According to Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani, Ibn Abi al-'Izz was born on 12 Dhu al-Hijjah 1331 CE/731 AH,^[1] hailing from a family that were staunch adherents of the Hanafi school of jurisprudence. He was a disciple of Ibn Kathir, a student of Ibn Taymiyyah.^[2] He was appointed as a judge in his hometown of Damascus, later accepting a judgeship in Egypt before returning to Damascus.^[1] Al-Sakhawi mentions his teacher, Ibn Adiry, as one of al-'Izz's students.^[3]

During his latter tenure as a judge in Damascus, al-'Izz became embroiled in controversy due to his views that Allah has a direction, Hell is not eternal and his censure of Ibn Aybuk's qaṣĩdah (poem),^[1] whose contents he held to constitute disbelief.^[4] His judgeship was subsequently revoked, and as he was legally unbeliever in the eyes of his adversaries, his marriage was void so they took his wife and married her to one of their own,^[5] until an individual named al-Nāṣirī raised the issue to the authorities, resulting in al-ʻIzz's position being restored.^[4] He remained at his position until his death there in 1390 CE/792 AH.^[1][4]

Ibn Abi al-Izz's sharh on al-Tahawi's creedal treatise al-Aqidah al-Tahawiyyah is shunned by Maturidis, who view it as a blatant misrepresentation of al-Tahawi's work and in conflict with their creed and what al-Tahawi had intended.^[2] Virtually all contemporary and subsequent Hanafis denounced and rejected his shahr due to the distortion of its agreed-upon meaning. The Shafi'i scholar, al-Hafidh Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani, mentions those contemporaries who refuted Ibn Abi al-Izz when he was summoned to court to defend the matter of his creed.

"They also discussed the matter, and then they dispersed and then they were summoned again. The matter intensified for those who had been hesitating so they were also in attendance, and amongst those in attendance were: Saʿd Al-Dīn Al-Nawawī, Jamāl Al-Dīn Al-Kurdī, Sharaf Al-Dīn Al-Ghazī, Zayn Al-Dīn Ibn Rajab, Taqī Al-Dīn Ibn Mufliḥ, along with his brother, and Shihāb Al-Dīn Ibn Hajī, and they successively rebuked Ibn [Abi] Al-ʿIzz in more than what he had said."^[6]

The Maturidi scholar Ibrahim al-Yaqubi suspected al-'Izz of being a pseudonym for Ibn al-Qayyim due to similarities between the positions held in the sharh and those of Ibn al-Qayyim's teacher, Ibn Taymiyyah.^[7] Muhammad Zahid al-Kawthari contested the existence of al-‘Izz altogether and posited that his biographical details were recent interpolations or false attributions, arguing the sharh was the work of an anthropomorphist who could not have been Hanafi.^[8]

The shahr proved popular with members of the later Salafi movement, who regard it as a true representation of the work free from Maturidi influence, thus showing it to be in accordance with Salafi creed. Numerous Salafi scholars have produced super commentaries and annotations on the sharh, including Abd al-Aziz ibn Baz, Muhammad Nasiruddin al-Albani and Saleh al-Fawzan, and it is taught as a standard text at the Islamic University of Madinah.^[2]

Ibn Abī al-ʿIzz wrote the as yet unedited al-Tahdhīb li-Dhihn al-Labīb.^[9]