Hanafi school
The Hanafi school or Hanafism is the largest school of Islamic jurisprudence out of the four principal schools within Sunni Islam. It developed from the teachings of the jurist and theologian Abu Hanifa, who systemised the use of reasoning. Hanafi legal theory primarily derives law from the Quran, the sayings and practices of Muhammad, scholarly consensus and analogical reasoning, but also considers juristic discretion and local customs. It is distinctive in its greater usage of than other schools.
The school spread throughout the Muslim world under the patronage of various Islamic empires, including the Abbasids and Seljuks. The region of Transoxiana emerged as a centre of classical Hanafi scholarship between the 10th and 12th centuries, which gave rise to the Maturidi school of theology. The Ottoman Empire adopted Hanafism as its official school of law and influenced the legal thought of the school, eventually codifying it as the in the 1870s.
Followers of the Hanafi school are called Hanafis, who are estimated to number around 800 million worldwide. As such, it accounts for approximately 45% of all Muslims and remains the largest Islamic school, being predominant in the Balkans, Central Asia, the Caucasus, Turkey, the Levant, and South Asia.
History
The Hanafi school emerged from the legal tradition of Kufa in Iraq, in which its eponym Abu Hanifa resided. Iraqi jurists were known for their use of independent reasoning in deriving law. Kufa, alongside Medina and Basra, was a centre of legal activity at the beginning of the second Hijri century. Its prominent jurists included Amir al-Sha'bi, Ibrahim al-Nakha'i and Hammad ibn Abi Sulayman. The opinions of Abu Hanifa and the earlier Kufan jurists closely correspond, particularly those of al-Nakha'i. Abu Hanifa's legal doctrine, as conveyed to his students, was predominantly derived from his own instructors, chiefly Hammad. Abu Hanifa attended Hammad's study circle for approximately 20 years and inherited it upon Hammad's death.Formative period
Abu Hanifa and his students were responsible for systemising the use of ', of which Abu Hanifa was its "unrivalled master". According to his contemporary Shu'ba ibn Ayyash, Abu Hanifa was the "most systematic jurist of his time". His legal thought was distinct for its treatment of hypothetical scenarios, which he held would help prepare for disastrous circumstances. It was also distinct for its method of analogical reasoning. Abu Hanifa would identify the normative, underlying principles of the law from the Quran, hadith and practices of Muhammad's companions, and applied these to solve unprecedented legal cases. ' and adherence to analogical consistency were defining characteristics of early Hanafis, who employed juristic discretion to depart from the results of ' when deemed appropriate. As ' enabled the treatment of multiple legal cases from a single case, it facilitated the systematic compilation of legal literature.There is no record of legal treatises authored by Abu Hanifa. His teachings were transmitted by his disciples Abu Yusuf and Muhammad al-Shaybani, the last of whom was the most prolific. Later Hanafis termed the corpus of al-Shaybani as the "" and ascribed it an authoritative status. The students of Abu Hanifa established study circles in Baghdad, an emerging hub of cultural activity and the seat of the Abbasid Caliphate. The school won the support of the centralising Abbasid state, which sought to unify the legal system. The Abbasids' preference for appointing Hanafi judges assisted in spreading the school. Abu Yusuf served as a judge in Baghdad; the Abbasid caliph Harun al-Rashid later appointed him as the chief judge. By the time of al-Shaybani's death, the school had spread to Egypt and Balkh in Tokharistan.
' dialectics involved the interlocutors exploring a series of hypothetical legal cases to delineate the limits of legal assumptions. In practice, it led Hanafis to favour widely accepted hadith, particularly those which enshrined general principles that were applicable to other cases. When the widespread collection of hadith led to the circulation of reports that contradicted Hanafi positions, the Hanafis prioritised those that were acted upon by the Iraqi legal tradition. Reports supported by Iraqi juristic practice were deemed more authoritative than those which were not. Abu Yusuf and al-Shaybani separately authored works named Kitab al-Athar '', which sought to ground Hanafi teachings in the precedent of the early Kufan jurists and the Kufan companions of Muhammad, notably Abd Allah ibn Mas'ud and Ali. Abu Hanifa himself is known to have used hadith; in Abu Yusuf's Ikhtilaf Abi Ḥanifa wa-Ibn Abi Layla, which lists cases where Abu Hanifa differed with his contemporary Ibn Abi Layla, Abu Hanifa is quoted as citing a hadith in around 10% of the cases presented, but cites narrations attributed to Muhammad's companions more often.
