Abu Hanifa

Abu Hanifa

Abu Hanifa, or by his full name Abu Hanifa Nu'man ibn Thabit ibn Zuta ibn Mah (Arabic: أبو حنيفة, b. 5 September 699, Kufa – d. 18 June 767, Baghdad), was the founder of the Hanafi school, one of the four fiqh schools in Sunni Islam, and a scholar of fiqh and hadith. His real name was "Nu'man ibn Thabit," and he is also known by the title "al-Imam al-A'zam" (the Greatest Imam).

Life Story

Abu Hanifa was born in 699 in Kufa, one of the important centers of learning of his time. His father's name was Thabit and his grandfather's name was Zuta. The matter of where Abu Hanifa took the epithet "Hanifa" is not clear. The name Abu Hanifa means in Arabic "Father of the Inkpot/Pen." It is considered probable that this name was used by his students in the form "father of the hanifs," from the Arabic word hanif meaning one who believes wholeheartedly and purely.

Abu Hanifa's grandfather Zuta lived in the vicinity of Afghanistan and was taken captive when the Arabs conquered the area. Although he became the slave of the Taym tribe, he attained his freedom some time later. However, İsmail, one of Abu Hanifa's descendants, says that his great-grandfather was never a slave. Zuta came from Kabul in the time of Ali ibn Abi Talib and settled in Kufa.

Abu Hanifa's father Thabit lived in Tirmidh, Nasa, and Anbar. It is even claimed that Abu Hanifa was born in Anbar. He was a wealthy and pious man who later settled in Kufa and dealt in cloth trading. It is related that he met with Ali ibn Abi Talib and received his prayer for himself, his children, and his descendants.

Abu Hanifa's family descends from one of the notables of Khorasan, and it is certain that his family was not Arab. Views that he was Persian are widespread. Some historians have also said that he was an Arab who lived in Babylon.

Adulthood

Abu Hanifa memorized the Quran at a young age and learned the morphology (sarf), syntax (nahw), poetry, and literature of Arabic, which were being systematized at that time. In his youth he saw the Companions Anas ibn Malik, Abdullah ibn Abi Awfa, Wasila ibn al-Aska, Sahl ibn Sa'ida, and lastly Abu'l-Tufayl Amir ibn Wasila, who died in Mecca in 102 AH, and because he heard hadiths from these Companions, he is counted among the Tabi'un (Successors).

Before taking up the study of learning, Abu Hanifa was a successful merchant. He began his study of fiqh by joining the study circle of Hammad ibn Abi Sulayman, and continued to attend Hammad's lessons for eighteen years. Abu Hanifa frequently met with scholars in Mecca and Medina, most of them from the Tabi'un, listened to their narration of hadiths, and held discussions on fiqh. From among the Ahl al-Bayt he learned from Zayd ibn Ali and from Muhammad al-Baqir.

He took his knowledge of Sufism from Muhammad al-Baqir, and after him from Ja'far al-Sadiq, who was of the Silsila-i Aliyya. He learned the knowledge of the Companion Abdullah ibn Abbas from the Meccan faqih Ata ibn Abi Rabah and from Ikrima; the knowledge transmitted from the Caliph Umar and his son Abdullah he learned from Nafi, the freedman of Abdullah ibn Umar. The knowledge transmitted from Abdullah ibn Mas'ud and from Ali he also learned from the Tabi'un whom he met and conversed with.

His Death

Despite all coercion, Abu Hanifa did not bow to the Umayyad and Abbasid holders of power; al-Mansur, the second caliph of the Abbasid State whose conception of governance he did not approve of, had Abu Hanifa imprisoned in Baghdad, had him tortured, and had him poisoned and killed. His school spread to a large part of the Islamic world. Abu Sa'd-i Harezmi, one of the viziers of the Seljuk Sultan Malik-Shah, had a mausoleum built over Abu Hanifa's grave and a madrasa around it.

His Views, Sources, and Method

Creed and Kalam: According to Abu Hanifa, the Quran is not created (makhluq). In this sense the Quran is neither God Himself nor other than Him. The Arabic text, however, is created.

