Imam Abu Hanifa - His Life, Opinions and Fiqh

His Shaykhs
Abu Hanifa said of his scholarly training and his studies of fiqh, “I was in a lode of knowledge and fiqh. I
sat with its people and devoted myself to one of their fuqaha.’”
His words clearly indicate that he lived and grew up in a scholarly environment and that he sat with
scholars, studied with them, and learned their methods of investigation. Then he chose a faqih among them
who satisfied his scholarly inclination and devoted himself to him alone. He did not shun other scholars but
sometimes used to debate with them, his devotion to his own teacher not preventing him from sitting with
them. All sources agree that he was the student of Hammad ibn Abi Sulayman, the shaykh of Iraqi fiqh in his
time. But he also learned from others, related from many and debated with many, especially after Hammad’s
death. When he visited the Haram after leaving Kufa because of the Umayyad governor, Ibn Hubayra, he met
many shaykhs.
Before dealing with those shaykhs, or at least those we know of, and their legal orientation in particular,
we must point out three points:
• Abu Hanifa’s shaykhs were from different persuasions and disparate sects. They were not all fuqaha’ of
the main sunni community and they were not only people of opinion. Some of them were hadith scholars
and some taught the fiqh of the Qur’an and the knowledge of the great Qur’anic commentator, ‘Abdullah
ibn ‘Abbas. When he stayed in Makka for about six years, which is understood from some of the books
we have cited, he must have studied with the Tabi‘un there who had learned the knowledge of Ibn ‘Abbas
from him or from his students.
Many of those he sat with in Iraq were from among the sects of the Shi‘a with all their differences.
They included the Kaysanites, the Zaydites, the Twelver Imams and the Isma‘ilis. Each had an effect on
his thought, even if he did not follow their leanings except in respect of his love for the House of the
Prophet. He took in all those disparate elements and assimilated them to reach his final conclusion. Abu
Hanifa utilised all these elements, taking the best from them, and then produced a new way of thinking
and an upright opinion.
• Abu Hanifa moved away from these different studies and learned the fatwas of the Companions who
were famous for ijtihad, excellent opinion and intelligence.
We read in the History of Baghdad: “One day Abu Hanifa went to al-Mansur when ‘Isa ibn Musa was
with him. He told al-Mansur, ‘This is the foremost scholar of the world today.’ He asked him, ‘Nu‘man,
from whom did you take knowledge?’ He replied, ‘From the companions of ‘Umar from ‘Umar, from the
companions of ‘Ali from ‘Ali, and from the companions of ‘Abdullah (ibn Mas‘ud) from ‘Abdullah, and
in the time of Ibn ‘Abbas none had more knowledge than him.’ He said, ‘You have made sure of
yourself.’”
Abu Hanifa learned the fatwas of those majestic Compan-ions and based himself on following their
fatwas, or at least what he had from the Tabi‘un from whom he learned, because he took it from their
companions without intermediary.
• All the books of virtues mention that he met some Companions. Some of them state that he related
hadiths from them. This would put him in the rank of the Tabi‘un, and thus give him an excellence above
the fuqaha’ contemporary with him like Sufyan ath-Thawri, al-Awza‘i, Malik and others.
Sources do not disagree that Abu Hanifa met some Companions who were contemporary with him and
lived to the end of 100 AH or close to that or were alive in the 90s. They mention several Companions he
met and saw, including Anas ibn Malik, (d. 93), ‘Abdullah ibn Abi Awfa (d. 87), Wathila ibn al-Asqa‘ (d.
85), Abu’t-Tufayl ibn Wathila, (d. in Makka in 102), the last Companion to die, and Sahl ibn Sa‘id (d.
88).
There is disagreement about whether he transmitted from them or not. Some scholars said that he
related from them and they mention hadiths which he reported, but knowledgeable hadith scholars
consider their isnad to be weak.
Most scholars state that even if Abu Hanifa met some Companions, he did not relate from them. They
argue that when he met them he was not at the age of someone who learns knowledge, retains it and
transmits it because that could only have happened at the beginning of his life while he was going to the
markets before he became involved with knowledge.