2
Christopher Melchert
Nurit Tsafrir has traced the spread of Ḥanafi law from Kufa to the cities of Iraq, Fars, Egypt, and North Africa.1 As for its spread to Khurasan and Transoxiana, the leading studies begin with a book (originally a doctoral dissertation) by Muḥammad al-Mudarris, which draws on various biographical sources to list the jurisprudents of Balkh in north-eastern Khurasan (some of them emigrants from Balkh to other places, not all of them demonstrably Ḥanafi) before reviewing problems from the Ḥanafi legal literature over which there are opinions peculiar to men from Balkh.2 An article by Wilferd Madelung traces especially the association of Ḥanafism with political Murji’ism and its early hold on Balkh.3 Berndt Radke summarises Mudarris and Madelung’s leading source, Faḍā’il Balkh (on which more below).4 Josef van Ess very systematically surveys Murji’ism throughout Khurasan.5 Eyyup Said Kaya has published a chapter discussing the three centres of Iraq (actually mainly Baghdad), Balkh, and Bukhara, touching only lightly on the eighth and ninth centuries.6 Most recently, Arezou Azad has published a book-length survey of Faḍā’il Balkh, including remarks on the jurisprudents it describes, although minimising their affiliation with any formal Ḥanafi institution.7 The first object of this essay is simply to extend Tsafrir’s sketch to Khurasan and Transoxiana.
The evidence of biographical dictionaries
The earliest biographical source to identify Ḥanafiyya is that of Ibn Saʽd (d. 230/845). These are the eight men he identifies with Abū Ḥanīfa:8
Abū Yūsuf (d. Baghdad, 182/798; vii/2, pp.73–4 vii,330–1);
Asad b. ʽAmr al-Bajalī (d. Kufa? 190/805–6; vii/2, p.74 vii, p.331);
ʽĀfiya b. Yazīd al-Awdī (d. after 170/786; vii/2, p.74 vii, p.331);
Muḥammad al-Shaybānī (d. near Ray, 189/804–5; vii/2, p.78 vii, p.336–7);
Yūsuf b. Abī Yūsuf (d. Baghdad, 192/808; vii/2,78–9 vii, p.337);
al-Ḥusayn b. Ibrāhīm b. al-Ḥurr (d. Baghdad, 216/831–2?; vii/2,87–8, vii, p.348); Bishr b. al-Walīd al-Kindī (d. Baghdad, 238/853; vii/2, p.93 vii, p.355–5); and
al-Naḍr b. Muḥammad al-Marwazī (d. 183/800; vii/2, p.105 vii, p.373).
These are all from the section on Baghdad except for the last, who is Khurasani. An early biographical source from within the Ḥanafi school is the account of the qadi al-Ḥusayn b. ʽAlī al-Ṣaymarī (d. 436/1045) appended to his biography of Abū Ḥanīfa himself. He does not mention al-Naḍr b. Muḥammad or, indeed, any other Khurasani adherents. However, regional biographical dictionaries do mention other Khurasani adherents of the Ḥanafi school. Al-Ḥākim al-Naysābūrī’s (d. 405/1014), Tārīkh Naysābūr, is the most important of these. Although now lost except for fragments and a Persian abridgement (little more than a list of names), it is often quoted in Mamluk-era biographical dictionaries, of which the most important for the purposes of this study is Ibn Abī l-Wafā’ (d. 775/1373), al-Jawāhir al-muḍiyya.9 Also significant is Faḍā’il Balkh, of uncertain authorship, completed in Arabic in 610/1214, extant only in Persian translation.10 It offers stories not found in other sources, although few additional names. Less full but the very earliest extant Ḥanafi biographical dictionary is ‘Abdallāh b. Muḥammad al-Sa‘dī Ibn Abī l-‘Awwām’s (d. 335/946–7?) Faḍā’il Abī Ḥanīfa, whose section on Abū Ḥanīfa’s adherents includes a sub-section on the people of Rayy and Khurasan.11
Of about ninety followers of Abū Ḥanīfa, as identified by Ibn Abī l-Wafā’, who died in the second half of the second century H. (roughly 768–816), the overwhelming majority were Iraqi but ten were Khurasani; of 130 who died in the first half of the third century H. (roughly 816–65), 23 appear to be Khurasani or Transoxianan. It appears from his coverage of the school that Ḥanafism was first introduced to Marw and Balkh at about the same time by students of Abū Ḥanīfa himself. Early figures in Marw are the following:
Abū Ḥamza Muḥammad b. Maymūn al-Sukkarī (d. 168/784–5?), quoted as relating legal theory of Abū Ḥanīfa.12
Al-Jāmi‘, Abū ‘Iṣma Nūḥ b. Abī Maryam al-Marwazī (d. 173/789–90), qadi of Marw at his death, by one account called ‘al-Jāmi‘’ because he learnt jurisprudence from Abū Ḥanīfa and Ibn Abī Laylā.13
Al-Naḍr b. Muḥammad al-Marwazī (d. 183/799–800), who learnt jurisprudence from Abū Ḥanīfa.14
Abū ‘Abd Allāh al-Faḍl b. Mūsā al-Sīnānī (d. Rāmāshāh, 192/808?), who related hadith of Abū Ḥanīfa.15
Tawba b. Sa‘d b. ‘Uthmān (fl. 170/786–7), qadi of Marw, who learnt jurisprudence from Abū Yūsuf.16
Abū Yazīd ‘Abd al-Raḥmān b. ‘Alqama al-Sa‘dī al-Marwazī (d. 201–10/816– 26?), ‘one of the aṣḥāb of Muḥammad b. al-Ḥasan, sighted in ra’y and ḥadīth, a pious man.’17
Abū Bakr Ibrāhīm b. Rustam (d. Nishapur, 211/826?), who learnt jurisprudence from Muḥammad b. al-Ḥasan.18
These are all directly connected to Iraq. Abū ‘Iṣma and al-Naḍr b. Muḥammad were both accused of Murji’ism, confirming that there was some connection between irjā’ in theology and Ḥanafism in law.19 Madelung associates the Murji’a first of all with an early political doctrine, refusal to condemn either ‘Alī or ‘Uthmān, but his explanation for Murji’ prevalence in Transoxiana and Khurasan is rather a later theological doctrine, that one is either a believer or not, hence no less a one if one omits ritual works – convenient in a land of recent converts.20 On the other hand, Abū ‘Iṣma is also said to have been hard on the Jahmiyya, so not everything that animated the Ḥanafi school of Iraq likewise prevailed among the Ḥanafiyya of Khurasan.21 Wakī‘ (b. al-Jarrāḥ, Kufan, d. 197/812?) identified al-Faḍl b. Mūsā as an exemplar of orthodoxy (ṣāḥib sunna).22 However, neither Ibn Sa‘d nor al-Bukhārī mentions any connection with Abū Ḥanīfa, so his adherence specifically to Ḥanafi law is in doubt.23
Early figures in Balkh are the following:
Abū ‘Alī ‘Umar (‘Amr) b. Maymūn b. Baḥr b. al-Rammāḥ (d. Balkh, 171/787– 8), qadi, who learnt jurisprudence from Abū Ḥanīfa.24
Abū Muḥammad Wasīm b. Jamīl (d. Balkh, 182/798–9), immigrant from Basra, who related hadith of Abū Ḥanīfa.25
Abū ‘Alī Shaqīq b. Ibrāhīm al-Balkhī (d. 194/809–10), famous renunciant, disciple to Abū Yūsuf, before whom he read Kitāb al-Ṣalāt.26 A significant source of biographical information in al-Bakrī (d. Khwārizm, 568/1172–
3), Manāqib al-Imām Abī Ḥanīfa.27
Salm b. Sālim (d. Mecca? 194/810?), Murji’ renunciant brought to al-Raqqa and imprisoned by Hārūn.28
Abū Muṭī‘ al-Ḥakam b. ‘Abd Allāh b. Maslama b. ‘Abd al-Raḥmān al-Balkhī (d. 199/814?), qadi, who related al-Fiqh al-Akbar from Abū Ḥanīfa himself.29
Abū Mu‘ādh Khālid b. Sulaymān (d. Balkh, 199/814), disciple to Abū Ḥanīfa alongside Abū Muṭī‘ and Abū Yūsuf.30 Also related hadith of Sufyān al-Thawrī and Mālik.31
Abū ‘Iṣma ‘Iṣām b. Yūsuf b. Maymūn (d. Balkh, 210/825–6?), who learnt jurisprudence from Zufar, Abū Yūsuf, ‘Āfiya, and one other of the aṣḥāb of Abū Ḥanīfa.32
Shaddād b. Ḥakīm (d. 210/826?), qadi, a disciple to Zufar.33
