Hanafi school

Template:Short description Template:Redirect Template:Use dmy dates Template:Sunni Islam

The Hanafi schoolTemplate:Efn or Hanafism is the oldest and largest school of Islamic jurisprudence out of the four schools, belonging to the Ahl al-Ra'y tradition within Sunni Islam. It developed from the teachings of the jurist and theologian Abu Hanifa (Template:Circa), who systemised the use of reasoning (Template:Transliteration). Hanafi legal theory primarily derives law from the Quran, the sayings and practices of Muhammad (sunnah), scholarly consensus (Template:Transliteration) and analogical reasoning (Template:Transliteration), but also considers juristic discretion (Template:Transliteration) and local customs (Template:Transliteration). It is distinctive in its greater usage of qiyas than other schools.

The school spread throughout the Muslim world under the patronage of various Islamic empires, including the Abbasids and Seljuks. The Central Asian 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 Mecelle in the 1870s.

Followers of the Hanafi school are called Hanafis, who are estimated to comprise one third of all Muslims. It is the largest Islamic legal school and is predominant in Central Asia, Turkey, the Levant, and South Asia, in the latter of which it is mainly split between the Barelvi and Deobandi movements.

HistoryEdit

The Hanafi school emerged from the legal tradition of Kufa in Iraq, in which its eponym Abu Hanifa (Template:Died in) resided.Template:Sfn Iraqi jurists were known for their use of independent reasoning (Template:Transliteration) in deriving law.Template:Sfn 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.Template:Sfn The opinions of Abu Hanifa and the earlier Kufan jurists closely correspond,Template:Sfn particularly those of al-Nakha'i.Template:Sfn Abu Hanifa's legal doctrine, as conveyed to his students, was predominantly derived from his own instructors, chiefly Hammad.Template:Sfn Abu Hanifa attended Hammad's study circle for approximately 20 years and inherited it upon Hammad's death.Template:Sfn

Formative periodEdit

File:جامع الإمام الأعظم.jpg

The Abu Hanifa Mosque in Baghdad, which houses the tomb of Abu Hanifa

Abu Hanifa and his students were responsible for systemising the use of ra'y,Template:Sfn of which Abu Hanifa was its "unrivalled master".Template:Sfn According to his contemporary Shu'bah, Abu Hanifa was the "most systematic jurist of his time".Template:Sfn 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 (qiyas). 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.Template:Sfn Qiyas and adherence to analogical consistency were defining characteristics of early Hanafis,Template:Sfn who employed juristic discretion (istihsan) to depart from the results of qiyas when deemed appropriate.Template:Sfn As qiyas enabled the treatment of multiple legal cases from a single case, it facilitated the systematic compilation of legal literature.Template:Sfn

There is no record of legal treatises authored by Abu Hanifa.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn His teachings were transmitted by his disciples Abu Yusuf (Template:Died in) and Muhammad al-Shaybani (Template:Died in), the last of whom was the most prolific.Template:Sfn Later Hanafis termed the corpus of al-Shaybani as the "zahir al-riwaya" and ascribed it an authoritative status.Template:Sfn The students of Abu Hanifa established study circles in Baghdad, an emerging hub of cultural activity and the seat of the Abbasid Caliphate.Template:Sfn The school won the support of the centralising Abbasid state, which sought to unify the legal system.Template:Sfn 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 (Template:Reign) 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.Template:Sfn

Ra'y dialectics involved the interlocutors exploring a series of hypothetical legal cases to delineate the limits of legal assumptions.Template:Sfn In practice, it led Hanafis to favour widely accepted hadith, particularly those which enshrined general principles that were applicable to other cases.Template:Sfn 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.Template:Sfn Reports supported by Iraqi juristic practice were deemed more authoritative than those which were not.Template:Sfn Abu Yusuf and al-Shaybani separately authored works named Kitab al-Athar (Template:Literal translation), 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.Template:Sfn 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.Template:Sfn

In contemporary external sources, members of the nascent school were described as the ashab abi ḥanifa ("companions of Abu Hanifa") and the ashab al-ra'y ("companions of ra'y").Template:Sfn Early Hanafi doctrine was attacked by the traditionists Template:Efn, who accused Hanafis of preferring their ra'y to hadith.Template:Sfn The traditionists primarily found objectionable the Hanafi practice of sometimes favouring qiyas over hadith that were not widely transmitted (ahad).Template:Sfn The identification of Hanafis with the ashab al-ra'y in contradistinction to the traditionist ashab al-hadīth strengthened during the resurgence of the latter following the Mihna.Template:Sfn Al-Shafi'i (Template:Born in), too, critiqued the Hanafis' treatment of hadith and their claim that their positions reflected those of the Kufan companions of Muhammad.Template:Sfn He further argued that istihsan was subjective, which later led to classical Hanafi legal theorists articulating it as being completely dependent on the primary sources of law.Template:Sfn

