The Hanafī school is one of the four primary schools of Sunni jurisprudence. Its legal system is unique from the other three schools. The Hanafī school is considered as a rationalist school, while the other three are traditionalists. The origins of this framework were founded in Kufa, at the hands of ‘Abdullāh b. Mas’ūd, may Allah be pleased with him. He was sent to Kufa by the second Caliph, ‘Umar b. Al-Khaṭṭāb, may Allāh be pleased with him, to teach them the Quran and the religion.
The effects of ‘Abdullāh b. Mas’ūd, may Allah be pleased with him, on the Kufan school is mainly through his teaching. In Kufa, he left behind four-thousand scholars that he had trained. (1) When he passed away, ‘Alī b. Abī Ṭālib, may Allah ennoble his countenance, said: “Allah have mercy on Ibn Umm ‘Abd. He filled this land with knowledge”. He is considered the primary source and impact on what will come to be the school of Iraq.
Subsequently, Abū Hanīfa, may Allah have mercy on him—who became the most prolific voice of the Iraqi school—based his paradigm on the opinions and fatwas of ‘Abdullāh b. Mas’ūd, may Allah be pleased with him. ‘Uthmānī writes:
“The basis of Abū Hanīfa’s school are the positions of Ibn Mas’ūd and ‘Alī from the Prophet, peace be upon him—and they are the majority—or from their reasoning. Abū Hanīfa, may Allah have mercy on him, and his companions only differ with Ibn Mas’ūd and ‘Alī, may Allah be pleased with them both, in a few issues when it became clear to them the strength of the opinions of other companions; as it is written in the books of our colleagues (aṣhābunā).” (2)
An example of Abū Hanīfa’s, may Allah have mercy on him, adhering to the positions of ‘Abdullāh b. Mas’ūd, may Allāh be pleased with him, is in the issue of raising the hands in prayer save the tahrīm: as shown perspicuously in the famous debate between Abū Hanīfa and Imam al-Awzā’ī, may Allah have mercy on them.
After ‘Abdullāh b. Mas’ūd, may Allah be pleased with him, the most impactful figure, on this Iraqi school, was Ibrāḥīm al-Nakha’ī, may Allah have mercy on him. He was a student of the students of ‘Abdullāh b. Mas’ūd, may Allāh be pleased with him. Students such as ‘Alqamah, Shurayh al-Qāḍī, al-Aswad and ‘Abdur-Rahmān b. Yazīd and others, may Allah have mercy on them. He would give fatwas in line with theirs and following their paradigm. (3)
He became one of the great Imams of his age and a key figure of ijtihād (independent reasoning). When asked if he gives verdicts according to what he has heard—i.e. what has been transmitted to him—he would say, “No. However, some of it I have heard, and what I have not heard I make analogies.” He also said, “I hear a hadīth and make a hundred analogies based on it.” He became from the earliest of those that employed qiyās [analogical reasoning] when pursuing ijtihād.
Ibrāḥīm al-Nakha’ī, may Allah have mercy on him, had such a weighty role in the intellectual feats of Abū Hanīfa that some scholars even considered Abū Hanīfa to be a muqallid [imitator] of his. Dr Haytham ‘Abdul Hamīd—in his work ‘Taṭawwur al-Fikr al-Uṣūlī al-Hanafī’ asserts strongly and convincingly that Abū Hanīfa was not practising taqlīd [imitation], but practised absolute [muṭlaq] ijtihād. However, Abū Hanīfa hailed from the Iraqi tradition; thus, his positions generally aligned with al-Nakha’ī's. Dr. Muhammad Rawwās demonstrates that Abū Hanīfa, may Allah have mercy on him, concurs with eighty-four positions of al-Nakha’ī, differing with him in only sixteen positions. (4)
Ibrāḥīm al-Nakha’ī’s—and the fuqaḥā based—qiyāsī approach was imbibed by one of Ibrāḥīm al-Nakha’ī’s stalwart students and disciples Hammād b. Abī Sulaymān, may Allah have mercy on him. It was from him that Abū Hanīfa, may Allah have mercy on him, learned this Iraqi tradition, subsequently laying out and solidified its principles and building what would be known and followed for centuries as the Hanafī school of Islamic Law.