Abū Sakan Makkī b. Ibrāhīm (d. 215/829), ṣāḥib to Abū Ḥanīfa.34
Abū Sa‘īd Khalaf b. Ayyūb (d. 215/830?), among the aṣḥāb of Muḥammad al-Shaybānī and Zufar, also said to have learnt jurisprudence from Abū Yūsuf and Ibn Abī Laylā.35
Abū Isḥāq Ibrāhīm b. Yūsuf b. Rustam al-Mākiyānī (d. 239/853?), brother to ‘Iṣām and Muḥammad, who learnt jurisprudence from Abū Yūsuf.36
Again, they are all connected directly to Iraq. Madelung alleges that ‘Balkh… became the chief centre of Ḥanafite learning in the east. In other towns of eastern Khurasan and Transoxiana, the school of Abū Ḥanīfa also found an early foothold though it did not gain immediately such predominance.’37 This seems possible but uncertain, first from lack of evidence that Ḥanafism initially spread to the rest of Khurasan from Balkh, secondly from evidence of non-Ḥanafi ulema in Balkh as in other centres.38 Ibn Abī l-Wafā’ names two in the next generation who studied under Abū Muṭī‘: Abū l-Faḍl ‘Abd al-Mu’min b. Muḥammad b. Muḥammad al-‘Āṣimī (n.d.)39 and Abū Muḥammad al-Qāsim b. Zurayq (d. 201/816–17).40 The most important Ḥanafi of Balkh in the second half of the ninth century seems to have been Muḥammad b. Salama (d. 278/891–2), who learnt jurisprudence from Abū Sulaymān al-Jūzajānī (d. 204/819–20?), a prominent student of Muḥammad al-Shaybānī’s, and Shaddād b. Ḥakīm (d. 210/826?).41 The latter was active in Balkh, but so far as can currently be ascertained the former taught in Iraq, so knowledge from Iraq still distinguished the important scholar. This stated, Balkhi jurisprudents outnumbered those from other cities who contributed to the Ḥanafi legal tradition well into the tenth century, as documented from al-Sarakhsī below.
Abū Muṭī‘ and Khalaf b. Ayyūb were said to be Murji’a.42 Salm b. Sālim was imprisoned for his outspoken advocacy, and Ibn Abī l-Wafā’ may have claimed him for the school simply on the assumption that a Murji’ from Balkh must have been Ḥanafi in law, since no source that I have discovered names any direct connection to Abū Ḥanīfa, although Abū Ḥanīfa’s rival Sufyān al-Thawrī is often mentioned among Salm’s shaykhs. Ibn Ḥibbān alleges that Ibrāhīm b. Yūsuf outwardly adhered to Murji’ism but inwardly to the Sunna, presumably an indication of how prevalent was Murji’ism in Balkh.43 On the other hand, Ibrāhīm b. Yūsuf is quoted as disallowing even to abstain from pronouncing that the Qur’an is increate, which, like Abū ‘Iṣma’s opposition to the Jahmiyya, goes against the prevailing theological trend among the Ḥanafiyya of Iraq.44
Early figures in Nishapur are the following:
Abū ‘Umar Ḥafṣ b. ‘Abd al-Raḥmān b. ‘Umar al-Balkhī (d. 199/815), qadi, who related hadith of Abū Ḥanīfa.45
Abū Sa‘īd Ashraf b. Muḥammad (n.d.), qadi, among the aṣḥāb of Abū Yūsuf.46
Abū ‘Alī (or al-Ḍaḥḥāk) al-Jārūd b. Yazīd (d. 206/821–2?), ṣāḥib to Abū Ḥanīfa.47
Abū Sulaymān Ḥammād b. Sulaymān b. al-Marzubān (d. 201–10/816– 26?), who in his old age learnt jurisprudence from (tafaqqaha ‘inda) Muḥammad b. al-Ḥasan.48
Abū Sahl Bishr b. Abī l-Azhar Yazīd (d. 213/828), qadi and renunciant, who learnt jurisprudence from Abū Yūsuf; an immigrant from Kufa.49
Abū ‘Alī al-Ḥasan b. Ayyūb al-Ramjārī (n.d.), who learnt jurisprudence from Abū Yūsuf.50
Abū Muḥammad ‘Abd Allāh b. ‘Umar b. Maymūn al-Rammāḥ (d. 234/849), qadi, who learnt jurisprudence from his father (d. Balkh, 171/787–8), who learnt jurisprudence from Abū Ḥanīfa.51
Abū Muḥammad Naṣr b. Ziyād b. Nahīk (d. 236/850?), qadi, who learnt jurisprudence from Muḥammad al-Shaybānī.52
Aḥmad b. Ḥājj al-‘Āmirī (d. 237/851–2), who learnt jurisprudence from Muḥammad b. al-Ḥasan.53
Abū l-Qāsim Sahl b. Bishr b. al-Qāsim (d. 239/853–4), qadi, who learnt jurisprudence from his father.54
Abū Muḥammad al-Ḥusayn b. Bishr b. al-Qāsim (d. 242/856–7?), qadi, who learnt jurisprudence from his father.55
Abū ‘Alī al-Ḥasan b. Bishr b. al-Qāsim (d. 244/858–9), qadi, who learnt jurisprudence from his father and al-Ḥasan b. Ziyād al-Lu’lu’ī.56
Here was no apparent connection between Ḥanafism and Murji’ism. ‘Abdallāh b. ‘Umar b. Maymūn al-Rammāḥ strongly opposed the doctrine that the Qur’an was create, defiantly walking out of a session (presumably in Baghdad between 212/827 and 218/833) at which the caliph was present behind a screen.57 Ḥafṣ b. ‘Abd al-Raḥmān al-Balkhī was the son of an earlier qadi for Nishapur appointed by Qutayba b. Muslim (governor of Khurasan 86–96/705–15?). After some time, Ḥafṣ repented and withdrew from the judgeship. There must have been some presumption that he was suitable to be appointed qadi in the first place. Assuming he took up Ḥanafi law, it presumably reflects some preference for Ḥanafi law on the part of the Abbasids who appointed him qadi. With Sahl, al-Ḥusayn, and al-Ḥasan the sons of Bishr, we evidently have the beginning of a local Ḥanafi tradition, not directly dependent on Iraq. However, it is unclear what sort of law was taught by their father Bishr b. al-Qāsim (d. 215/830–1), since his biographies mention no Ḥanafi teacher.58
Indeed, the Nishapuran Ḥanafi tradition remains obscure in the later ninth century. Al-Ḥākim al-Naysābūrī describes Abū Naṣr al-Labbād (d. 280/893–4) as ‘the shaykh of ahl al-ra’y in his time and their ra’īs (chieftain)’, but we do not know the name of his teachers in law.59 Similarly, he says of ‘Alī b. Mūsā b. Yazīd (or Yazdād; d. 305/917–18), ‘the imām (leader) of ahl al-ra’y in his time’ and of the qadi ‘Abd al-Raḥmān b. al-Ḥusayn b. Khālid (d. 309/921), ‘the imām of ahl al-ra’y in his time without contest’, yet we do not know the name of their teachers in law, either.60 This is not surprising, considering the nature of schools of law at this point: the guild schools with boundary enforcement mechanisms were yet to come, so that learning jurisprudence was still somewhat like learning hadith, with no set curriculum and depending on multiple teachers.61
The fourth great city of Khurasan was Herat, where I have found just one Ḥanafi who died in the first half of the third century hijri:
Abū Ja‘far Furāt b. Naṣr al-Quhunduzī al-Harawī (d. 236/850–1), who learnt jurisprudence from Abū Yūsuf and also related the books of Muḥammad al-Shaybānī.62
An odd story is told of the introduction of Ḥanafism to Sarakhs. Khārija b. Muṣ‘ab (d. 168/785), alleged to be a Murji’, apparently collected hadith in Iraq and Medina. According to an Abū Ma‘mar al-Hudhalī, ‘The partisans of ra’y would go to the questions (masā’il) of Abū Ḥanīfa and create asānīd for them from Yazīd b. Abī Ziyād from Mujāhid from Ibn ‘Abbās. Then they put them in his books and he would relate them.’63 The story may indicate that later traditionalists were puzzled to see hadith supporting Ḥanafi positions transmitted by Khārija b. Muṣ‘ab, whom they were inclined to respect. It usefully reminds us that there were more advocates of Ḥanafi doctrine about, such as these anonymous partisans of ra’y, than are named in the extant biographical literature.