Classical periodEdit

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.Template:Sfn 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.Template:Sfn Hanafis began to write commentaries on earlier works; until the 12th-century, these were mostly on the works of al-Shaybani.Template:Sfn Al-Quduri (Template:Died in)'s legal primer Mukhtasar al-Quduri was the classical school's first work of the mukhtasar genre and the most authoritative after that of al-Shaybani.Template:Sfn

Criticism from the traditionists led to the Hanafis grounding their positions in hadith over the 9th-century.Template:Sfn Some Hanafis moved towards using the traditionists' method of hadith criticism to justify the school's positions, such as the Egyptian jurist al-Tahawi (Template:Died in).Template:Sfn 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.Template:Sfn

File:Kanz al-daḳāʼik = Treasury of intricacies - DPLA - da273d1d1ba56cc98f89f5a8af6f9f80 (page 355).jpg

Manuscript of Kanz al-Daqa'iq, a legal work by Transoxianan jurist Abu al-Barakat al-Nasafi (Template:Died in)

During the 9th-century, the Hanafi school also emerged as the prevailing school in Transoxiana and Tokharistan.Template:Sfn 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.Template:Sfn The Transoxianan Hanafi tradition was highly influential in defining the doctrine of the later school.Template:Sfn Works authored by Transoxianan jurists and accorded a high status in later Hanafi tradition include:

The jurisprudential work of al-Sarakhsi (Template:Died in), known as Usul al-Sarakhsi,Template:Sfn as well as his legal commentary al-Mabsut.Template:Sfn
The Hidayah of Burhan al-Din al-Marghinani (Template:Died in), which is considered the most authoritative representation of the early classical school.Template:Sfn
Badaʾiʿ al-Sanaʾiʿ, a large legal commentary by Ala al-Din al-Kasani (Template:Died in).Template:Sfn

The intellectual descendants of al-Sarakhsi and his teacher, Abd al-Aziz ibn Ahmad al-Halwani (Template:Died in), eventually became the primary branch of the Transoxianan tradition. For 300 years after al-Sarakhsi, the Halwani-Sarakhsi branch constituted almost all of the major jurists engaged in rule-formulationTemplate:Efn (tarjih) within the school, and dominated the process. The process contributed to the stabilisation of the school's laws.Template:Sfn The branch also popularised the doctrine of the zahir al-riwaya: that the opinions transmitted from the school's founders command the highest level of authority within the school.Template:Sfn

In the 10th-century, the Hanafi theologian Abu Mansur al-Maturidi (Template:Died in) developed a kalam tradition that crystallised into the Maturidi school of theology,Template:Sfn which had descended directly from the theological views of the earliest Hanafis.Template:Sfn 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.Template:Sfn

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.Template:Sfn During the Seljuk expansion of the 11th and 12th centuries, the Hanafi and Maturidi schools spread westward into Syria, Anatolia and western Persia.Template:Sfn In Syria and Iraq, the Central Asian scholars brought with them an increased emphasis on the zahir al-riwaya.Template:Sfn Hanafi migration out of Central Asia accelerated during the Mongol invasions, which ravaged the region.Template:Sfn

Mamluk periodEdit

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 kalam in the Mamluk jurisprudential literature reflect the influence of Central Asian scholars.Template:Sfn

Criticism of the Hanafi approach to hadith prompted Mamluk Hanafi scholars to treat the subject in more detail.Template:Sfn In his legal commentary Fath al-Qadir, the Mamluk jurist Ibn al-Humam (Template:Died in) engages with the traditionists' approach to hadith criticism,Template:Sfn and attempts to navigate the associated legal consequences.Template:Sfn His approach to hadith influenced later Egyptian and Syrian Hanafi scholars.Template:Sfn 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.Template:Sfn

Mamluk jurists faced difficulties in interpreting the plurality of legal opinions that had accrued in the school. In his work al-Tashih wa-al-tarjih, the Mamluk jurist Template:Interlanguage link (Template:Died in) developed and detailed the process of rule-determinationTemplate:Efn, 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.Template:Sfn