A distinguishing factor of the Hanafī school is that it formed through a council comprising of Abū Hanīfa, may Allah have mercy on him, and his students. He would run each position by them, debating it with them and acknowledging their positions if bearing strength. From his many students, two that became the most important and prominent were Abū Yūsuf b. Ibrāḥīm and Muhammad b. Hasan al-Shaybānī, may Allah have mercy on them both. It was through them that the school developed and spread.
The ẓāḥir al-riwāya tradition comprises of positions and reasonings of Abū Hanīfa and the two companions may Allah have mercy on them. The principles forming the Imam’s paradigm were both explicitly and implicitly mentioned in the ẓāḥir al-riwāya tradition. It is a misconception that the Imam’s principles were not written down. They were written by his students, albeit not in an independent book, but sprinkled throughout the six works making up the ẓāḥir al-riwāya tradition.
In terms of developing Hanafī legal theory in the generation of the students Abū Hanīfa's students, there was not much activity. However, one unique exception was the erudite scholar ‘Isā b. Abbān, may Allah have mercy on him, (d. 220 ah). He was from the students of Muhammad b. Hasan, may Allah have mercy on him. He was the first person who transmitted legal theory as an independent genre. He was so brilliant that he collected the disputed positions between the school of Iraq and the school of Madīna the Illuminated, embellishing this collection of positions with proofs and references to hadīth reports, and weighing up the strong arguments from the weak. (5)
This period began to see the development of what would come to be known as the ‘Iraqi tradition’ from within the Hanafī school—a kind of sub school. The third-century witnessed the appearance of the shuyūkh al-madhḥab. This period saw great Imams such as Abū Sa’īd al-Barda’ī, may Allah have mercy on him. After him the mantle of headship fell to his student—the fourth-century erudite Imam—Abū al-Hasan al-Karkhī (d. 340 ah), may Allah exonerate him. He completed the building of the Iraqi tradition; he was a mujtaḥid in uṣūl. (6)
Al-Karkhī, may Allah exonerate him, endeavoured as he did, however, its paradigm was set in stone and eloquently pearled together by his prominent student Abū Bakr al-Rāzī al-Jaṣṣās, may Allah exonerate him. He took the mantle from his teacher becoming the Imam of the Iraqi tradition. They each brought their unique efforts to the school as a whole, and the Iraqi tradition in particular.
As for al-Karkhī, may Allah exonerate him, he was from the earliest who provided the uṣūlī proofs for what was transmitted from the Imams of the school. Beyond this, he had many of his personal ijtiḥādāt related to unprecedented issues (la naṣṣ ‘alay-ḥā). He did not produce the principles but had a historic role in codifying them. He would support the principles using the particular cases that had been transmitted from the Imams (yudallil ‘alay-ḥi min furū’ al-a’imah). (7) It is this bottom-up approach—this inductive process—for which it is called an inductive school.
Al-Karkhī’s prominent student, Abū Bakr al-Rāzī al-Jaṣṣās, takes second place for his impact on the school’s legal theory. He wrote an official and codified legal theory. He gave Hanafī legal theory a new classification and style. It was the first text of uṣūl that has reached us. He had his own opinions and even differed with his teacher. However, out of his immense esteem for his teacher, he would first prove his teacher's argument and then give his own opinion; and even this was after the passing of his teacher. (8)
This is the fuqaḥā’ tradition of uṣūl. It is a methodology of doing legal theory by extracting the general principles from particular transmitted cases. This is very different from what is known as the tradition of the mutakallimūn or aḥl al-hadīth. Imām al-Shāfi’ī, may Allah have mercy on him, being the pioneer of that tradition wrote his principles down, from which particular rulings are deduced. This is the top-down deductive approach.
