Abstract
While he is considered the founder of the Hanbalï school of jurisprudence, it is unclear whether Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal (d. 241/855) had any aspirations to become such a figure. He is not known to have authored any works on jurisprudence, his primary literary legacy being various types of collections of traditions. We find reports within the Ḥanbalī tradition suggesting that he was adamant that his legal opinions were not to be recorded and distributed as sources of law.2 Nevertheless, many, if not all, his leading disciples transmitted these opinions in collections containing his responses to various questions, not only about Islamic law, but also on ethics, theology, and, occasionally, legal hermeneutics. Unfortunately, most of this literature—referred to as Masā’il—has not survived the centuries following his death. They also often provide conflicting narrations of Ḥanbal’s legal positions, and hardly give us any evidence about his overall method in jurisprudence. It took almost a full century and a half before Ḥanbalīs began to articulate a comprehensive system of jurisprudence, deriving rather general principles (uṣūl) from his different statements. Although it was preceded by significant efforts to compile and harmonize the different Masā’il, the key developments in this process took place largely in the circle of the Ḥanbalī qāḍī of Baghdad, Abū Ya’lā Ibn al-Farrā’ (d. 458/1066), who composed the school’s first proper uṣūl al-fiqh work, al-’Udda.3
“Take care not to speak on a legal question for which you do not have an imām.”
—Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal (reported by al-Maymūnī).1
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Notes
Abū al-Faraj ‘Abd al-Raḥmān b. ‘Alī Ibn al-Jawzī, Manāqib al-Imām Aḥmad, edited by ‘Abd Allāh b. ‘Abd al-Muḥsin al-Turkī (Cairo: Maktabat al-Khānjī, 1979), 245.
See Abū Abd Allāh al-Ḥasan Ibn Ḥāmid, Tahdhīb al-ajwiba, edited by al-Sayyid Ṣubḥī al-Samarrā’ī (Beirut: Maktabat al-Nahḍa al-’Arabiyya, 1988), 17.
See examples in Christopher Melchett, Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal (Oxford: Oneworld Publications, 2006), 65–66.
Abū Ya’lā, Muḥammad b. al-Ḥusayn al-Farrā’ al-Baghdādī, al-’Udda fī uṣūl al-fiqh, edited by Ahmad b. ‘Alī Sīr al-Mubārakī, 5 vols (Riyadh: 1990).
Susan Spectorsky, “Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal’s Fish Journal of the American Oriental Society, 102(3) (1982): 461.
See also her “Ḥadīth in the Responses of Isḥāq b. Rāhawayh,” Islamic Law dnd Society 8(3) (2001): 407–431,
and “Sunnah in the Responses of Isḥāq b. Rāhawayh,” in Studies in Islamic Legal Theory, edited by Bernard G. Weiss (Leiden: Brill, 2002).
Christopher Melchert, The Formdtion of the Sunni Schools of ldw, 9th–10th centuries C.E. (Leiden; New York: Brill, 1997), 14–15 Aḥmad d. Ḥanbal, 78–79
David Vishanoff, The Formation of Islamic Hermeneutics: How Sunni Legal Theorists Imagined a Revealed Law (New Haven, CT: American Oriental Society, 2011), 232.
Christopher Melchert, “Traditionist-jurisprudents and the Framing of Islamic Law”, Islamic Law and Society, 8(3) (2001): 383–406;
Scott Lucas, “Where are the Legal Hadīth? A Study of the Musannaf of Ibn Abī Shayba,” Islamic Law and Society, 15 (2008): 283–314;
Cf. ‘Abd al-Majīd Maḥmud ‘Abd al-Majīd, al-Ittijāhāt al-fiqhiyya ‘inda Aṣḥāb al-ḥadīth fī-l-qarn al-thīlith al-hijrī (Cairo: Maktabat al-Khānijī, 1979), 131, which makes a similar case, dating the split to the controversy of the Miḥna.
Cf. Shams al-Dīn Aḥmad b. Muḥammad al-Dhahabī, Siyar a’lam al-nubalā’, edited by Shu’ayb al-Arna’ut & Muḥammad Na’im al-Arqasūsī (Beirut: Mu’assasat al-risāla, 1986), 8:538.
Susan Spectorsky, “Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal’s Fiqh,” Journal of the American Oriental Society, 102(3) (1982): 461–465.
On this figure, see Susan Spectorsky, “Ḥadīth in the Responses of Isḥāq b. Rāhawayh,” Islamic Law and Society, 8(3) (2001): 407–431;
Jonathan Brown, The Canonization of al-Bukhārī and Muslim: The Formation and Function of the Sunnī Ḥadīth Canon (Leiden: Brill, 2007), 71–74;
Cf. Christopher Melchert, “Bukhārī and Early Hadith Criticism,” Journal of the American Oriental Society, 121(1) (2001): 7–19.