Some Ḥanafiyya are on record in other places in the Northeast:
‘Abd al-‘Azīz b. Khālid al-Yazīdī (d. 180s/797–806), disciple to Abū Ḥanīfa, qadi for Tirmidh.64
Abū Muqātil Ḥafṣ b. Salm al-Samarqandī (d. 208/823–4?), who transmitted Abū Ḥanīfa (attrib.), Kitāb al-‘ālim wa-l-muta‘allim, a Murji’ creed, notable for ignoring hadith, also sometimes said to have related hadith of Abū Ḥanīfa.65
Abū Ḥafṣ Aḥmad b. Ḥafṣ al-Kabīr (d. Bukhara, 217/832), who learnt jurisprudence from Muḥammad al-Shaybānī.66
Sawra b. al-Ḥasan al-Alūzānī (n.d.), among the aṣḥāb of Muḥammad al-Shaybānī.67
Abū Isḥāq Ismā‘īl b. Sa‘īd al-Shālanjī (d. Astarabadh? 230/844–5?), who learnt jurisprudence from Muḥammad al-Shaybānī.68
Al-Shālanjī is said to have repented late in life of adherence to ra’y and written a Kitāb al-Bayān systematically refuting the opinions of his teacher, al-Shaybānī.69 Ibn Abī l-Wafā’ also names two Ḥanafiyya of the next generation who studied under Abū Ḥafṣ al-Kabīr: Ḥātim b. Naṣr b. Mālik b. Sam‘ān al-Ghujdawānī (n.d.)70 and Abū ‘Abd Allāh b. Abī Ḥafṣ al-Kabīr (d. 274/888).71 This indicates some local tradition of Ḥanafism, likewise the assertion that the chieftaincy of the Ḥanafiyya of Bukhara devolved on Abū Ḥafṣ al-Kabīr, then on his son.72 Abū Ḥafṣ is said to have had the famous traditionalist Muḥammad b. Ismā‘īl al-Bukhārī (d. 256/870) expelled from Bukhara for giving an inane fatwā (declaring that it created a marriage bar for two infants to drink the milk of the same animal), presumably around the time al-Bukhārī, only 15 or 16, left with his brother for the pilgrimage in 210/825–6.73
The evidence of hadith collections and law books
Secondly, I have looked at transmitters of hadith from Abū Ḥanīfa who appear in al-Khwārizmī (d. 665/1266–7?), Jāmi‘ al-Masānīd.74 This is a synthesis of fifteen earlier compilations of hadith related from Abū Ḥanīfa. In a sample of 381 reported isnāds, 21 transmitters from Abū Ḥanīfa (6 per cent) are Khurasani. Khurasanis make up a similar proportion of transmitters from transmitters, although the very large number of unknowns at this level makes comparison with other regions difficult. Still, this is a smaller percentage of Khurasanis than in the list of Abū Ḥanīfa’s adherents as identified by Ibn Sa‘d (13 per cent) and of second-century Khurasanis (11 per cent) and earlier third-century (18 per cent) as identified by Ibn Abī l-Wafā’. These Khurasani Ḥanafiyya made it into the biographical tradition to a greater extent than into the hadith or legal literature of the school.
As another indication of how important different individuals were to the Ḥanafi legal tradition, we might observe the number of citations collected in an index to the massive Mabsūṭ of al-Sarakhsī (d. 483/1090–1?).75 To some extent, citations in the legal literature act as a control on early identifications with Ḥanafism in the biographical literature. For example, Abū Ḥamza, named above for having related a legal principle of Abū Ḥanīfa (mainly giving priority to hadith from the Prophet, staying within the range of Companion opinions, and feeling free to disagree with the Followers), seems to have been mainly a renunciant and traditionalist. However, al-Sarakhsī never cites him, so he must be characterised as an outside observer of the Ḥanafi tradition, not a significant participant. Placing the leading contributors to the Ḥanafi tradition in chronological order, we obtain the following (going down to four or more citations in the whole Mabsūṭ):
Abū Ḥanīfa (d. Baghdad, 150/767), 2015 citations
Zufar (d. Basra, 158/774–5), 446
Abū Yūsuf (d. Baghdad, 182/798), 1792
Asad b. ‘Amr al-Bajalī (d. Kufa? 190/805–6), 16
Muḥammad al-Shaybānī (d. near Ray, 189/804–5), 1795
Yūsuf b. Khālid al-Samtī (Basran, d. 189/805), 4
al-Ḥasan b. Ziyād al-Lu’lu’ī (active in Kufa and Baghdad, d. 204/819–20), 218
Abū Sulaymān al-Jūzajānī (Baghdadi, d. 204/819–20?), 37
al-Ḥasan b. Abī Mālik (Baghdadi, d. 204/819–20), 15
Abū ‘Iṣma ‘Iṣām b. Yūsuf (d. Balkh, 210/825–6?), 8
Ibrāhīm b. Rustam (d. Nishapur, 211/826), 16
Mu‘allā b. Manṣūr (Baghdadi, d. 211/826–7), 12
Abū Ḥafṣ al-Kabīr (Nishapuran, d. Bukhara, 217/832), 39
Bishr b. Ghiyāth al-Marīsī (Baghdadi, d. 219/834–5?), 23
‘Īsā b. Abān (d. Basra, 220/835?), 44
Muḥammad b. Samā‘a (d. Baghdād, 233/847–8), 77
Muḥammad b. Shujā‘ al-Thaljī (Baghdadi, d. 266/880?), 19
Muḥammad b. Salama (Balkhi, d. 278/891–2), 8
‘Abd al-Ḥamīd b. ‘Abd al-‘Azīz, Abū Khāzim (d. Baghdad, 292/905), 4
al-Ṭaḥāwī (d. Old Cairo, 321/933), 69
al-Ḥākim al-Shahīd al-Marwazī (d. 334/945), 28
Abū l-Ḥasan al-Karkhī (d. Baghdad, 340/952), 52
Abū Ja‘far al-Hinduwānī (Balkhi, d. Bukhara, 362/973), 14
Abū Bakr al-Jaṣṣāṣ al-Rāzī (d. Baghdad, 370/981), 25
Muḥammad al-Maydānī (Bukharan, fl. first half fourth/tenth cent.), 17
Abū Zayd al-Kabīr, Aḥmad b. Zayd (Iraqi, fl. first half fourth/tenth cent.?), 6
