Advice of Scholars - HANAFÎ MADHHAB AND IMÂM-I A’ZÂM (PART 1)

The rules of the Shârî’at in the Hanafî Madhhab were brought to materialization through a way beginning with Hadrat Abdullah Ibni Mas’ûd, one of the Sahâba. This means to say that the chief of the Madhhab, Imâm-i a’zâm Abû Hanîfa, learned the knowledge of fiqh from Hammâd, who learned it from Ibrâhim-i Nahâ’i, who from Alqama, who from Abdullah bin Mas’ud, who learned it from Rasûlullah ‘sallallâhu ’alaihi wa sallam’.

Abû Yûsuf, Muhammad, Zufar bin Huzayl and Hasan bin Ziyâd are all Imâm-i a’zam’s disciples. Of these, Imâm-i Muhammad wrote some thousand books on the knowledge of the Dîn. Because he married the mother of Imâm-i Shâfi’î, who was one of his disciples, when he died his books were inherited by Imâm-i Shâfi’î and this caused his knowledge to increase. For this reason, Imâm-i Shâfi’î said, “I swear that my knowledge on fiqh has increased by reading Imâm-i Muhammad’s books. He who wants to deepen in the knowledge of fiqh should keep company with Abû Hanîfa’s disciples. ” And once he said, “All Muslims are like Imâm-i a’zâm’s household, children. ” That is, as a man earns his household’s subsistence, so Imâm-i a’zam undertook the task of uncovering the knowledge of the Dîn which people need, thus rescuing everybody from a very difficult job. Imâm-i Shâfi’î’s establishing a different Madhhab does not mean that he disliked Imâm-i a’zam or that he disagreed with him. The Sahâba had different madhhabs, too. Despite this, they liked and respected each other. The last âyat of Fat-h Sûra is a document for this fact.

Imâm-i a’zam Abû Hanîfa not only gathered the knowledge of fiqh, divided it into branches, and put ways and methods, but also gathered the knowledge of fiqh coming from Rasûlullah and from the Sahâba and conveyed it to hundreds of his disciples. Of these, some were educated and trained as specialists in ’Ilm-i kalâm, that is, in the knowledge of îmân. Of these, Abû Suleymân Jurjânî, one of those educated by Imâm-i Muhammad Shaybânî, and Abû Bakr-i Jurjânî, one of his disciples, became famous. And of these disciples, Abû Nasr-i Iyâd educated Abû Mansûr-i Mâturîdî in the knowledge of kalâm.