Muhammad spent his early life studying as a young boy in Mazara, in the South of the island, before he and his family crossed to Mahdia in modern-day Tunisia and settled there.

Al-Maziri's descent was from the Banu Tamim, an Arab tribe from which the Aghlabid rulers of North Africa and the Mediterranean islands descended from.

The Banu Tamim had been one of the first Arab tribes to immigrate to North Africa from Arabia during the early conquest of Uqba ibn Nafi in the 7th century CE.

Al-Maziri's distant grandfather was amongst the army led by Asad ibn al-Furat who conquered Sicily in the 9th century CE.

[7] Judge Iyad is quoted to have said "He is the last... of African elders to achieve jurisprudence, the rank of ijtihad and the accuracy of consideration, his time for the owner in the countries of the earth did not have a horizon from him and I do not do their doctrine"