The impression gained from frequency of citation is of some decline of importance from the late second/eighth century (the Spearman rank correlation coefficient is 40), which is to say a preference for citing earlier authorities. There is also a strong early predominance of Iraqis (ten of the first thirteen names are Iraqi, nine of the second, but 99 per cent of all citations in the first thirteen, down to 65 per cent in the second). No one is named from North Africa or Fars, and only one from Egypt. Here, then, is a chronological list of Khurasanis cited by Sarakhsī (this time going down to two or more citations):
Abū ‘Iṣma ‘Iṣām b. Yūsuf (d. Balkh, 210/825–6?), 8
Ibrāhīm b. Rustam (d. Nishapur, 211/826), 16
Khalaf b. Ayyūb (Balkhi, d. 215/830–1?), 2
Abū Ḥafṣ al-Kabīr (Nishapuran, d. Bukhara, 217/832), 39
Muḥammad b. Salama (Balkhi, d. 278/891–2), 8
Muḥammad b. al-Naḍīr (al-Naḍr? Nishapuran, d. 291/903–4), 2
Abū Naṣr Muḥammad b. Sallām (Balkhi, d. 305/917–18), 2
Aḥmad b. ‘Iṣma, Abū l-Qāsim (Balkhi, d. 326/938), 3
Abū Manṣūr al-Māturīdī (Samarqandi, d. 333/944–5), 2
al-Ḥākim al-Shahīd al-Marwazī (d. 334/945), 28
‘Abdallāh b. al-Ḥasan (Ḥusayn) the qadi (Balkhi, d. 357/967–8), 2
Abū Ja‘far al-Hinduwānī (Balkhi, d. Bukhara, 362/973), 14
Muḥammad al-Maydānī (fl. Bukhara, first half fourth/tenth cent.), 17
Ibn Abī Muṭī‘, al-Mu‘tamid b. Muḥammad (Nasafi, d. 430s/1039–49), 3
Shams al-A’imma al-Ḥalwānī (Bukharan, d. Kishsh, 449/1057–8?), 4
Balkh seems indeed to be the most important centre until the later tenth century (e.g. we observe six Balkhis, just three Nishapurans), when Transoxiana seems to take over. Up to Muḥammad b. Salama, they all learnt Ḥanafi jurisprudence directly from Iraqi teachers. Muḥammad b. al-Naḍr is identified by al-Ḥākim al-Naysābūrī as an adherent of Ḥanafism, but no source records his teacher in law.76 Similarly, many teachers of hadith are named for Muḥammad b. Muḥammad b. Aḥmad, al-Ḥākim al-Shahīd, but no particular teacher of jurisprudence.77 Aḥmad b. ‘Iṣma learnt jurisprudence from Abū Ja‘far al-Hinduwānī.78 Abū Ja‘far al-Hinduwānī himself, Muḥammad b. ‘Abd Allāh b. Muḥammad, learnt jurisprudence from Abū Bakr Muḥammad b. Sa‘īd al-A‘mash (d. Marw, 318/930–1), once said to have learnt jurisprudence in turn from Abū Bakr Muḥammad b. Aḥmad al-Iskāf (d. 336/947–8); but al-Iskāf is also said, more plausibly, to have taught Abū Ja‘far al-Hinduwānī directly.79 Our knowledge of how Ḥanafism spread in Khurasan is still very slight, then, even for the earlier tenth century. Muḥammad al-Maydānī is probably to be identified as a contemporary of al-Hinduwānī’s whose formation is completely unknown.80 Nothing is said in our sources of how Ibn Abī Muṭī‘ learnt jurisprudence, either.81 We are told that Shams al-A’imma al-Ḥalwānī (or Ḥalwā’ī) learnt jurisprudence from Abū ‘Alī al-Ḥusayn b. al-Khaḍir al-Nasafī (Bukharan, d. 424/1033), of whom we hear in turn only that he learnt jurisprudence in Baghdad.82 The Ḥanafi guild school of law crystallised only with the teaching of Abū l-Ḥasan al-Karkhī in Baghdad (d. 340/952) and the spreading out of his students.83
Alternatives to Ḥanafism
One might have expected the predominant school of law in Khurasan to be whatever was predominant in Basra. The conquest of Khurasan had been organised from Basra, and there is much evidence of Basran influence on the development of religion in Khurasan. Of those Followers (tābi‘ūn) in Nishapur, identified by al-Ḥākim as coming from outside Khurasan, eight are from Basra, one each from Kufa and Mecca. It must be borne in mind that this is from the severe abridge-ment; the original is likely to have mentioned more. However, it is consistent with the section on the Followers and later men in Ibn Sa‘d’s section on Khurasan, of whom five are identified as coming from outside: four from Basra, one from Sijistan. The jurisprudence most likely to have dominated in Khurasan might then have been some Basran variety, such as the Basran Mālikism embraced by some of the ninth-century Abbasids, notably al-Muwaffaq (d. 278/891).
In fact, Khurasani Mālikism is completely absent from Ibn Sa‘d. Significant quantities of hadith were related of Mālik by Yaḥyā b. Yaḥyā (d. 226/840?) in Nishapur and Qutayba b. Saʽīd (d. 240/854) near Balkh, but along with much hadith from others.84 Al-Qāḍī ‘Iyāḍ names 156 aṣḥāb to Mālik, only three of them from Khurasan: Ibn al-Mubārak, Yaḥyā b. Yaḥyā, and Qutayba b. Sa‘īd.85 Māliki legal opinions were related in Khurasan, such as this from Sahl b. ‘Ammār (d. Nishapur, 267/880–1?):86
<="" ‘abd="" allāh="" nāfi‘:="" ‘mālik="" asked="" about="" going="" into="" women’s="" rears.="" said,="" ‘i="" have="" just="" now="" done="" so="" with="" my="" umm walad. I heard Nāfi‘ say, “I do so with my wives and concu-bines.” Concerning this came down, “Your women are a tillage. Go to your tillage as you wish (Q. 2:223).”’