Fiqh: Abu Hanifa is the first Islamic scholar to determine a definite methodology in the solution of fiqh problems and to systematize it. Indeed, this system that he established led to the birth of the first school (madhhab) in the history of fiqh and to his being referred to as the first imam of a school.

Abu Hanifa reorganized upon his own views the concept of the Adilla-i Shar'iyya, referred to as the four proofs, in the solution of problems. If we examine these briefly:

The Book (Quran): Abu Hanifa gave his opinions by looking at the underlying cause ('illa) rather than the outward form (zahir) of the Quranic verses. According to him, except for those relating to worship, the reason behind the ruling stated by every verse must be found, and a fatwa must be given accordingly.

The Sunna: While giving his opinion, he showed meticulousness in the ways of transmission and reporting of the sunnas, and he subjected hadiths to criticism when they conflicted with what is called qiyas, the understanding put forth by the whole of the Quran and the Sunna. He accepted mursal (broken-chain) hadiths.

Qiyas (Analogy): His name has become almost identified with qiyas. Because he did not take certain hadiths as proof on the grounds that they did not conform to qiyas, he was subjected to severe criticism by the Ahl al-Hadith.

Ijma (Consensus): The four basic proofs, called the Adilla-i Shar'iyya, listed up to this point are the tools that fiqh used in solving problems and that the scholars up to Abu Hanifa used without dispute. The imam, by reinterpreting these tools, put forth a unique use of them. By adding a fifth to these traditional proofs, he carried out his true revolution in the methodology (usul) of fiqh on this matter:

Istihsan (Juristic Preference): By bringing this method to the science of fiqh, Abu Hanifa aimed at Islam's adapting to conditions that might change over time. He met with fierce opposition from scholars, foremost among them al-Shafi'i.

The Intellectual Similarities between al-Imam al-A'zam Abu Hanifa and Imam Zayd

The same al-Imam al-A'zam likened the rebellion raised in 121 AH / 739 CE by "Imam Zayd ibn Zayn al-Abidin," one of the members of the "House of the Alids," against the tyrannical rule of the Umayyad Caliph Hisham ibn Abd al-Malik, to the Battle of Badr commanded by Muhammad, and did not hesitate at all to support it.

Imam Zayd, with the view that "while there exists a more distinguished person described as 'afdal' (superior), another, less distinguished person described as 'mafdul' (inferior) may preferably be brought to the office of the caliphate," differed from the Imamiyya Shia,

while al-Imam al-A'zam, with the view of "regarding it as obligatory to rise against tyrannical governments with the sword," differed from the creed of the present-day "Ahl al-Sunna wa'l-Jama'a," of which he is shown as the leader,

with these views they diverged. Subsequently, Abu Hanifa Nu'man ibn Thabit, who through the fatwas he gave continually supported the Ahl al-Bayt and defended the Alids, was also killed by the Caliph al-Mansur.

Social Status and Assessments

Just as many exalting epithets were used about Abu Hanifa, so too he was subjected to severe criticism by the Ahl al-Hadith in places because he did not accept as proof authentic religious sources that he saw as contrary to qiyas.

Abu Hanifa is the greatest representative of the people of considered opinion (ahl al-ra'y). With the basic idea that ahad (single-chain) hadiths, however sound they may be, express not certainty but "conjecture" (zann), he refrained from using many hadiths as proof. For him, hadiths that do not conform to the basic understanding, called qiyas, formed by the whole of the Quran and the Sunna must be treated differently from the others. In this respect he received much criticism. According to the available sources, foremost among those who criticized Abu Hanifa is al-Bukhari. In the chapter headings of his al-Jami' al-Sahih, al-Bukhari criticized Abu Hanifa without mentioning his name, using the expression "Qala ba'du'n-nas" (some of the people said such-and-such), and in his other works he also cited narrations to the effect that Abu Hanifa belonged to the Murji'a, who harmed the religion of Islam. It is even stated that in entry number 388 of al-Bukhari's work titled al-Du'afa al-Saghir, he included a narration that Abu Hanifa was twice called from unbelief to faith.

Sources

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