The understanding of the laws and code of conduct of Islam is something that has constantly been evolving throughout Islamic history. The first generations of Muslims after the Prophet ﷺ had a much easier time understanding what is expected out of them as Muslims because they had access to the Sahaba, the companions of the Prophet ﷺ. As history progressed, however, a need arose to codify Islamic laws into organized and easy to access law codes.
The first person who undertook this monumental task was the great scholar Imam Abu Hanifa. Through his efforts, the first school of fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence), the Hanafi school, developed. Today, the Hanafi school is the largest and most influential among the four schools (madhabs) of fiqh.
Early Life and Education
Abu Hanifa’s given name was Nu’man ibn Thabit. He was born in 699 in the Iraqi city of Kufa, to a family of Persian origin. His father, Thabit, was a successful businessman in Kufa and thus the young Abu Hanifa intended to follow in his father’s footsteps. Living under the oppressive reign of the governor of Iraq, al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf, Abu Hanifa stayed focused on running the family silk-making business and generally steered clear of scholarship. With the death of al-Hajjaj in 713 came the removal of oppressive policies regarding scholars, and Islamic scholarship soared in Kufa, especially during the reign of Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz (717-720).
Thus, by his teenage years, Abu Hanifa began to study under some of the resident scholars of Kufa. He even got the opportunity to meet between eight and ten companions of Prophet Muhammad ﷺ, among them Anas ibn Malik, Sahl ibn Sa’d, and Jabir ibn Abdullah. After learning from some of the greatest scholars of Kufa, he went on to study in Makkah and Madinah under numerous teachers, namely Ata ibn Abu Rabah, who was known as one of the greatest scholars of Makkah at the time.
He soon became an expert in the sciences of fiqh (jurisprudence), tafsir (exegesis of the Quran), and kalam (seeking theological knowledge through debate and reason). In fact, the concept of using debate and logic became a cornerstone of his methodology for seeking Islamic laws.
His School of Fiqh
The Imam Abu Hanifa Mosque in Baghdad
Imam Abu Hanifa was a firm believer that a code of laws cannot stay static for too long, at the risk of no longer meeting the needs of the people. Thus he advocated interpreting the sources of Islamic law (usul al-fiqh) in response to the needs of the people at the time. This dynamic form of legalism did not supersede the Quran and Sunnah (sayings and doings of the Prophet ﷺ), of course. Instead, he promoted the use of the Quran and Sunnah to derive laws that addressed the issues that people dealt with at that time.
A major aspect of his methodology was the use of debate to derive rulings. He would commonly pose a legal issue to a group of about 40 of his students, and challenge them to come up with a ruling based on the Quran and Sunnah. Students would at first attempt to find the solution in the Quran, if it was not clearly answered in the Quran, they would turn to the Sunnah, and if it was not there, they would use reason to find a logical solution.
Abu Hanifa based this methodology on the example when Prophet Muhammad ﷺ sent Mu’adh ibn Jabal to Yemen and asked him how he will resolve issues using Islamic law. Mu’adh responded that he would look into the Quran, then the Sunnah, and if he does not find a direct solution there, he would use his best judgement, an answer that Muhammad ﷺ was pleased with.
Using such a process for codifying fiqh, the Hanafi madhab (school of law) was thus founded, based on the rulings of Imam Abu Hanifa, and his prominent students, Abu Yusuf, Muhammad al-Shaybani, and Zuffar. It became the first codified madhab, through the main book of Abu Hanifa’s legal opinions, al-Fiqh al-Akbar.
His Legacy
A map of the distribution of madhab’s worldwide today. The Hanafi madhab is in light green.
Numerous times throughout his later life, Abu Hanifa was offered a position as a chief judge in the city of Kufa. He consistently refused such appointments and thus found himself regularly imprisoned by both the Umayyad and later, the Abbasid authorities. He died in the year 767 while in prison.
A masjid was built in his honor in Baghdad years later, and was renovated in the Ottoman period by the monumental architect Mimar Sinan.
His school of law became very popular in the Muslim world not long after his death. As the official madhab of the Abbasid, Mughal, and Ottoman Empires, his school became very influential throughout the Muslim world. Today, it is very popular in Turkey, Syria, Iraq, the Balkans, Egypt, and the Indian Subcontinent.
Bibliography:
Khan, Muhammad. The Muslim 100. Leicestershire, United Kingdom: Kube Publishing Ltd, 2008. Print.
Sabiq, A. Fiqh us-sunnah at tahara and as-salah. 1. Indiana: American Trust Publications, 1991. Print.
[...] In order to practice Islamic law in the empire correctly, Aurangzeb insisted on compiling Islamic law into a codified book that could be much more easily followed. He thus brought together hundreds of scholars of Islam from all over the Muslim world to organize such laws. The result was a landmark text of fiqh (jurisprudence) in the Hanafi school, known as the Fatawa-e-Alamgiri, meaning “The Religious Decrees of Alamgir”. It was known as the Fatawa al-Hindiya (الفتاوى الهندية) in the rest of the Muslim world and is well-respected as a compendium of Hanafi law. [...]
[...] the Muslim world. Among his more notable students were Abu Yusuf, Muhammad al-Shaybani (they were Abu Hanifah’s two most important students as well), and Imam [...]