Yet Sahl himself was not counted a Māliki. Al-Dhahabī characterises him rather as the chief of ahl al-ra’y in his time, once also as a Ḥanafi.87 The earliest juris-prudent I have come across to be expressly identified as a Māliki is Ibrāhīm b. Maḥmūd b. Ḥamza (d. 299/911–12?), former student under Ibn ‘Abd al-Ḥakam of Egypt (i.e. Muḥammad, d. 268/882) and said to have become the shaykh of the Mālikiyya in Nishapur – also to have had no successor in the teaching of Mālikism there.88 Until the later ninth century, the local alternative to Ḥanafism appears to have been old-fashioned eclecticism, sometimes with a notable traditionalist inflection; for example, it seems, the law taught by Yaḥyā b. Muḥammad Ḥaykān al-Dhuhlī (d. 267/881), the ra’īs of Nishapur put to death by the warlord al-Khujistānī and said to have been counted among both aṣḥāb al-ḥadīth and aṣḥāb al-ra’y.89 After that point, the chief alternative became Shāfi‘ism, with a few stray Ḥanābila and Ẓāhiriyya. Muḥammad b. Ja‘far b. Maḥmūd (d. 347/958–9) of Herat was said to be a Ḥanbali.90 Writing in about 375/985, al-Maqdisī reports some Ḥanābila in Qumis and Tabaristan.91 Al-Dārawardī (d. Bukhara, 376/986?), qadi for various cities in Khurasan and Transoxiana, was said to be the jurispru-dent of the Dāwūdiyya in his time in Khurasan.92
No form of Shāfi‘ism seems to have caught on in Khurasan until the spread of the Mukhtaṣar of al-Muzanī and the Umm of al-Rabīʽ b. Sulaymān in the second half of the ninth century. Aḥmad b. Sayyār (d. 268/881), said to have brought back the books of al-Rabī‘ and others to Marw, seems to be remembered chiefly for his aberrant opinions.93 ‘Abdān b. ‘Īsā (d. 290’s/902–12) travelled from Marw to Egypt when Ibn Sayyār would not allow his books to be copied, confirming his independence of the nascent Shāfi‘i school; that is, he plainly treated the works of al-Shāfi‘ī as a basis for his own teaching, not as something for him to transmit as he had received it.94 Isḥāq b. Mūsā (Ibrāhīm? d. Isfarayin, 284/897–8) is said to have learnt jurisprudence from al-Muzanī and heard al-Mabsūṭ from al-Rabī‘, which he presumably brought back to Transoxiana.95 Alternatively, however, the traditionalist Abū ‘Awāna Ya‘qūb b. Isḥāq (d. 316/928–9?) is credited with intro-ducing the books of al-Shāfi‘ī to Isfarayin.96 One Abū Sahl Maḥmūd b. al-Naḍr b. Wāṣil al-Bukhārī is said to have been a disciple to al-Buwayṭī and the first to take the books of al-Shāfi‘ī to Bukhara.97 However, he is an exceedingly obscure figure, with no separate biography in any source I have examined.
The four Muḥammads were men who learnt Shāfi‘i doctrine in Egypt from al-Muzanī and al-Rabī‘ but were notoriously too independent in their thought to be easily identified as members of the school. One of them was Muḥammad b. Isḥāq b. Khuzayma (d. 311/924) of Nishapur, another Muḥammad b. Naṣr al-Marwazī (d. 294/906), who grew up in Nishapur and taught mainly in Samarqand.98 Probably not very different from them in orientation was al-Ḥasan b. Sufyān al-Nasawī (d. Baluz, near Nasa, 303/916), who learnt jurisprudence from Abū Thawr (d. Baghdad, 240/854) and al-Shāfi‘ī’s Egyptian disciple Ḥarmala (d. 243/858?).99 Al-Dhahabī states that he gave opinions according to the doctrine (madhhab) of Abū Thawr.100 A stable Shāfi‘i tradition developed in Khurasan only with the return of students under the Baghdadi Abū l-‘Abbās b. Surayj (d. 306/918).101
Conclusion
It appears from the present study that Abbasid favour accounts for initial Ḥanafi penetration of Khurasan and Transoxiana, the region whence the Abbasids had originally come to confront the Umayyads. They did not bring Ḥanafi jurisprudence with them to Iraq from Khurasan. Rather, on coming to power in Iraq, they initially favoured Medinese jurisprudence.102 Before long, however, they turned to Ḥanafism, strong in their new capital of Baghdad. This favour was quickly communicated to Khurasan by students returning from Iraq, so that Ḥanafism was the earliest and strongest of the personal schools to be represented there. This is to confirm a prominent theme of Tsafrir’s study, that Ḥanafi strength depended on the authority of the Abbasid dynasty; hence, for example, Ḥanafism had special difficulty establishing itself in Syria, where sympathy for the defeated Umayyads was still strong, hostility to the favoured jurisprudence of the Abbasids correspondingly high.
The thesis that state support was vital to the flourishing of the Ḥanafi school, even the stress on qadi appointments, goes back at least to Ibn Ḥazm (d. 456/1064):103
The origin of that was Abū Yūsuf ’s prevailing on Hārūn al-Rashīd and Yaḥyā b. Yaḥyā’s on ‘Abd al-Raḥmān b. al-Ḥakam so that no one was appointed in East or West save whom these two men indicated and concerned themselves with. People were avid for the world, so the majority became their pupils, not from piety but from seeking worldly fortune, the assumption of the judgeship and giving of opinions, crowing over their neighbours in the cities, suburbs, and villages, and acquiring wealth by means of being known for jurisprudence.
The timing here does not quite work, for Hārūn al-Rashīd cannot have appointed Abū Yūsuf chief qadi before he became caliph in 170/786. On the other hand, Abū Yūsuf was apparently first appointed qadi by al-Mahdī (r. 158–69/775–85), so it seems likely that even fifteen years before Abū Yūsuf became chief qadi, Khurasani students in Baghdad could see the direction of patronage and be sure to pick up some of the new Ḥanafism. In 166/782–3, that caliph’s son Mūsā appointed Abū Yūsuf qadi for Gurgan, not in Khurasan but nearby.104
One possible explanation is that the Khurasanis were predisposed to take up Ḥanafism in law because they were already Murji’a in theology. Madelung’s first proposal that they specifically liked the Murji’ exclusion of ritual works from the definition of who was a believer, who not, is not entirely convincing. Surely new converts could have been taught to perform the ritual prayer; more surely still, the Khurasani Ḥanafiyya we know about were aristocrats who could travel to Iraq and back to become teachers and qadis: they cannot have needed to be excused from performing the ritual prayer. Besides, we lack evidence that this exclusion of the ritual prayer from the definition of faith was a defining characteristic of Murji’ism before the ninth century. There are other ways than association with Murji’ theology in which Ḥanafism might have been especially attractive to Khurasanis. For example, the Ḥanafi school is friendlier than the others to performing the ritual prayer in other languages than Arabic.105 Again, however, the élite of Balkh, Nishapur, and so on should have been in little need of such a dispensation. On the contrary, indeed, their mastery of correct ritual must have been a major support to their aristocratic status.
More important than Murji’ doctrine on faith and works is the early Murji’ association with political dissidence in Khurasan. Early on, Orientalists supposed that the Murji’a were necessarily quietist. It now seems clear that this was a position the Murji’a arrived at only over time, from about the last third of the eighth century. Before then, they upheld al-amr bi-l-ma‘rūf wa-l-nahy ‘an al-munkar, ‘commanding right and forbidding wrong’, as much as the Khawārij and other parties.106 Besides being often identified as a Murji’ himself, Abū Ḥanīfa was involved with mediating between the caliph and one important Khurasani Murji’ rebel, al-Ḥārith b. Surayj in 126/744, as pointed out by Madelung in his 1982 article.107 Thus, the earlier, politically activist Murji’ism is securely located in Khurasan at mid-century, and it becomes more explicable that the Khurasani élite (especially, it appears, in Balkh) should have been eager to pick up the law now associated with both Murji’ism and favour from the new dynasty.
Imperial favour and local predisposition are complementary explanations of Ḥanafi strength inasmuch as state support would be offered to a school that already commanded important local support, so that favour to the school would win friends for the state. As George Makdisi puts it, ‘The doctors of the law, or the school of law, had first to be important enough to attract the prince’s attention and to secure his favours in return for what the school could do for him.’108 Finally, it must be admitted that the difficulty of defining school adherence before the advent of the guild school in the tenth century (and its spread from Baghdad) makes it as difficult to firmly identify early Ḥanafiyya in Khurasan as it is to identify them in Iraq.
Notes
1.Nurit Tsafrir, The History of an Islamic School of Law: The Early Spread of Hanafism (Cambridge MA, 2004).
2.Muḥammad Maḥrūs ʽAbd al-Laṭīf al-Mudarris, Mashāyikh Balkh, 2 vols. (Baghdad, 1978–9).
3.Wilferd Madelung, ‘The early Murji’a in Khurāsān and Transoxania and the spread of Ḥanafism’, Der Islam lix (1982), pp. 32–9.