Furthermore, the M'utazila impacted the Iraqi' tradition. The Imam of the Iraqi Hanafī tradition—al-Karkhī—was the Shaykh of the M’utazilah in his age. Al-Dhaḥabī says: “He was the head of the M’utazilī school, may Allah exonerate him!” (9) His link to the M’utazilah school is apparent since his direct teacher was Abū ‘Alī al-Jubbā’ī. Also, from the students of al-Karkhī was Abū ‘Abdullāh al-Hussain b. Alī al-Baṣrī who was the teacher of Abū ‘Abdullāh al-Qāḍī ‘Abdul Jabbār al-M’utazilī.
As for Abū Bakr al-Rāzī al-Jaṣṣās, may Allah exonerate him, he denied the beatific vision. He had M’utazilī tendencies regarding issues of human efficacy, luṭf and magic (considering it only to be trickery and deception). His Al-Fuṣūl and Ahkām al-Qurān have these M’utazila leaning positions explicitly written out. Regarding the beatific vision for example, he writes that the word idrāk (perception) in verse, "No sightings shall have idrāk of Him while He has idrāk of all sightings", means sight itself and not encompassing; which is the normative Sunni view. The Sunnis posit that this means that idrāk (seeing) Allah is inherently conceivable (jā'iz 'aqlan), and further made necessary (wājib shar'an) by revelation. The position of the M’utazilah, as expounded here by al-Jaṣṣās, is that idrāk means sight.
He further goes on to argue that if idrāk means sight—i.e. that one accepts the M’utazilī position—then know that Allah praises Himself with a positive quality of 'not being able to be seen'. Therefore, affirming its opposite would be to affirm an Attribute of deficiency for Allah. He says, “When He has praised Himself through negating vision through sight (bi-nafī r’uyat al-baṣr ‘an-Hu) then affirming its opposite and reverse in any state is not permitted.”
He goes on to make two more arguments. The first is that the verse, ‘sights not having idrāk of Allah, is not specified by the verse, “Faces will be bright on that day gazing at their Lord". Since gazing (nāẓirah) in Arabic can have multiple meanings; such as intizār—waiting [for reward]. Therefore, it has the plausibility of bearing this interpretation [of intizār], so it is not permitted to object to it without justification. He then ends the argument by saying that all the reports from the Prophet, upon him be endless blessings and peace, and the salaf are intended to mean necessary knowledge, not sight. (10)
Thus, it is quite evident that the Iraqi tradition, in its initial stage, had strong M’utazilī influence. As for the Samarqandī tradition, its history is less available today due to many important works having been lost. Al-Haytham mentions that he found it challenging to set an exact beginning point to the Samarqandī tradition due to the paucity of works available. He says that had it not been due to ‘Alā’ al-Dīn Al-Samarqandī (539 AH) in his book of uṣūl al-fiqh Al-Mīzān and Mahmūd b. Zaid al-Lāmashī, may Allah have mercy on him—a contemporary of ‘Alā’ al-Dīn Al-Samarqandī—in his Kitāb Uṣūl al-Fiqh we would have been unable to do so entirely and nor would we have known the particularities of this Samarqandī tradition. (11)
This Samarqandi tradition impacted many uṣūlī scholars; such as Al-Dabūsī, Al-Bazdawī and AL-Sarkhasī, may Allah have mercy on them; yet they do not explicitly highlight their methodology (manḥaj) being that of the people of mā-warā’ al-naḥr (Transoxiana). ‘Alā’ al-Dīn Al-Samarqandī, may Allah have mercy on him, explicitly mentions that there are two variant traditions—that of Iraq and Samarqand—and that their differences were theological as well as methodological. He mentions in the introduction of the Mīzān:
“The majority of works in uṣūl al-fiqh are by the aḥl al-‘itizāl (12) who oppose us in uṣūl and by aḥl al-hadīth (13) who oppose us in furū’. Relying on their works will either lead to error in theology or problems in practical laws. Avoiding both is necessary, rationally and scripturally. The works of our companions [samarqadīs]—Allah have mercy on them—are of two types: A type within which there is the hight of precision and mastery. For its proliferation—from those that gathered the particulars and principles and became an ocean in the science(s) of tradition and rational are the books named ‘Ma’ākhiz al-Sharā’i’ and ‘Al-Jadl’ by the Shaykh, the Imām, the ascetic, the leader of the Aḥl al-Sunnah Abū Manṣur al-Māturīdī al-Samarqandī, may Allah have mercy on him. Moreover, the likes of those [two books are other works] from his teacher and companions, may Allah have mercy on them.” (14)
In this passage, Al-Samarqandī, may Allah have mercy on him, mentions two critical things explicitly and one significant matter implicitly. Firstly, that there is a clear recognition that the Iraqi Hanafī tradition has figures within it that are M’utazilī inclined. Secondly, not only is his tradition—the Samarqandī tradition—Sunnī, without M’utazilī influence, but it finds its origins with the Imam of the aḥl al-Sunnah Abū Manṣur al-Māturīdī, may Allah have mercy him. Lastly, he intends to write a legal theory rooted in the Sunni tradition untainted by ‘itizāl.