Ottoman eraEdit

File:Multaqa al abhur.jpg

17th-century manuscript of Ibrahim al-Halabi's Multaqa al-Abhur

The Ottoman Empire adopted the Hanafi school as their official legal school.Template:Sfn The Ottomans established an extensive network of madrasas to train jurists, with the most prestigious located in the capital Constantinople.Template:Sfn By the 16th-century, the Şeyḫülislâm emerged as the chief imperial religious and judicial authority.Template:Sfn The Şeyḫülislâm was appointed by the sultan and presided over the imperial canon,Template:Sfn a collection of legal texts that the imperial religious hierarchy was required to consult.Template:Sfn Many jurists from Arab provinces of the empire were critical of the imperial canon, partly because of its inclusion of later works which they judged as contradicting the preferred opinions (tarjih) of the school.Template:Sfn The sultans influenced the formation of the imperial religious hierarchy by appointing muftis directly and through the Şeyḫülislâm, delineating the range of legal opinions in the Ottoman Hanafi tradition.Template:Sfn Members of the imperial religious hierarchy were described as "Rūmīs".Template:Sfn Template:Sfn Intellectual genealogies (tabaqat) authored by the imperial religious hierarchy aimed to demarcate the institution, situate themselves and their endorsed works in the broader Hanafi tradition and construct an unbroken intellectual chain to Abu Hanifa.Template:Sfn

Hanafi law co-existed with the qanun (dynastic law), decrees and edicts promulgated by the sultans. The qanun often reaffirmed religious laws; in other cases, it authorised actions that the jurists opposed, such as torture.Template:Sfn The Şeyḫülislâm would sometimes request sultanic edicts to require the imperial religious hierarchy to enforce particular rulings of the school.Template:Sfn The Maʿrūḍāt of the Şeyḫülislâm Ebussuud Efendi (Template:Died in), a collection of fatwas endorsed by Suleiman I, contained sultanic edicts and was frequently referenced in later Hanafi works which considered its opinions binding.Template:Sfn Late Hanafis believed that judges could act as deputies of the sultan who could thus regulate, inter alia, the legal opinions judges could reference, such as in the case of inter-school disputes.Template:Sfn In the 17th and 18th centuries, Hanafi jurists began to incorporate sultanic edicts into authoritative legal works.Template:Sfn

File:Mecelle-yi ahkâm-i adliye - 1305.pdf

A page from the Ottoman Turkish edition of the Mecelle

Ibrahim al-Halabi (Template:Died in)'s legal manual Multaqa al-Abhur was among the most popular in the empire and was the subject of over 70 commentaries.Template:Sfn By the 19th-century, it had become the standard legal textbook.Template:Sfn Other popular Ottoman manuals were the Durar al-Hukkam of Molla Hüsrev (Template:Died in) and al-Durr al-Mukhtar of Haskafi.Template:Sfn The Radd al-Muhtar of the late Arab-Ottoman jurist Ibn Abidin (Template:Died in) is considered an authoritative and representative work of the late Hanafi tradition.Template:Sfn It lists most opinions within the school and their level of authoritativeness, incorporating most primary Hanafi sources produced until its writing.Template:Sfn It employs legal devices such as necessity (darura) to depart from the canonical zahir al-riwaya where necessary to ensure the continued relevancy of the school, and references sultanic edicts to revise the school's opinions.Template:Sfn

Between 1869 and 1877, the Ottomans promulgated the Mecelle, a codification of Hanafi jurisprudence.Template:Sfn The Mecelle was drafted by a committee led by the jurist Ahmed Cevdet Pasha,Template:Sfn who had successfully argued against the implementation of the Napoleonic Code.Template:Sfn It drew from the Hanafi literature on legal maxims (qawaʿid fiqhiyya) and to a great degree favoured the opinions of the late Hanafi tradition.Template:Sfn Many of its articles were fully or partially derived from al-Halabi's Multaqa al-Abhur.Template:Sfn However, the Mecelle also marked the state's assumption of control over jurisprudence, which had previously been the purview of the decentralized juristic community.Template:Sfn

Indian subcontinentEdit

File:Manuscript copy of al-Fatawa al-'Alamgiriyyah.jpg

William Jones' manuscript of the al-Fatawa l-ʿAlamgiriyya

The Hanafi school spread to India from Transoxiana and eastern Persia.Template:Sfn To consolidate control over his realm, the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb (Template:Reign) ordered the compilation of Hanafi fatwas. Completed between 1664 and 1672, the resulting al-Fatawa l-ʿAlamgiriyya selected legal opinions from earlier Hanafi legal works and is modelled after the Hidayah of al-Marghinani.Template:Sfn