4.Bernd Radtke, ‘Theologien und Mystiker in Ḫurāsān und Transoxanien’, Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft cxxxvi (1986), esp. pp. 536–51.
5.Josef van Ess, Theologie und Gesellschaft im 2. und 3. Jahrhundert Hidschra, 6 vols (Berlin, 1991–5), ii, pp. 534–62.
6.Eyyup Said Kaya, ‘Continuity and change in Islamic law: The concept of madhhab and the dimensions of legal disagreement in Hanafi scholarship of the tenth century’, in Peri Bearman, et al. (eds), The Islamic School of Law (Cambridge MA, 2005), pp. 26–40.
7.Arezou Azad, Sacred Landscape in Medieval Afghanistan: Revisiting the Faḍā’il-i Balkh (Oxford, 2013), chap. 3.
8.Ibn Sa‘d, Biographien, ed. Eduard Sachau, et a., 9 vols. in 15 (Leiden, 1904–40) = al-Ṭabaqāt al-Kubrā, 9 vols (Beirut, 1957–68). References to the latter edition in italic.
9.Ibn Abī l-Wafā’, al-Jawāhir al-Muḍiyya fī ṭabaqāt al-ḥanafiyya, ed. ‘Abd al-Fattāḥ Muḥammad al-Ḥulw, 5 vols (Cairo, 1398–1408/1978–8, repr. Giza, 1413/1993). The Persian abridgement is al-Ḥākim al-Naysābūrī, Tārīkh Naysābūr, abr. al-Khalīfa al-Naysābūrī, published in facsimile in Richard Nelson Frye (ed.), The Histories of Nishapur, Harvard Oriental ser. 45 (London, 1965), also as Tārīkh-i Nīshābūr, ed. Bahman Karīmī (Tehran, n.d.), and ed. Muḥammad Riḍā Shafī‘ī Kadkanī (n.p. , 1375). References to the latter edition in italic.
10.‘Abd Allāh b. ‘Umar al-Wā‘iẓ al-Balkhī (attrib.), Faḍā’il Balkh, trans. ‘Abdallāh Muḥammad (attrib.), ed. ‘Abd al-Ḥayy Ḥabībī, Manābi‘-i tārīkh u jughrāfiyā-yi Īrān 37 (n.p., 1350 sh.). See C. A. Story, Persian Literature, 2 vols (London, 1953), i/2, pp. 1296–7, also Radtke, ‘Theologien’, pp. 536–51, and Azad, Sacred Landscape, chp. 1.
11.‘Abdallāh b. Muḥammad al-Sa‘dī Ibn Abī l-‘Awwām, Faḍā’il Abī Ḥanīfa, ed. Laṭīf al-Raḥmān al-Bahrā’ajī (Mecca, 1431/2010), pp. 212–22.
12.Ibn Abī l-Wafā’, Jawāhir, iv, p. 39. See also also al-Dhahabī, Tārīkh al-Islām, ed. ‘Umar ‘Abd al-Salām Tadmurī, 52 vols, (Beirut, 1407–21/1987–2000), x (161–170 H.), pp. 544–5, with further references; Sa‘dī, Faḍā’il, p. 214.
13.Ibn Abī l-Wafā’, Jawāhir, i, pp. 7–8, ii, p. 67. See also Dhahabī, Tārīkh, xi (171–180 H.), pp. 386–7, with further references; Sa‘dī, Faḍā’il, pp. 217–18; van Ess, Theologie, ii, pp. 549–51.
14.Ibn Abī l-Wafā’, Jawāhir, iii, p. 556. See also Dhahabī, Tārīkh, xii (181–190 H.), pp. 424–5, with further references; Sa‘dī, Faḍā’il, pp. 219–20.
15.Ibn Abī l-Wafā’, Jawāhir, ii, pp. 697–8. See also Dhahabī, Tārīkh, xiii (191–200 H.), pp. 337–8, with further references; Sa‘dī, Faḍā’il, p. 218; Ibn Ḥajar, Tabṣīr al-muntabih, ed. ‘Alī Muḥammad al-Bijāwī, rev. Muḥammad ‘Alī al-Najjār, 4 vols (Cairo, 1964?-7, repr. Beirut, n.d.), ii, p. 820 (confirming ‘Sinānī’ rather than ‘Sībānī’).
16.Ibn Abī l-Wafā’, Jawāhir, i, p. 473.
17.Ibid, ii, p. 385, quoting al-Ḥākim, Tārīkh Naysābūr. See also Dhahabī, Tārīkh, xiv (201–210 H.), pp. 230–1, with further references.
18.Ibn Abī l-Wafā’, Jawāhir, i, pp. 80–2. See also Dhahabī, Tārīkh, xiv, pp. 39–40, with further references; van Ess, Theologie, ii, p. 555.
19.Ibn Ḥibbān, Kitāb al-Thiqāt, ed. Muḥammad ‘Abd al-Mu‘īd Khān, (Hyderabad, 1393– 1403/1973–83, 7 vols), vii, p. 536; Ibn Ḥajar, Tahdhīb al-Tahdhīb, 12 vols (Hyderabad, 1325–7, repr. Beirut, n.d.), x, p. 488.
20.Madelung, ‘Early Murji’a’, p. 33; also idem, ‘The spread of Māturīdism and the Turks’, in Actas, IV Congresso de Estudos Arabes e Islâmicos (Leiden, 1971), pp. 122–3.
21.Dhahabī, Tārīkh, xi, p. 387. The doctrine that the Qur’an was created is to be identified with the Ḥanafiyya rather than the Mu‘tazila, at least to start with, for which see Josef van Ess, ‘Ḍirār b. ‘Amr und die “Cahmīya”’, Der Islam xliii (1967), pp. 241–79, xliv (1968), pp. 1–70, 318–20, and M. Hinds, ‘Miḥna’, EI2, vii, pp. 2–6.
22.Apud Dhahabī, Tārīkh, xiii, p. 338.
23.Ibn Sa‘d, Ṭabaqāt, vii/2, p. 104 vii, p. 372 ; al-Bukhārī, Kitāb al-Tārīkh al-Kabīr, 8 vols (Hyderabad, 1941–5, repr. Hyderabad, 1377/1958, repr. with index Beirut, n.d.), vii, p. 117.
24.Ibn Abī l-Wafā’, Jawāhir, ii, pp. 672–3. See also Dhahabī, Tārīkh, xi, pp. 278–9, with further references.
25.‘Abd Allāh, Faḍā’il Balkh, p. 156; Ibn Abī Ḥātim, Kitāb al-Jarḥ wa-l-Ta‘dīl 9 vols, (Hyderabad, 1360-71, repr. Beirut, n.d.), ix, p. 46.
26.Ibn Abī l-Wafā’, Jawāhir, ii, pp. 254–5. See also Dhahabī, Tārīkh, xiii, pp. 227–32, with further references; Azad, Sacred Landscape, p. 177.
27.Al-Muwaffaq b. Aḥmad al-Bakrī Khaṭīb Khwārizm, Manāqib al-Imām Abī Ḥanīfa, 2 vols (Hyderabad, 1321).
28.Ibn Abī l-Wafā’, Jawāhir, ii, p. 232. See also Dhahabī, Tārīkh, xiii, pp. 207–10, with further references; van Ess, Theologie, ii, pp. 540–1.
29.Ibn Abī l-Wafā’, Jawāhir, iv, pp. 87–8. See also Dhahabī, Tārīkh, xiv, pp. 158–60, with further references; van Ess, Theologie, ii, pp. 536–9.
30.Ibn Abī l-Wafā’, Jawāhir, ii, p. 162; Faḍā’il Balkh, pp. 142–6, where his name given as Ḥārith and where alone a connection with Abū Ḥanīfa is identified. See also Dhahabī, Tārīkh, xiii, p. 167, with further references; van Ess, Theologie, ii, pp. 535–6.
