fiqh works. The one that is best known in Indonesia (and is still being reprinted there) is his Al-hawashi al-madaniyya, an extensive commentary on Ba-Fadl's Al-muqaddima al-hadramiyya — or rather a supercommentary on an earlier commentary by Ibn Hajar, Minhaj al-qawîm. There also exists an even more substantial version of Kurdi's commentary, incorporating many additional glosses, that is entitled Al-mawâhib al-madaniyya. This book is not in general use now but it has a great reputation among specialists. It appears to have appealed especially to Indonesian `ulama studying or resident in Mecca and Medina, for it was printed together with the major Indonesian contribution to the subject, Mahfuz al-Tarmasi's commentary on the Minhaj al-qawîm.[39] end of quote.

An unpublished biography of Sheikh Muhammad al-Kurdi lists Sheikhs al-Shams Muhammad Sa'id Sunbul Mufti of Shafi'is in Makkah, Muhammad Abu Tahir al-Kawrani, Sayyid 'Abd Allah al-Mahdili al-Zabidi, Sayyid Husain bin 'Umar al-'Alawi, Sayyid Hamid bin 'Umar, Mustafa bin Kamal al-Din al-Bakri, al-Shams Muhammad al-Dimyati and Shihab al-Jawhari to be among his teachers.

His well-known works includes; His Hawashi on Sheikh Ibn Hajar's commentary of al-Muqaddimat al-Hadramiyyah, known as al-Sughra, al-Wusta and al-Kubra. Al-Wusta, or al-Hawashi al-Madaniyyah as it is popularly known, is the Hashiyah that is published and widely available. al-Sughra, or al-Maslak al-'Adl, and al-Kubra, or al-Mawahib al-Madaniyyah are not published as far as I know. The latter work can be found here :http://makhtota.ksu.edu.sa/makhtota/991/4. Another work of his that is very popular is al-Fawa'id al-Madaniyyah which was abriged by Sayyid 'Alawi al-Saqqaf in his al-Fawa'id al-Makkiyyah.

Some of the later works in the Shafi'i Madhhab draw heavily from al-Kurdi's Hawashi such as, Sayyid 'Alawi Saqqaf's Hashiyah of Fath al-Mu'in. It is not a far stretch to say that no less than 50% of the Tarshih is actually the text of al-Kurdi's work. Other works that draw upon al-Kurdi are I'anat al-Talibin and Bushra al-Karim.