Praise belongs to Allah, the Lord of the Worlds, and peace and blessings be upon our master Muhammad

His opinions on issues of 
kalam
 
 
As we have already mentioned, Abu Hanifa studied the positions of the sects of his time and debated with 
them. He used to undertake journeys for the sake of this debate. His scholarly life began with the study of 
these sects before he moved on to 
fiqh
and became the undisputed imam of the people of opinion. He 
continued to argue with the various sects when that was necessary. That is why some opinions are reported 
from him which were dealt with by the 
mutakallimun
of his time. There are, for instance, his opinions about 
the reality of belief, about the status of someone who commits a sin, about the decree (
qadar
), and about the 
relationship between man’s free will and the will of Allah. 
These opinions have reached us by two means: through scattered transmissions, both strong and weak, 
which must be scrutinised and through certain books which are ascribed to him. Abu Hanifa is listed in the 
Index
of Ibn an-Nadim as having written four books: 
al-Fiqh al-Akbar
, 
the Scholar and the Student
, the Letter 
to ‘Uthman ibn Muslim al-Batti (which is about belief and its connection to action) and the 
Refutation of the 
Qadariyya
. All of them are on the science of 
kalam
and dogma. 
Al-Fiqh al-Akbar
is a small treatise of which there are a number of versions. One is that of Hammad ibn 
Abi Hanifa. Another is the variant of Muti‘ al-Balkhi known as 
al-Fiqh al-Awsat
, with a commentary by 
Abu’l-Layth as-Samarqandi and ‘Ata’ ibn ‘Ali al-Jurzjani. There are others, including that ascribed to al-

---

Maturidi, which is used for and against the argument of the Ash‘arites. This indicates without a doubt that it is 
later than al-Ash‘ari although they were contemporaries, since al-Maturidi died in 332 AH and al-Ash‘ari in 
334. 
Scholars do not agree about the ascription of this work to Abu Hanifa. When he discusses 
al-Fiqh al-
Akbar
, al-Bazzazi says in 
The Virtues
, “If you were to say that Abu Hanifa did not write any book, I would 
say, ‘That is what the Mu‘tazilites say. They claim that he wrote nothing on the science of 
kalam
. By that they 
desired to deny that 
al-Fiqh al-Akbar
and the 
Scholar and the Student
were by him because he clearly stated 
in them most of the principles of the people of the 
Sunna
and Community. They want to advance their claim 
that he was one of the Mu‘tazilites and that the book was by another Abu Hanifa. This is a clear error: both 
books were written by Abu Hanifa.’” 
We must briefly look at its contents and ascertain whether it can all be correctly ascribed to Abu Hanifa or 
whether there is some doubt about it. If we look at the order of the best of people after the Prophets in the 
Indian edition we find that it is Abu Bakr, ‘Umar, ‘Uthman and then ‘Ali. But all transmissions in the various 
books of Virtues agree that Abu Hanifa did not put ‘Uthman before ‘Ali. 
We also see that this book deals with issues which were not dealt with in his time nor the time before it. 
For instance, in his time and before, people did not discuss the difference between a sign (
ayat
), 
karama
(miracle as a mark of honour) and temptation (
istidraj
). However, this is discussed in this book. Therefore 
there must be some additions to the book which do not come from Abu Hanifa.