31.Ibn Ḥajar, Lisān al-Mīzān, 7 vols (Hyderabad, 1329-31, repr. Beirut, 1406/1986), ii, p. 377; Azad, Sacred Landscape, p. 177.
32.Ibn Abī l-Wafā’, Jawāhir, ii, pp. 527–8.
33.Ibn Abī l-Wafā’, Jawāhir, ii, pp. 247–8. See also Dhahabī, Tārīkh, xv (221–220 H.), p. 186, with further references; van Ess, Theologie, ii, pp. 542–3.
34.‘Abd Allāh, Faḍā’il Balkh, pp. 202–6.
35.Ibn Abī l-Wafā’, Jawāhir, ii, pp. 170–2. See also Dhahabī, Tārīkh, xiv, 143–5, with further references; van Ess, Theologie, ii, pp. 541–2.
36.Ibn Abī l-Wafā’, Jawāhir, i, pp. 119–21. See also Dhahabī, Tārīkh, xvii (231–240 H.), pp. 78–9, with further references; van Ess, Theologie, ii, pp. 543–4.
37.Madelung, ‘Early Murji’a’, p. 38.
38.For example, from Ibn Sa‘d, Ṭabaqāt, vii/2, pp. 101–9 vii, pp. 368–79; however, men in Balkh identified somewhere as Ḥanafiyya appear to be less outnumbered by others (about 3:1) than men in Marw identified as Ḥanafiyya are outnumbered (about 8:1).
39.Ibn Abī l-Wafā’, Jawāhir, ii, p. 477.
40.Ibid, ii, p. 705; also ‘Abd Allāh, Faḍā’il Balkh, p. 177. The latter (where he appears as ibn Ruzayq) credits al-Qāsim also with transmitting K. al-Qaḍiyya directly from Abū Yūsuf, although the editor puts a question mark after the name of this book, otherwise unattested.
41.On Muḥammad b. Salama, see Ibn Abī l-Wafā’, Jawāhir, iii, pp. 162–3. On Abū Sulaymān al-Jūzajānī, see Ibn Abī l-Wafā’, Jawāhir, iii, pp. 518–19, also Dhahabī, Tārīkh, xv, p. 423, with further references.
42.Ibn Sa‘d, Ṭabaqāt, vii/2, p. 105 vii, p. 374 ; al-‘Uqaylī, Kitāb al-Ḍu‘afā’ al-Kabīr, ed. ‘Abd al-Mu‘ṭī Amīn Qal‘ajī, 4 vols (Beirut, 1404/1984), ii, p. 24. But Abū Muṭī‘ is claimed rather for the Mu‘tazila by Abū l-Qāsim al-Balkhī, Maqālāt al-Islāmiyīn, in Fu’ād Sayyid (ed.), Faḍl al-I‘tizāl (Tunis, 1393/1974), p. 105.
43.Ibn Ḥibbān, Thiqāt, viii, p. 76.
44.‘Abd Allāh, Faḍā’il Balkh, pp. 214–15.
45.Ibn Abī l-Wafā’, Jawāhir, ii, pp. 137–8; Dhahabī, Tārīkh, xiii, pp. 150–1, with further references.
46.Ibn Abī l-Wafā’, Jawāhir, i, p. 440. See also Dhahabī, Tārīkh, xiv, p. 80, with one further reference.
47.Ibn Abī l-Wafā’, Jawāhir, ii, pp. 6–7. See also Dhahabī, Tārīkh, xiv, pp. 86–7, with further references.
48.Ibn Abī l-Wafā’, Jawāhir, ii, p. 150. See also Dhahabī, Tārīkh, xiv, p. 131, with further references.
49.Ibn Abī l-Wafā’, Jawāhir, i, p. 456. See also Dhahabī, Tārīkh, xv, p. 83, with further references. Immigration from Kufa is implied especially by his description as nazīl-i Naysābūr in al-Ḥākim, Tārīkh, p. 20 82.
50.Ibn Abī l-Wafā’, Jawāhir, ii, pp. 48–9.
51.Ibid, ii, pp. 319–20. See also Dhahabī, Tārīkh, xvii, pp. 219–20, with further references.
52.Ibn Abī l-Wafā’, Jawāhir, iii, pp. 537–8. See also Dhahabī, Tārīkh, xvii, pp. 373–4, with further references.
53.Ibn Abī l-Wafā’, Jawāhir, i, p. 153. See also Dhahabī, Tārīkh, xv, p. 84, with further references.
54.Ibn Abī l-Wafā’, Jawāhir, ii, p. 239. See also Dhahabī, Tārīkh, xvii, p. 188, with one further reference, and Heinz Halm, Die Ausbreitung der šāfi‘itischen Rechtsschule, Beihefte zum Tübinger Atlas des vorderen Orients: Reihe B, Geisteswissenschaften, 4 (Wiesbaden, 1974), p. 67, where he is identified as a qadi.
55.Ibn Abī l-Wafā’, Jawāhir, ii, p. 102. See also Dhahabī, Tārīkh, xviii (241–250 H.), p. 236, with one further reference, and Halm, Ausbreitung, p. 68, where he is identified as a qadi.
56.Ibn Abī l-Wafā’, Jawāhir, ii, p. 49. See also Dhahabī, Tārīkh, xviii, p. 221, with further references.
57.Dhahabī, Tārīkh, xvii, p. 220, drawing partly on al-Ḥākim, Tārīkh Naysābūr.
58.Ibn Abī l-Wafā’, Jawāhir, i, pp. 450–1. See also Dhahabī, Tārīkh, xv, p. 88, with one further reference.
59.Ibn Abī l-Wafā’, Jawāhir, i, pp. 320–1. See also Dhahabī, Tārīkh, xx (261–280 H.), p. 275, with one further reference.
60.Ibn Abī l-Wafā’, Jawāhir, ii, pp. 378, 618–19; al-Ḥākim, Tārīkh, pp. 49, 50 117, 119.
61.For the stages of regional, personal, and guild schools, see George Makdisi, ‘Ṭabaqāt-biography’, Islamic Studies, xxxii (1993), pp. 389–91. See also Christopher Melchert, ‘The formation of the Sunnī schools of law’, in Wael B. Hallaq (ed.), The Formation of Islamic Law, The formation of the Classical Islamic world 27 (Aldershot, 2004), pp. 351–66.
62.Ibn Abī l-Wafā’, Jawāhir, ii, p. 690.
63.Ibn Ḥajar, Tahdhīb, iii, p. 77.
64.Ibn Abī l-Wafā’, Jawāhir, ii, p. 430; ‘Abd Allāh, Faḍā’il Balkh, pp. 145–6. See also Dhahabī, Tārīkh, xii, pp. 276–7, with further references (but none to his Ḥanafism).
65.Dhahabī, Tārīkh, xiv, pp. 114–15, with further references; van Ess, Theologie, ii, pp. 560–2.
66.Ibn Abī l-Wafā’, Jawāhir, i, pp. 66–7, iv, p. 37. See also Dhahabī, Tārīkh, xv, pp. 39–41, with further references.
67.Ibn Abī l-Wafā’, Jawāhir, ii, p. 242.
68.Ibid, i, pp. 406–07. See also Dhahabī, Tārīkh, xvi (221–230 H.), p. 90, with further references.
69.Al-Sahmī, Tārīkh Jurjān, ed. Muḥammad ‘Abd al-Mu‘īd (Beirut, 1401/1981), p. 141.
70.Ibn Abī l-Wafā’, Jawāhir, ii, p. 26.
71.Ibid, iv, p. 62. See also Dhahabī, Tārīkh, xx, pp. 153–4, with one further reference.
72.Dhahabī, Tārīkh, xx, p. 154.