In contemporary external sources, members of the nascent school were described as the ' and the '. Early Hanafi doctrine was attacked by the traditionists, who accused Hanafis of preferring their ' to hadith. The traditionists primarily found objectionable the Hanafi practice of sometimes favouring ' over hadith that were not widely transmitted. The identification of Hanafis with the in contradistinction to the traditionist ' strengthened during the resurgence of the latter following the Mihna. Al-Shafi'i, too, critiqued the Hanafis' treatment of hadith and their claim that their positions reflected those of the Kufan companions of Muhammad. He further argued that '' was subjective, which later led to classical Hanafi legal theorists articulating it as being completely dependent on the primary sources of law.
Classical period
During the 9th century, the Hanafi school transitioned from a "personal school" centered around individual jurists and their study circles to a distinct legal community with a collectively recognised doctrine and authoritative figures. By the end of the century, the school resembled a professional body with a doctrine that was systematically transmitted from teachers to students, maturing into its classical form. Hanafis began to write commentaries on earlier works; until the 12th century, these were mostly on the works of al-Shaybani. Al-Quduri 's legal primer was the classical school's first work of the genre and the most authoritative after that of al-Shaybani.Criticism from the traditionists led to the Hanafis grounding their positions in hadith over the 9th century. Some Hanafis moved towards using the traditionists' method of hadith criticism to justify the school's positions, such as the Egyptian jurist al-Tahawi. Nonetheless, the classical legal theorists focused on formulating a Hanafi approach to hadith criticism that emphasised a hadith's acceptance by early jurists, with transmitter analysis taking a secondary role.During the 9th century, the Hanafi school also emerged as the prevailing school in Transoxiana and Tokharistan. The school was introduced to Transoxiana by the students of Abu Hanifa and al-Shaybani, but became prevalent under the Samanids, during whose rule Hanafi scholars received official favour. The Transoxianan Hanafi tradition was highly influential in defining the doctrine of the later school. Works authored by Transoxianan jurists and accorded a high status in later Hanafi tradition include:
- The jurisprudential work of al-Sarakhsi, known as, as well as his legal commentary.
- The of Burhan al-Din al-Marghinani, which is considered the most authoritative representation of the early classical school.
- , a large legal commentary by Ala al-Din al-Kasani.
In the 10th century, the Hanafi theologian Abu Mansur al-Maturidi developed a ' tradition that crystallised into the Maturidi school of theology, which had descended directly from the theological views of the earliest Hanafis. Due to philosophical differences, the Transoxianan Maturidis disagreed with the Mu'tazilite strain of Iraqi Hanafis on several technical points of legal theory, but saw limited success in expunging the Mu'tazilite influence.
The Oghuz Turks who founded the Seljuk Empire became attached to the Transoxianan Hanafi tradition. The Seljuks favoured these eastern Hanafis and appointed them to various official positions in their new territories, encouraging their migration out of Central Asia. During the Seljuk expansion of the 11th and 12th centuries, the Hanafi and Maturidi schools spread westward into Syria, Anatolia and western Persia. In Syria and Iraq, the Central Asian scholars brought with them an increased emphasis on the . Hanafi migration out of Central Asia accelerated during the Mongol invasions, which ravaged the region.
Mamluk period
During the 13th and 14th centuries, the Mamluk Sultanate saw an influx of Hanafi scholars from Anatolia and Central Asia. Discussions of Islamic logic and ' in the Mamluk jurisprudential literature reflect the influence of Central Asian scholars.Criticism of the Hanafi approach to hadith prompted Mamluk Hanafi scholars to treat the subject in more detail. In his legal commentary ', the Mamluk jurist Ibn al-Humam engages with the traditionists' approach to hadith criticism, and attempts to navigate the associated legal consequences. His approach to hadith influenced later Egyptian and Syrian Hanafi scholars. This "Egyptian school" of Hanafi hadith criticism referenced hadith from the hadith collections instead of Hanafi legal works, and employed the traditionists' terminology to assess their authenticity.
Mamluk jurists faced difficulties in interpreting the plurality of legal opinions that had accrued in the school. In his work , the Mamluk jurist developed and detailed the process of rule-determination, clarifying the role of precedent and enabling other jurists to engage in the process themselves, and thus determine the applicable legal ruling for a given case. It marked a shift in the material consulted by muftis from the primary literature of the school to its secondary literature, comprising legal commentaries and compendia which contained rulings.