The late great shaykh, Dr Mustafa b. Sa'id b. Mahmud al-Khin al-Maydani al-Shafi'i (may Allah have mercy on him), was one of the eminent scholars of Syria in the 20th Century. Growing up in the conservative Damascus suburb of Maydan (Midan in the local dialect), he attended the lessons of the noble Hassan al-Habbanaka al-Maydani, from the age of nine. He quickly rose to prominence and became a teacher of Shari'ah and Arabic at universities in Syria and Saudi Arabia during the 1950s and 60s.