During the colonization of India, the East India Company sought to create a "complete digest of Hindu and Mussulman law" to eliminate legal pluralism. The resulting Anglo-Muhammadan law was based in part on a translation of al-Marghinani's Hidayah, which was chosen for its brevity and its belonging to the Hanafi school, which most Indian Muslims followed. Consequently, the Hidayah was effectively codified and severed from the Hanafi commentarial tradition under which it was traditionally interpreted.Template:Sfn

In the 19th-century, the Hanafi Deobandi movement emerged in India.Template:Sfn The Deobandis' legal views include strict adherence (taqlid) to a legal school in contradistinction to the Ahl-i Hadith movement,Template:Sfn and emphasise the importance of hadith.Template:Sfn The Deobandi acceptance of Ibn al-Humam's approach to hadith criticism culminated in the I'la al-Sunan of Deobandi scholar Zafar Ahmad Usmani (Template:Died in),Template:Sfn a work that attempts to justify Hanafi positions using hadith.Template:Sfn

Contemporary eraEdit

File:Madhhab Map3.png

Global distribution of the Islamic schools of law

Today, the Hanafi school is the largest Islamic school of law, constituting approximately one-third of all Muslims. It is the predominant school in the former Ottoman territories, including Turkey and much of the Levant. It is also predominant among Muslims in Central Asia, the Indian subcontinent, China, the Caucasus and the Balkans.Template:Sfn In Pakistan, it is estimated that 75% of Muslims subscribe to the Barelvi and Deobandi movements of the Hanafis.Template:Sfn

The Ottoman Mecelle was repealed by most post-Ottoman states over the first half of the 20th-century. Parts remained in force in Jordan and Israel until the 1970s.Template:Sfn Where it is dominant, the Hanafi school is followed in religious observance and, in some regions, continues to govern Muslim family law.Template:Sfn

Legal theoryEdit

The legal theory (usul al-fiqh) of the Hanafi school recognises the following sources of law, listed in order of epistemic authority: the Quran, the practices and sayings of Muhammad (sunnah) as documented in the hadith, consensus of opinion (ijma), qiyas, istihsan and local customs (urf).Template:Sfn Texts with equal epistemic authority may modify each other; if they are of differing levels, the text with the weaker epistemic authority is rejected in favour of the stronger one.Template:Sfn

QuranEdit

The Quran is the primary source of Hanafi law. In Hanafi legal theory, it is considered acceptable to adduce non-canonical Quranic readings related by the companions of Muhammad as legal evidence, but they are not treated as part of the Quranic text.Template:Sfn For example, classical Hanafi jurists are known to have cited the non-Uthmanic reading of Ibn Mas'ud but treated it akin to an exegetical gloss.Template:Sfn

HadithEdit

The Hanafis categorise hadith as mass-transmitted (mutawatir), famous (mashhur) or solitary (ahad) depending on the nature of their chain of transmission (isnad):Template:Sfn

A mutawatir hadith is transmitted by such a large number of people on each level of its isnad that it is impossible for it to have been forged.Template:Sfn It imparts epistemically certain knowledge about the sunnah.Template:Sfn
A mashhur hadith is transmitted by a limited number of people at the first level of its isnad but was widely acted upon by jurists, beginning with their first generations.Template:Sfn It imparts epistemically near-certain knowledge about the sunnah.Template:Sfn
An ahad hadith, also known as a "singular report" (khabar al-wahid), is one which is neither mutawatir nor mashur.Template:Sfn

Only mutawatir and mashhur hadith may abrogate a Quranic verse, whether by replacing, qualifying or restricting its understanding.Template:Sfn An ahad hadith cannot be adduced in legal discussions of "great importance" as Hanafis assume that God would have ensured the reliable transmission of critical religious knowledge; nor can it be used if its early transmitters did not act upon it, as Hanafis assume that their inaction indicates that it is not part of the sunnah.Template:Sfn

IjmaEdit

Ijma refers to the consensus of opinion. Ijma may be explicit, with all mujtahids agreeing verbally or through actions, or tacit, where some express an opinion while others remain silent. In the Hanafi view, tacit ijma can only establish a concession (rukhsah) rather than a strict rule (azimah).Template:Sfn The Hanafis believe that the companions of Muhammad reached ijma on some matters, and some Hanafis regard agreement between Abu Bakr and Umar, the first two Rashidun caliphs, as being ijma.Template:Sfn

