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

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