Abu Hanifah

As-Salamu `alaykum:

There is a current trend of slighting Imam Abu Hanifa and his School. To some people even in Arab lands, indulging this trend gives a sense of Madhhab identity ("We Such and-such" -pick a Madhhab-).

The Umma has long settled the issue that Imam Abu Hanifa are among those who are imitated in Islam. The unparalleled spread of his School to this day is a confirmation of this God-sanctioned acceptance. One should learn something of why his Madhhab spread so much: if not for curiosity in (the Divine conduct of) our intellectual history then at least for elemental acquaintance with the Fiqh followed by most Muslims. In this respect love of Abu Hanifa and his Madhhab is love and mercy for the Umma of Sayyidina Muhammad sallAllahu `alayhi wa Alihi wasallam.

The precondition of studenthood is adab - humility and poverty - which is not harmed by simply keeping quiet about what we do not know. However, actually slighting such a major Imam and the Ulema of his entire School shows arrogance and destroys works. Wal-`aqibatu lil-muttaqin.

What Hanafi has done for the Ummah what Al-Ash'ari and al-Ghazali have done?

Imam Abu Mansur al-Maturidi and Shah Muhammad Naqshband, Allah be well-pleased with them.

(Note: al-Ash`ari is claimed as a Maliki in their books cf. al-Dibaj al-Mudhahhab and Shajarat al-Nur al-Zakiyya. Further: the text of the Ibana attributed to al-Ash`ari states that he follows Imam Ahmad. Al-Ash`ari did have the Basrian Shafi`i Hafiz Zakariyya al-Saji, the student of al-Shafi`i's companions: al-Muzani and al-Rabi` ibn Sulayman, as his teacher in Fiqh.)

Is there any Hanafi imam whose works are more famed than Imam Nawawi's Riyadh al-Saaliheen and Forty Hadeeth, or Tafseer al-Jalaalain?

Is there any Shafi`i, Maliki, or Hanbali Imam whose works are more famed than the above?

(Nor does the fame of the Jalalayn denote an unanimous endorsement on the part of the Ulema.)

This is not to mention the major hadeeth imams (Buhkari etc) nearly all of whom were Shafi'is.

No. Not al-Bukhari, nor Muslim, nor Abu Dawud, nor al-Tirmidhi, nor Ibn Majah, nor al-Darimi. Just Ahmad, al-Tabari, and al-Nasa'i. But the former two became independent and the latter was also a Maliki.

In fact, the one most-followed School among the major Imams of Hadith that were the teachers or peers of al-Shafi`i, Ahmad, and al-Bukhari, was apparently the Hanafi School.

A few names of the Hanafi *muqallids* in Fiqh among the early hadith Masters:

- Yahya ibn Sa`id al-Qattan: Ahmad would not dare

sit in his presence; Yahya ibn Sa`id said: "We have

not heard better than Abu Hanifa's opinion and we

have followed most of his positions."

- Yahya ibn Ma`in, he said of Abu Hanifa that he is

not only thiqa (trustworthy) but thiqa thiqa. Al-

Dhahabi even calls Ibn Ma`in a fanatic Hanafi.

- Al-Layth ibn Sa`d the Egyptian Mujtahid whom al-

Shafi`i considered superior to Malik: Shaykh al-

Islam Zakariyya al-Ansari (in his Sharh al-Bukhari)

and Ibn Khallikan (in Wafayat al-A`yan) - both

Shafi`is - class al-Layth among the Hanafis as

do the Hanafi books of Tabaqat.

- Al-Fadl ibn Dukayn, one of the major authorities

of Ahl al-Hadith. He said: "Muslims should make

du`a to Allah on behalf of Abu Hanifa in their

prayers, because the Sunan and the fiqh were

preserved for them through him."

- Waki` ibn al-Jarrah, he replied to some of them:

"You barred us from Abu Hanifa, are you going to

bar us from Zufar??" (Zufar took over the teaching

of Hanafi Fiqh in Kufa and Basra after the Imam.)

