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

The place of Abu Hanifa’s 
fiqh
 in relation to earlier 
fiqh
 
 
We want to examine the principles on which Abu Hanifa based his deduction and which were the source of 
his 
fiqh
and to relate it to a topic which some other writers have broached – the place of Hanafi 
fiqh
in relation 
to the 
fiqh
which preceded it. Did he innovate the method he followed? Did his 
fiqh
cover an area not 
previously dealt with or did he simply follow a course plotted by others before him so that he did not bring 
anything new? Did Abu Hanifa complete a process which began in Iraq and culminated with him? These are 
the three possibilities and Abu Hanifa must fall into one of them.
His partisans state that he instigated a totally new way of legal thinking based on the Book, 
Sunna
and 
sound tradition from the Companions but such claims are unsupported. Opposing them are those who claim 
that Abu Hanifa was merely a follower and brought nothing new, except in respect of extrapolation and speed 
of derivation, and that the source of the method which he followed was Ibrahim an-Nahka‘i. One such person 
is Shah Waliyullah ad-Dihlawi who states, “Abu Hanifa, may Allah be pleased with him, was the strongest 
proponent of the school of Ibrahim and his contemporaries. He did not go beyond it except as Allah willed. 
He extrapolated according to Ibrahim’s school.” He concludes that Abu Hanifa did not bring any new ideas 
but was merely a follower and transmitter of an-Nakha‘i.
There is no doubt that this is an attack on the position of Abu Hanifa in 
fiqh
because it makes him an 
imitator, or a followed imitator, not the master of a school of 
ijtihad
. If, however, Abu Hanifa had been like 
this, he would not have had such an effect on subsequent generations. Furthermore, we also find that Abu 
Hanifa transmits many traditions from other sources than Ibrahim. An illustration of this is found in the 
Kitab 
al-Athar
by ash-Shaybani where it is reported from Ibn ‘Abbas that if someone on 
hajj
has intercourse after 
standing at ‘Arafat but before his 
tawaf
, he owes a camel, completes the 
hajj
, and his 
hajj
is complete. Then 
he reports from Ibrahim that if he has intercourse before or after ‘Arafat and before 
tawaf
, he owes a sheep, 
completes the 
hajj
and must perform 
hajj
again the following year. 
Ash-Shaybani says, “The correct position is what Ibn ‘Abbas said. The school of Abu Hanifa is as the 
books of the school state: intercourse before standing at ‘Arafat invalidates the 
hajj
, but it does not invalidate 

---

it after the standing, which is the opinion of Ibn ‘Abbas.” From this it is clear that Abu Hanifa completely 
abandoned Ibrahim’s opinion and accepted that of Ibn ‘Abbas which was related by ‘Ata’. This is part of the 
fiqh
of Makka, not Kufa. So he left Ibrahim and Kufa. How can this be blind imitation of Ibrahim or the 
people of Kufa? Such exceptions are often seen in the traditions of Abu Yusuf. 
The truth is that Abu Hanifa came onto the scene when Iraqi 
fiqh
was mature but he did not confine 
himself to what he found there. He followed a path which another had begun and went to the end of the road. 
We are not partisan here and take a middle course in this matter. There is no doubt that the opinions of 
Ibrahim an-Nakha’i had a tremendous effect on the formation of the legal reasoning of Abu Hanifa and that 
this was his starting point in 
fiqh
, but that does not mean that Abu Hanifa did not take from anyone else or 
pursue any other paths. It seems that Abu Hanifa began his legal studies with what his shaykh Hammad 
reported of Ibrahim’s 
fiqh
. Then he completed his studies with others and deduced using analogy and 
evidence from the moment he took Hammad’s place in his circle until his death, a period of about thirty years. 
Whatever the position of Abu Hanifa in relation to Ibrahim, there is no doubt that Abu Hanifa and Ibrahim 
were the two eminent personalities in the formation of Iraqi 
fiqh
and that their legal reasoning was so close 
that it led scholars to make that claim and make the personality of the latter vanish into the former. It is a false 
assertion because unity in thinking is not like unity in opinion. Abu Hanifa was not an imitator. He clearly 
stated that he used 
ijtihad
as Ibrahim had done. 
Ibrahim, as the 
faqih
of Iraq, had an initial influence on Abu Hanifa who then formulated his own 
fiqh
. 
Common factors in their manner of legal reasoning can be discerned. Both of them turned to analysis of 
hadith
to extract the meaning as will become clear when we examine Abu Hanifa’s reliance on 
hadith
. Both 
interpreted 
hadiths
in a legal manner to deduce the reasons for the rulings in them in order to then extend them 
through analogy to other matters. Ibrahim used 
mursal hadiths
and Abu Hanifa also accepted 
mursal hadiths
and used them as evidence. 
But in spite of this agreement in legal reasoning we find that they differ in two important matters. One is 
that Abu Hanifa used a lot of the 
fiqh
of Makka and Madina as the 
musnad
of his 
hadiths
indicate. The second 
is that Abu Hanifa used a lot of ramification and hypothetical cases and did not confine himself only to what 
he was asked about. He used to hypothesise problems and clarify their ruling and evidence. We will deal with 
Abu Hanifa’s position in respect of this.