Ibrahim Mukhtar (b.1909–d.1969) was the first mufti

Mufti

A mufti is a Sunni Islamic scholar who is an interpreter or expounder of Islamic law . In religious administrative terms, a mufti is roughly equivalent to a deacon to a Sunni population...

 of Eritrea

Eritrea

Eritrea , officially the State of Eritrea, is a country in the Horn of Africa. Eritrea derives it's name from the Greek word Erethria, meaning 'red land'. The capital is Asmara. It is bordered by Sudan in the west, Ethiopia in the south, and Djibouti in the southeast...

.

Biography

Mukhtar was born in 1909. He was a student of Asmara Al-Azhar University

Al-Azhar University

Al-Azhar University is an educational institute in Cairo, Egypt. Founded in 970~972 as a madrasa, it is the chief centre of Arabic literature and Islamic learning in the world. It is the oldest degree-granting university in Egypt. In 1961 non-religious subjects were added to its curriculum.It is...

 and received a degree Islamic Jurisprudence

Fiqh

Fiqh is Islamic jurisprudence. Fiqh is an expansion of the code of conduct expounded in the Quran, often supplemented by tradition and implemented by the rulings and interpretations of Islamic jurists....

. He was also the author of "The Principles of Islamic Jurisprudence", which remains a reading requirement at Al-Azhar University.

In 1939, Mukhtar was appointed the position of Mufti of Eritrea by the Italian Colonial administrators (at the behest of Muslim leaders in Eritrea). He also served as Chairman of the Islamic Eritrean Endowment Council and of the Council of Eritrean Scholars.

In addition, Mukhtar "...reformed the Sharia courts and established a formal and modern court system with formal rules and proper procedures." He also argued that the Arabic

Arabic language

Arabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...

 and Tigrinya

Tigrinya language

Tigrinya , also spelled Tigrigna, Tigrnia, Tigrina, Tigriña, less commonly Tigrinian, Tigrinyan, is a Semitic language spoken by the Tigrinya people in central Eritrea , where it is one of the two main languages of Eritrea, and in the Tigray Region of Ethiopia , where it...

 languages should be the official languages of Eritrea, though this never came to pass. During the Eritrean War for Independence, he called for negotiation to address the root causes of the conflict.

Mukhtar established the largest Islamic library in the country, donating more than 3,000 books from his own personal collection.