Ahmed El Shamsy, “The First Shāfi’ī: The Traditionalist Legal Thought of Abū Ya’qūb al-Buwayṭī (d.231/846),” Islamic Law and Society, 14(3) (2007): 301–341, especially 317–320.
Ahmad b. Muhammad Ibn Ḥanbal, Masā’il al-Imām Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal wa-Isḥāq b. Rāhawayh riwāyat Isḥāq b. Manṣūr al-Kawsaj, edited by Abī’l-Ḥusayn Khālid b. Maḥmūd al-Rabāt, Wi’ām al-Ḥawshī & Jum’a Fatḥī, 2 vols (Riaydh: Dāral-Hijra, 2004), henceforth: Masā’il Kawsaj.
Aḥmad b. Muḥammad Ibn Ḥanbal, Masā’il al-Imām Aḥmad riwāyat Abī Dāwūd Sulaymān b. al-Ash’ath al-Sijistāni, edited by Abū Mu’ādh Tāriq b. ‘Awaḍ Allāh b. Muḥammad (Cairo: Maktabat Ibn Taymiyya, 1998), henceforth: Mdsd’il Abi Dāwūd.
Aḥmad b. Muḥammad Ibn Ḥanbal, Masā’il al-Imām Aḥmad b. Hanbal riwāyat ibnihi Abī’l-Faḍl Sāliḥ, edited by Faḍl al-Raḥmān Dīn Muḥammad, 2 vols (Delhi: al-Dār al-’Ilmiyya, 1988), henceforth: Masā’il Sālih.
Aḥmad b. Muḥammad Ibn Ḥanbal, Masā’il al-Imām Aḥmdd riwāyat ‘Abd Allah b. Aḥmad [], edited by Aḥmad b. Sālim al-Miṣrī (al-Manṣūra: Dār al-Mawadda, 2008), henceforth: Masā’il ‘Abd Allāh.
Aḥmad b. Muḥammad Ibn Ḥanbal, Masā’il al-Imām Aḥmad bi-riwāyāt Abi’l-Qāsim al-Baghawī, edited by ‘Amr ‘Abd al-Mun’im Sulaym (Cairo: al-Maṭbā’a al-Madanī, 1993), henceforth: Masā’il al-Baghawī.
Christopher Melchert, “The Musnad of Ahmad b. Hanbal: How It Was Composed and What Distinguishes It from the Six Books,” Der Islam, 82 (2005): 32–51.
John Burton, The Sources of Islamic Law: Islamic Theories of Abrogation (Edinburgh: University Press, 1990), 22–25; Melchert, “Traditionist-jurisprudents,” 403–404.
Cf. Henri Laoust, Les premiéres profession de foi Hanbalites (Damascus: Institute français de Damas, 1957), 13–14; Al-Sarhan, “Early Muslim Traditionalism,” 45–47 points to different versions of this creed that reveal different theological positions of their transmitters.
See Abū Ya’lā, al-Masā’il al-fiqhiyya min kitāb al-Riwāyatayn wa’l-wajhayn, edited by Abd al-Karīm b. Muḥammad al-Lāḥim (Riyadh: Maktabat al-Ma’ārif, 1985), 1: 207–209;
al-Hāshimī, Ru’ūs al-masā’il fī’l-khilāf ‘alā madhhab Abī ‘Abd Allāh Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal, edited by ‘Abd al-Malik b. ‘Abd Allāh Duhaysh (Beirut: Dār Khiḍr, 2001), 256–257.
Abū Bakr al-Khallāl, al-Sunna, edited by Atiyya ‘Atīq al-Zahrānī (Riyadh: Dār al-Rāya, 1994) 4:23.
This letter is also reproduced by Ibn Taymiyya Majmū’at al-fatāwā, edited by ‘Āmir al-Jazzār & Anwār al-Bāz (al-Manṣūra: Dār al-Wafā’, 1997), 7:243–403.
John Burton, The Sources of Islamic Law: Islamic Theories of Abrogation (Edinburgh: University Press, 1990), 22–23.
Christopher Melchert, “Traditionist-jurisprudents and the Framing of Islamic Law,” Islamic Law and Society, 8(3) (2001): 403–404.
See also his “Qur’ānic Abrogation across the Ninth Century: Shāfi’ī, Muḥāsibī, Abu ‘Ubayd, and Ibn Qutayba,” in Studies in Islamic Legal Theory, edited by Bernard Weiss (Leiden: Brill, 2002): 88, 94–95.
Joseph Lowry, “The Legal Hermeneutics of al-Shāfi’ī and Ibn Qutayba: A Reconsideration,” Islamic Law and Society, 11(1) (2004).