QiyasEdit

Qiyas, also referred to analogical reasoning, involves extending a ruling on an original case (asl) to a subsidiary case (Template:`far) where both cases share an effective cause (Template:`illah).Template:Sfn For example, because of the prohibition of usury, it is forbidden to exchange wheat and other commodities for each other unless the transaction is immediate and the amount of both goods are equal. Hanafis extend this prohibition to apples through qiyas, as they identify the underlying Template:`illah as the exchange of a measurable commodity, and apples are measurable.Template:Sfn

Compared to the other Sunni and Shi'ite schools of law, Hanafis use qiyas more extensively and grant it greater authority.Template:Sfn However, it is deemed a last resort only to be used when no ruling can be derived from the Quran, sunnah and ijma.Template:Sfn Hanafis view qiyas as a means of revealing pre-existing implicit rulings within the law rather than as a source of new rulings.Template:Sfn Because the law is viewed as coherent and internally consistent, a valid qiyas must accord with its internal rationality.Template:Sfn

If a ruling derived from qiyas conflicts with that from an ahad hadith, the Hanafis disagree on which takes precedence. One group argues that the ahad hadith always takes precedence, while a second group, led by Isa ibn Aban (Template:Died in), opine that it only takes precedence if transmitted by a companion of Muhammad known to be a jurist.Template:Sfn In general, the early classical school always followed hadith transmitted by jurist-companions regardless of its correspondence with qiyas, but followed hadith transmitted by non-jurist companions only if it corresponded with a possible qiyas, and thus accorded with the internal rationale of the law.Template:Sfn Template:Efn By the Ottoman period, however, the distinction had become less popular and non-jurist companions were largely treated the same as jurist companions.Template:Sfn

The Hanafis require the original case to not directly state the Template:`illah. The Template:`illah must be deduced by other means.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn If the Template:`illah is stated, then the ruling is applied to other cases via the "indication of the text" (dalalat al-nass), not qiyas.Template:Sfn Dalalat al-nass is an exercise in linguistic interpretation rather than analogical reasoning.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn

IstihsanEdit

Istihsan refers to juristic discretion. The Hanafi jurist al-Sarakhsi (Template:Died in) describes it as a means through which a jurist can depart from a ruling derived through qiyas to ameliorate hardship, where the new ruling is typically supported by a superior proof, such as the Quran, sunnah, necessity (darurah) or an alternative qiyas.Template:Sfn For example, by way of necessity, the Hanafi jurists allow a son to buy food or medicine for his ill father from the father's property without his prior permission.Template:Sfn Hanafi istihsan based on necessity is, however, less broad than Maliki istihsan based on public welfare (maslaha).Template:Sfn

Istihsan emerged out of concerns among Hanafis that unrestrained qiyas could lead to results that were absurd or contradicted the sunnah.Template:Sfn The earliest Hanafis, including Abu Hanifa and al-Shaybani, more frequently used istihsan justified by subjective and pragmatic reasoning rather than on evidential grounds.Template:Sfn Their use of istihsan sought to change the scope or outcome of a ruling due to its potential effects. More often than not, they deployed istihsan in a way that cannot be considered as ameliorating hardship, such as establishing the liability of a group of thieves involved in theft even if only one of them carried the stolen goods.Template:Sfn Subjective istihsan declined due to attacks from al-Shafi'i, and Hanafi legal theorists would systemise it into the form eventually espoused by al-Sarakhsi,Template:Sfn attempting to incorporate elements of subjectivity into the definition of necessity.Template:Sfn

UrfEdit

Urf refers to customary practices. The Hanafis consider it as an ancillary source of law that is subordinate to the primary sources of law.Template:Sfn Urf is divided into two types: general (al-urf al-'amm) and special (al-urf al-khass). A general urf refers to a customary practice that is widely accepted among a people regardless of the time period. As part of istihsan, the Hanafis permit favouring general urf over a ruling derived through qiyas. A special urf is more local and is upheld by a particular location or profession. Most Hanafis agree that special urf cannot qualify the general meaning of a textual evidence (nass), and that a ruling derived from qiyas takes precedence over special urf, although there is some disagreement on this.Template:Sfn Ali Bardakoğlu suggests that the emphasis given to urf in Hanafi legal theory can partly explain the spread of the school among disparate non-Arab groups.Template:Sfn

Hanafi school

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