[...] had a much easier time understanding what is expected out of them as Muslims because they had access to the Sahaba, the companions of the Prophet ﷺ. As history progressed, however, a need arose to [...]
[...] For the third of the four great imams, Imam Muhammad al-Shafi’i, his great contribution was the codifying and organization of a concept known as usul al-fiqh - the principles behind the study of fiqh. During his illustrious career, he learned under some of the greatest scholars of his time, and expanded on their ideas, while still holding close to the Quran and Sunnah as the main sources of Islamic laws. Today, his madhab (school of thought), is the second most popular on earth, after the madhab of Imam Abu Hanifa. [...]
[...] governor of Iraq, al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf, Abu Hanifa stayed focused on running the family silk-making business and generally steered clear of scholarship. With the death of al-Hajjaj in 713 came the removal of [...]
[...] we have seen each one of the imams have a special and enduring role in Islamic history. Imam Abu Hanifa was the trailblazer when it came to codifying fiqh and establishing the basics of how it is to be [...]
As per Quaranic command mentioned in the sura al-imran it is prohibited to make different groups with self opinions,so is it permissible to identify somebody as a member of any madhabs out of four principal madhabs? hope it is not permissible……..
Assalamo-alaikum Muktabul Hussain,
Madhabs as wrongly understood by wide Muslims is not a caste but is derived rulings.
Madhabs are all about rulings from Al-Qur’an and Sunnah. Difference of opinion was there even amongst Sahabas and one such incident about Asar namaaz on difference of opinion within Sahabas is there in one of the Hadith books (I am not recalling now but do remember reading it).
Now why did scholars tried to come out with rulings rather than writing Hadith, well that as well is mentioned in Sahih-Bukhari itself where in hadith (Vol1 Book3 106-110) it is said that Prophet (S.A.W) mentioned that anybody twisting my words will be in Hell. Hence most of Prophet’s (S.A.W) companion did not write Hadith and for this very reason even great scholars did not attempt writing Hadith.
Also if you go into details of Sahih-Bukhari, Sahih-Muslim and other authentic hadith books you will find enormous data and few conflicting as well, for a common man it is too hard to interpret these.
Also not all muslims understand all ruling associated to this life, prayers, etc from Al-Qur’an that easily.
Hence it is understandable that the scholars (these 4 Imams), decided to come up with rulings referring to Al-Qur’an and the Hadith accessible to them by various means.
Example: Abu-Hanifa heard hadith from few Sahabas itself and also then ruler “Umar bin Abdul Aziz” had ordered for recording of Hadiths.
So Madhabs is like studying same engineering but different college.
If you see in offices, we all will be Electronics/Computer engineers, all have studied same basics, same textbooks, but different colleges. Our teachers would have used different methods to teach the same thing.
This is just a vague explanation to clarify what are Madhabs.
Hence all scholars accept that all four Madhabs are correct as their rulings are from Al-Qur’an and from Hadiths as well.
Not even one Madhab has a single ruling conflicting Al-Qur’an or Hadith.
You will surely find atleast one verse of Al-Qur’an or one Hadith supporting their ruling.
Also If you dig into these Madhabs you will yourselve find the differences are too minor.
Like for “Taraweeh”, Bukhari has hadith were Prophet (S.A.W) permits night prayer in Ramadan or other months to be prayed in “2+2+2 and so on and when you fear approaching dawn then pray 1 and make it odd”. But still people want to argue between 20+3 and 8+3
. It is prominent from the Hadith’s that Prophet prayed Tahajjud in all months and in Ramadan as 8+3 and after sleeping for few hours after Isha. The taraweeh which everybody pray now was started by Umar ibn Abd-al’kattab (Sahih-Bukhari Vol3 Book32 Number 227) which was permitted by Prophet in Hadith that tahajjud who wishes can enjoin with Isha namaaz and can pray in “2+2+2 and so on and to make it odd before dawn”.
But people want to argue on it and blame on Madhabs.
Madhabs have adopted one of these two “20+3″ or “8+3″ depending upon the permissions from Prophet as per Hadith and hence all are right, but hypocrites want to create a fuss to disturb Muslims.
So Madhab’s is something which has to be referred when you cannot interpret a ruling based on Al-Qur’an and Sunnah, so you can rely on one of these 4 scholars as they spent their life trying to do the same for the next generations.
We all know that very few of the Muslims know Al-Qur’an completely or even read it regularly, forget the Hadiths.
So in such cases where common people recite Al-Qur’an occasionaly and definitely not to derive rulings for complex cases, they can refer to any of these Scholars’ (Imams) works as they have put in their life’s effort here.
Also if one is a great scholar himself and if he comes with a ruling related to something which is as per Al-Qur’an and Sunnah but say doesn’t falls in the rulings derived by these 4 scholars then they can still follow it after verifying it with qualified scholars. But how many such cases have ever come to light
.
I hope I was able to clarify atleast few things related to your query.
I do need improvement in my knowledge, so do mention if I have written something wrong.
Rabbi-zidni-ilman!!
May Allah bless us with right knowledge and guide us on to the straight-path till death — Ameen!!.
Allah Hafiz. Fi-Amanillah!!
–
Abdul Baasit Hafiz.
O’ ALLAH GUIDE US TO THE RIGHT PATH.