Mulla Shams ad-Din Muhammad ibn Hamzah al-Fanari (Arabic: محمد بن حمزة الفناري, Turkish: Molla Şemseddin Mehmed Fenari), 1350–1431,[1] known in short as Molla Fenari was an Ottoman logician, Islamic theologian, Islamic legal scholar, and mystical philosopher of the school of Ibn ʿArabī.
He traveled to Egypt, which was then under the rule of the Mamluk Sultanate, to study Hanafi jurisprudence under Ekmeleddîn el-Bâberti.
The death of Bayezid I precipitated a civil war, which caused Fanari to leave the country, after which he lectured in Egypt and in Hejaz (part of present-day Saudi Arabia).
He thereafter sought employment in the court of the ruler of the Karamanoğlu Beylik, where he wrote his text on legal theory.
In 1421, Murad II ascended the throne as the sixth Ottoman Sultan and recalled Fanari to the court in Bursa.