As for al-Lāmashī, may Allah have mercy on him, he highlights explicitly in his Kitāb Uṣūl al-Fiqh several distinguishing factors between the two traditions—such as in the issue of khiṭāb al-kuffār bil-furū’—are the unbelievers obliged with the particulars of the Sacred Law—or in word usage for definitions—such as in al-‘ām—and at least five other examples. He does not mention, however, any differences in theology. He uses, for them, the honorific title ‘mashā’ikh’ (scholars) and ‘min aṣhābunā’ (from our companions).
After this period, the later uṣūlī scholars (muta’akhirūn) would aline themselves according to these traditions and adopt their positions. Amir Bād-Shah, may Allah have mercy on him, mentions in his Taysīr al-Tahrīr:
“From the conditions of the cause (al-‘ilah) being acceptable—as it is attributed—for a group of Hanafīs—Al-Karkhī from the earlier scholars and Abū Zaid from the later scholars—and it has been reported from the scholars of ‘Iraq, the majority of the later scholars and some of the Shāfi’īs that al-‘ilah qāṣirah ‘alā-l asl does not extrapolate (ghair mustanbiṭah). The majority of jurists, from them, our scholars the Samarqandīs, al-Shāfi’ī, Ahmad and others, went with the correctness of making a causal relation using it (t’alīl bi-hā)” (15)
‘Abdul ‘Azīz al-Bukhārī mentions:
“They differed regarding specifying the cause (al-’ilah). Al-Qāḍī the Imam Abu Zaid and the Shaykh Abū-l Hasan al-Karkhī, Abū Bakr al-Rāzī and the majority of our Iraqi companions posited that specifying the cause is acceptable. The scholars of our lands (mā-warā’ al-naḥr), past and present, hold that it is unacceptable and it is the dominant position of al-Shāfi’ī’s two positions and the majority of his companions” (16)
From the various aspects specific to the Samarqandī tradition, one example is that it is rooted in scholastics (‘ilm al-kalām). It is owed to its direct figurehead being Imam al-Matūridī himself. For this reason, perhaps, there is arguably a level of proximity between the Samarqandī tradition and the Mutakallimūn. There are at least three prime ways that demonstrate this: Firstly, the Samarqandīs did not make an inference from particular cases to build the principles as the basis for their methodology. Another example is the Samarqandīs holding a similar position to the mutakallimūn in the indication of a general statement being epistemically speculative (ẓanīyyat dalālat al-‘ām), and not definitive (qaṭ’ī), which is the popular view of the school. This is mentioned explicitly by al-Lāmashī, may Allah have mercy on him, in his work. (17) As for ‘Alā’ al-Dīn Al-Samarqandī, may Allah have mercy on him, he writes in his al-Mīzān:
“According to al-Jaṣṣās and the majority of the scholars of our lands, it [al-‘ām] is [in the meaning of] collection and plentiful, not full inclusion [of every particular]. The scholars of Iraq say: ‘From its conditions is absolute inclusion [of every particular]’” (18)
Secondly, the Samarqandīs codified nomenclature according to the science of logic, as is the case also with the Mutakallimūn. Thirdly, the method of laying out their texts is similar to the Mutakallimūn; such as setting a separate discussion for discussing the hukm shar’ī. Al-Haytham observed, despite similarities between the Samarqandīs and Mutakallimūn, does not mean that the Mutakallimūn influenced the Samarqandīs. In fact, the Samarqandī tradition predates that of the Mutakallimūn tradition. Since their origins are with Imām al-Matūridī, may Allah have mercy on him, d.333 AH and the school of the Mutakallimūn finds origin firstly in two M’utazilī scholars—Qāḍī ‘Abdul Jabbār d.410 and Hussain al-Baṣrī d.432—and then later in Imām al-Jawaynī d.487 AH and Imām al-Ghazālī, may Allah sanctify their secret, d.505 AH.