73.Ibn Abī l-Wafā’, Jawāhir, i, pp. 166–7. But Abū Ḥafṣ is also said to have travelled with Bukhārī: Dhahabī, Tārīkh, xx, p. 154.
74.Muḥammad b. Maḥmūd al-Khwārizmī, (d. 665/1266–7?), Jāmi‘ Masānīd al-imām al-a‘ẓam, 2 vols (Hyderabad, 1332,).
75.Khalīl al-Mays, Fahāris al-Mabsūṭ li-Shams al-Dīn al-Sarakhsī (Beirut, 1400/1980). On Sarakhsī, see N. Calder, ‘al-Sarakhsī’, EI2, ix, pp. 35–6.
76.Ibn Abī l-Wafā’, Jawāhir, iii, p. 383; al-Ḥākim, Tārīkh, p. 58 128. See also Dhahabī, Tārīkh, xxii (291–300 H.), pp. 301–2, with further references.
77.Ibn Abī l-Wafā’, Jawāhir, iii, pp. 313–15. See also Dhahabī, Tārīkh, xxv (331–350 H.), pp. 113–14, with further references.
78.Ibn Abī l-Wafā’, Jawāhir, i, pp. 200–01.
79.For the sequence Hinduwānī < al-A‘mash < al-Iskāf, see Ibn Abī l-Wafā’, Jawāhir, iii, p. 192, also Dhahabī, Tārīkh, xxiii, pp. 571–2. For al-A‘mash, see Ibn Abī l-Wafā’, Jawāhir, iii, p. 160. For al-Iskāf, see Ibn Abī l-Wafā’, Jawāhir, iii, p. 76, iv, pp. 15–16.
80.See Ibn Abī l-Wafā’, Jawāhir, iii, pp. 193–4.
81.See ibid, iii, p. 491, also Dhahabī, Tārīkh, xxix (421–440 H.), p. 508.
82.Ibn Abī l-Wafā’, Jawāhir, ii, p. 429 (Shams al-A’imma), p. 109 (al-Ḥusayn b. al-Khaḍir). See also Dhahabī, Tārīkh, xxx (441–60 H.), pp. 179–80, 397–9 (Shams al-A’imma), xxix, pp. 127–9 (al-Ḥusayn b. al-Khaḍir).
83.See Christopher Melchert, The Formation of the Sunni Schools of Law (Leiden, 1997), pp. 125–36; idem, ‘Formation’, p. 6.
84.For example, Bukhārī’s Ṣaḥīḥ includes 20 hadith reports < Qutayba < Mālik but 66 < Qutayba < Layth b. Sa‘d: M. Fuad Sezgin, Buhârî’nin Kaynakları Hakkında Araştırmalar (Istanbul, 1956), p. 284. On Yaḥyā b. Yaḥyā, see Dhahabī, Tārīkh, xvi, pp. 459–63, with further references; on Qutayba b. Sa‘īd, v. Dhahabī, Tārīkh, xvii, pp. 299–301, with further references.
85.al-Qāḍī ‘Iyāḍ, Tartīb al-Madārik, ed. Muḥammad b. Tāwīt al-Ṭanjī, et al., 8 vols (Rabat, &c., 1966–83), i, pp. 6–15.
86.Al-Ḥākim al-Naysābūrī, apud Ibn Ḥajar, Lisān, iii, 121.
87.Al-Dhahabī, Mīzān al-I‘tidāl, ed. ‘Alī Muḥammad al-Bijāwī, 4 vols (Cairo, 1963–4), ii, p. 240; likewise idem, Tārīkh, xx, p. 102; idem, Siyar a‘lām al-nubalā’ (Beirut, 1981–8, 25 vols), xiii (ed. ‘Alī Abu- Zayd), p. 32. Included as a Ḥanafi by Ibn Abī l-Wafā’, Jawāhir, ii, pp. 239–40.
88.Al-Ḥākim al-Naysābūrī, apud Dhahabī, Tārīkh, xxii, p. 101; al-Ḥākim, Tārīkh, p. 40 107.
89.Ibn Abī l-Wafā’, Jawāhir, iii, p. 601. See also also Dhahabī, Tārīkh, xx, pp. 198–200, with further references.
90.Dhahabī, Tārīkh, xxv, p. 108.
91.Al-Maqdisī, Aḥsan al-Taqāsīm ilā ma‘rifat al-aqālīm, ed. M. J. De Goeje, 2nd edn (Leiden, 1906), p. 365.
92.Dhahabī, Tārīkh, xxvi (351–380 H.), p. 577, with one further reference.
93.Ibid, xx, pp. 45–6, with further references.
94.Ibid, xxii, pp. 174–5, with further references.
95.Al-Subkī, Ṭabaqāt al-Shāfi‘iyya al-Kubrā, ed. Maḥmūd Muḥammad al-Ṭanāḥī and ‘Abd al-Fattāḥ al-Ḥulw, 10 vols (Cairo, 1964–76), ii, 258–9; al-Maqrīzī, Kitāb al-Muqaffā l-kabīr, ed. Muḥammad al-Ya‘lawī, 8 vols (Beirut, 1991), ii, pp. 57–8.
96.Dhahabī, Tārīkh, xxiii (301–320 H.), pp. 525–6, with further references.
97.Ibn Kathīr, Ṭabaqāt al-Fuqahā’ al-Shāfi‘iyyīn, ed. Aḥmad ‘Umar Hāshim & Muḥammad Zaynuhum Muḥammad ‘Azab (al-Ẓāhir, Egypt, 1413/1993, 3 vols), i, p. 160.
98.On Ibn Khuzayma, see Dhahabī, Tārīkh, xxiii, pp. 422–6, with further references; on Ibn Naṣr, see Dhahabī, Tārīkh, xxii, pp. 295–9, with further references. The others were Muḥammad b. Jarīr al-Ṭabarī (d. Baghdad, 310/923) and Muḥammad b. Ibrāhīm b. al-Mundhir (d. Mecca, 318/930–1?).
99.Subkī, Ṭabaqāt, iii, p. 263.
100.Dhahabī, Tārīkh, xxiii, p. 117.
101.See Melchert, Formation, pp. 92–101.
102.For the evidence of judicial appointments, see Mathieu Tillier, Les cadis d’Iraq et l’état abbaside (132/750–334/945) (Damascus, 2009), pp. 148–51.
103.Ibn Ḥazm, al-Iḥkām fī Uṣūl al-aḥkām, ed. Aḥmad Muḥammad Shākir, 8 vols in 2, (Cairo, 1345–7), pp. iv, 230 = 2 vols (repr. Beirut, n.d.), i, p. 625.
104.Al-Ṭabarī, Annales, ed. M. J. de Goeje, et al., (Leiden, 1879–1901, 3 vols in 15), iii, p. 517 = Tārīkh al-Ṭabarī, ed. Muḥammad Abū al-Faḍl Ibrāhīm (Cairo, 1960–9, 10 vols), viii, p. 162.
105.For example, al-Qaffāl al-Shāshī, Ḥilyat al-‘ulamā’, ed. Yāsīn Aḥmad Ibrāhīm Darādakah, 8 vols (Amman & Mecca, 1988), ii, pp. 92–3.
106.For a thorough review, see Patricia Crone and Fritz Zimmermann, The Epistle of Sālim ibn Dhakwān, (Oxford, 2001), pp. 219–43.
107.Madelung, ‘Early’, p. 34, citing Ṭabarī, Annales, ii, p. 1867 = Tārīkh, vii, p. 293. For Abū Ḥanīfa’s theological position, see van Ess, Theologie, i, pp. 191–200.
108.George Makdisi, ‘The significance of the Sunni schools of law’, International Journal of Middle East Studies, x (1979), p. 5.
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