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

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. 

---

We incline to this view and accept that Abu Hanifa met some Companions, but did not relate from them. 
So was he a 
Tabi‘i
or not? Scholars disagree about the definition of a 
Tabi‘i.
Some say that it applies to 
anyone who met a Companion, even if he did not keep his company; simply having seen him is enough to 
make a man a 
Tabi‘i
according to that view. By that criterion Abu Hanifa is a 
Tabi‘i
. Some scholars, however, 
say that it is not enough to simply have seen the Companion but it is also necessary to have kept his company 
and learnt from him and so by that reckoning Abu Hanifa could not be said to be one of the 
Tabi‘un
. 
Whatever the case, scholars are unanimous about the fact that he met a number of the 
Tabi‘un
and sat with 
them, studied with them, related from them and learned their 
fiqh
at an age which allowed learning and 
transmission. Some of them were known for transmission, like ash-Sha‘bi, and many were famous for 
opinion. He took from ‘Ikrima, the transmitter of the knowledge of Ibn ‘Abbas, Nafi‘, the bearer of the 
knowledge of Ibn ‘Umar, and ‘Ata’ ibn Abi Rabah, the 
faqih
of Makka, with whom he had a lengthy 
relationship. He used to debate with him about 
tafsir
and learn from him.
We read in 
al-Intiqa’
: “Abu Hanifa said, ‘I asked ‘Ata’ ibn Rabah, “What do you say about the words of 
Allah Almighty, 
‘We restored his family to him, and the same again with them’ 
(21:84)?” He said, “He gave 
him his family and the like of his family.” I answered, “Is it permitted to attribute to a man what is not from 
him?” He asked, “What is your position?” I replied, “Abu Muhammad, it means the reward of his family and 
the like of their reward.” He said, “It is like that, but Allah knows best.”’” If this is true, it indicates two 
things. One is that Abu Hanifa sat with ‘Ata’ ibn Abi Rabah, studied with him and took from him. ‘Ata’ died 
in 114 AH and so he must have gone on 
hajj
and studied with the Makkan scholars while he was Hammad’s 
student. The second is that ‘Ata’ used to teach 
tafsir
of the Qur’an in Makka and that the school of Makka had 
inherited the Qur’anic knowledge of ‘Abdullah ibn ‘Abbas. 
The shaykhs to whom he was connected, each of whom had a specific intellectual quality, deserve 
consideration, in order to ascertain the sum of the sources from which he took. 
The most prominent of his shaykhs was Hammad ibn Sulayman. He was an Ash‘ari by clientage since he 
was a client of Ibrahim ibn Abi Musa al-Ash‘ari. He grew up in Kufa and learned his 
fiqh
from Ibrahim an-
Nakha‘i, the most knowledgeable of the proponents of opinion. He died in 120 AH. He not only studied with 
an-Nakha‘i but also studied 
fiqh
with ash-Sha‘bi. Both of them took from Shurayh, ‘Alqama ibn Qays and 
Masruq ibn al-Adja‘. They, in turn, had learned the 
fiqh
of the two Companions, ‘Abdullah ibn Mas‘ud and 
‘Ali ibn Abi Talib.
The fact that these two Companions lived in Kufa meant that they left the people of Kufa much