See also his Early Islamic Legal Theory: The Risāla of Muḥammad b. Idrīs al-Shāfi’ī (Leiden: Brill, 2007), 123–125.
See Imām al-Ḥaramayn al-Juwaynī, al-Burhān fī uṣūl al-fiqh, edited by ‘Abd al-Aẓīm Abū Dib (Qatar: Shaykh Khalīfa bin Ḥamad Āl Thānī, 1399H), 1307–1309;
A. Kevin Reinhart, “Like the difference between Heaven and Earth: Ḥanafī and Shāfi’ī discussions of farḍ and wājib in Theology and Uṣūl,” in Studies in Islamic Legal Theory, edited by Bernard Weiss (Leiden: Brill, 2002), 228–230.
See Muḥammad b. Naṣr al-Marwazī, Ikhtilāf al-’ulamā’, edited by al-Sayyid Ṣubḥī al-Samarrā’ī (Beirut: ‘Ālam al-Kutub, 1985), 24–25;
Aaron Zysow, “The Economy of Certainty: An Introduction to the Typology of Islamic Legal Theory,” Doctoral thesis (University of Harvard, 1984), 32.
Muhammad b. Ibrāhīm Ibn al-Mundhir, al-Ishrāf ‘alā madhāhib al-’ulatmā’, Abū Ḥammād Ṣaghīr Aḥmad al-Anṣārī (Ra’s al-khayma: Maktabat Makka al-Thaqāfiyya, 2004), 1:71–73, 110–111.
See al-Nawawī, Kitāb al-majmū’ sharḥ al-Muhadhahab li’1-Shirāzī, edited by Muḥammad Najīb al-Mutī’ī (Jeddah: Maktabat al-Irshād, 1980), 2: 65–69, who reports that the eleventh century Shāfi’ī traditionist al-Bayhaqī, and argues that this is the ‘older’ (qadīm) doctrine of al-Shāfi’ī.
See more on this issue in Jonathan Brown, “Did the Prophet Say It or Not? The Literal, Historical, and Effective Truth of Ḥadīths in Early Sunnism,” Journal of the American Oriental Society, 129(2) (2009): 259–285.
See a good summary of Ibn Taymiyya’s disagreement with earlier jurists such as Abū Ya’lā in Abdul Hakim I. Al-Matroudi, The Ḥanbalī School of Law and Ibn Taymiyya: Conflict or conciliation (Abingdon, Oxford: Routledge, 2006), 59–66.
Ibn Abī Ḥātim, Kitāb al-jarḥ wa’l-ta’dīl (Hyderabad: Matba’at Majlis Dā’irat al-Mā’ārif al-’Uthmāniyya, 1941–1953), 1:10.
Ibn al-Jawzī, Manāqib al-Imām Aḥmad, edited by ‘Abd Allāh b. Abd al-Muḥsin al-Turkī (Cairo: Maktabat al-Khānjī, 1979), 79.
Ahmad, Ziāuddin. “Abū Bakr al-Khallāl—The Compiler of the Teachings of Imam Ahmad b. Hanbal,” Islamic Studies, 9(3) (1970): 245–254.
See Anas Khalid, “The Mukhtaṣar of al-Khiraqī: A Tenth Century Work of Islamic Jurisprudence” (Doctoral Thesis, New York University, 1992).
See also Nimrod Hurvitz, “The Mukhtasar of al-Khiraqī,” in Law, Custom and Statute in the Muslim World, edited by Ron Shaham (Leiden: Brill, 2007), 1–16.
For takhrīj in the Shāfi’ī school, see Christopher Melchert, “The Meaning of Qāla’l-Shāfi’ī in Ninth Century Sources,” in ‘Abbasid Studies II: occasional papers of the School of ‘Abbasid Studies, Cambridge, 6–10 July 2002, edited by James Montgomery (Leuven: Peeters, 2004);
Ahmed El Shamsy, The Canonization of Islamic Law: A Social and Intellectual History (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 2013), 173–182.
Ignaz Goldziher, Introduction to Islamic Theology and Law, trans. Andras and Ruth Hamori (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1981), 237.
Joseph Schacht, An Introduction to Islamic Law (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1964), 35.
Noel J. Coulson, The History of Islamic Law (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1964), 72.
Wael Hallaq, The Origins and Evolution of Islamic Law (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 127.
For more on the bias against Ḥanbalism in early Western scholarship, see George Makdisi, “L’Islam Hanbalisant,” translated as “Hanbalite Islam” in Studies on Islam, edtied by Merlin L. Swartz (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981), 216–274.
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bin Ramli, H. (2015). From Tradition to Institution: sunna in the Early Ḥanbalī School. In: Duderija, A. (eds) The Sunna and its Status in Islamic Law. Palgrave Series in Islamic Theology, Law, and History. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137369925_9
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