The Samarqandī tradition then continues to develop through the efforts of great scholars such as Al-Dabūsī, Al-Bazdawī and Al-Sarkhasī, may Allah have mercy on them. As for their impact and further developing of the school, this will be in a second part to this paper, Allah willing. It becomes apparent that Hanafī scholars, in considerable measure, carried those early uṣūlī endeavours. It also surfaces that the Hanafī school, not uniquely, however, was influenced by the M’utazila rationalists. The school split into two main traditions based mainly on the role of scholastics. Interestingly, the climacteric distinction between the Iraqī tradition and the other schools of Sunni legal theory in general—as well as the Samarqandī tradition in particular—was rooted in the usage of scholastics in legal theory.
(1) Kawtharī, Fiqh Aḥl al-‘Irāq wa Hadīthu-Ḥum, (Cairo: Al-Maktabah Al-Azḥarīya li-Turāth, 2002), p 42
(2) Zafar ‘Uthmānī, Qawā’id Fi ‘Ulūm al-Hadith, (Beirut: Dār al-Salām, 1972), p 438
(3) Ibn Qayyim, ‘Ilām al-Muwaqi’īn, (Riyāḍ: Dār Ibn Jawzīyya, 2002)
(4) Al-Haytham, Taṭawwur al-Fikr al-Uṣūlī al-Hanafī, (Beirut: DKI, 2015), p 97-98
(5) Ibid, p 117
(6) Ibid, p 135
(7) Ibid, p 137
(8) Ibid, p 141
(9) Al-Dhaḥabī, Siyar ‘Aām al-Nubalā’, (Beirut: Al-Risālah, 1992),p 427
(10) Al-Jaṣṣās, Ahkām al-Qurān, (Beirut: Dār Ihyā’ al-Turāth al-Islāmī, 1992), p 169-170
(11) Al-Haytham, Taṭawwur al-Fikr al-Uṣūlī al-Hanafī, (Beirut: DKI, 2015), p 155
(12) The M'utazila
(13) The Traditionalists
(14) Al-Samarqandī, Mīzān al-Uṣūl Fī Natā’ij al-‘Uqūl, (Kuwait: Idārah Ihyā’ Turāth al-Islāmī, 1984), p3
(15) Amir Bād-Shah, Taysīr alā al-Tahrīr, (Beirut, DKI), Vol 4, p5
(16) Abdul ‘Azīz al-Bukhārī, Kashf al-Asrār, (Beirut: Dar al-Kitab al-‘Arabi, 2008), Vol 4, p 32
(17) Al-Lāmashī, Kitāb Uṣūl al-Fiqh, (Beirut: Dar al-Gharb al-Islami, 1995), p 15-16
(18) Al-Samarqandī, Mīzān al-Uṣūl Fī Natā’ij al-‘Uqūl, (Kuwait: Idārah Ihyā’ Turāth al-Islāmī, 1984), p 255
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