- Abu Mu`awiya al-Darir, he said: "Love of Abu

Hanifa is part of the Sunna".

- Ibn Dawud al-Khuraybi: "Among the people [of

learning] there are plenty of enviers and ignorant

ones concerning Abu Hanifa."

- Bishr al-Hafi, he said: "None criticizes Abu

Hanifa except an envier or an ignoramus".

- Ibn al-Mubarak. When al-Awza`i criticized Abu

Hanifa, Ibn al-Mubarak copied a compilation of

Abu Hanifa's fiqh under the name al-Nu`man. Al-

Awza`i read it without interruption except for

Salat al-Fard. Then he said: "This Nu`man is a

grand master (hadha nabilun min al-ashyakh). Go

to him and take as much as you can from him!"

Ibn al-Mubarak said: "This is the Abu Hanifa

you had forbidden me to see." Tarikh Baghdad.

Ibn al-Mubarak considered one's hatred of Abu

Hanifa a mark of Divine wrath. He also said:

"If Allah had not rescued me with Abu Hanifa and

Sufyan [al-Thawri] I would have been like the

rest of the common people." Al-Dhahabi relates

it as: "I would have been an innovator."

- Ibn `A'isha mentioned a fatwa of Abu Hanifa

then said: "Truly, if you had seen him you

would have wanted him [for your teacher]!

Truly, his similitude and yours is as in the

saying:

Curse them much or not,

I care little to blame you;

But fill - if you can! -

the space they left vacant.

This is not to mention Abu Hanifa's Fiqh students that were the teachers of subsequent Imams:

Zufar (taught Ibn al-Mubarak);

Abu Yusuf (taught Ahmad);

Muhammad ibn al-Hasan (taught al-Shafi`i, Ahmad, Ibn Sallam)

Asad ibn `Amr al-Bajali (taught Ahmad).

According to Shaykh Wahbi al-Ghawji, even Imam al-Bukhari began as a Hanafi. I would think that this is true of Imam al-Darimi also.

This is all to say that if one ignores the warnings of Abu Mu`awiya, Ibn Dukayn, Bishr, Ibn Dawud, Ibn `A'isha etc. then also fails to grasp the meaning of al-Shafi`i's statement about the Fuqaha' being all indebted to Abu Hanifa in Fiqh [including al-Layth, al-Awza`i, and Malik], let them consider the non-Hanafi hadith Masters' awe before him in the following works of "Merits":

- Manaqib al-A'immat al-Thalathat al-Fuqaha' by Ibn `Abd al-Barr [Maliki];

- Manaqib Abi Hanifata wa Sahibayh by al-Dhahabi [Hanbali...];

- Manaqib al-A'immat al-Arba`a by Yusuf ibn `Abd al-Hadi [Hanbali];

- Tabyid al-Sahifa fi Manaqib Abi Hanifa by al-Suyuti [Shafi`i];

- Al-Khayraat al-Hisaan fi Manaaqib al-Nu`maan by al-Haytami [Shafi`i];

- `Uqd al-Jumaan fi Manaqib al-Nu`man by al-Salihi [Shafi`i].

All in print.

If all this fails to show you that love of Abu Hanifa and his School is not for Hanafis but for Muslims as a whole, then consider the meaning of Hafiz Ibn Hajar al-`Asqalani's expression in Tahdhib al-Tahdhib about Abu Hanifa: "He is of those whose rank reaches over the firmament." This expression means: try as you may, you cannot dent his name with the least aspersion; it is beyond dispute that Allah Most High has written acceptance for him in the Umma.

So the question is why Hanafis would consider these candidates to be more significant than Shafi'is whose works were of benefit to the whole Ummah.

"More significant" - if claimed - might be true numerically from the start, even before the Hanafis emerged above the rest in the res publica.

Muslims of intellect today are like candle lights flickering on a cold, windy night, discussing galaxies. They should not, in addition, try to blow each other out. This Umma is rich enough to have not two, but ten Mujaddids per century. However, who is listening? Who is acting? Allah have mercy on all of them and us.

Hajj Gibril
--
GF Haddad