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

Analogy
 
 
We have mentioned that if Abu Hanifa did not find a text in the Book, 
Sunna
or 
fatwas
of the Companions, 
he exercised 
ijtihad
and opinion to ascertain the different aspects to be examined in the question under review. 
Sometimes he was guided by analogy and sometimes by 
istihsan 
– the best interests of people and lack of 
harm in the 
deen
. He used analogy unless doing do would lead to something unseemly and not in keeping with 
people’s behaviour, in which case he would use 
istihsan
. People’s behaviour was his guide in both 
istihsan
and analogy. 
The analogy which Abu Hanifa mostly used was defined by scholars after him in a general definition: to 
explain the ruling about a matter without a text by ruling it according to something whose ruling is known by 
the Book, 
Sunna
or consensus since both matters share the same underlying cause. 
Abu Hanifa’s 
ijtihad
and his method in understanding the 
hadiths
, coupled with the environment in which 
he lived, made him use a lot of analogy and ramify secondary rulings accordingly, because in his 
ijtihad
, Abu 
Hanifa did not stop at investigating the rulings of problems which had actually occurred but would extend his 
reasoning to rulings in respect of problems which had not occurred. He would theorise in order to be prepared 
for circumstances before they occurred so as to be ready to deal with them. 
Thus Abu Hanifa’s method in understanding texts led to using a lot of analogy since it is not enough to 
recognise simply what the rulings indicate. One must know the events which formed the context of the text 
and how it was intended to benefit people and the reasons behind it, as well as any peculiarities which might 
affect the rulings. It is only on this basis that analogy can be correct. 
He used to ascertain the circumstances in which an 
ayat
had been revealed. He studied those questions 
whose legal reasons were mentioned in 
hadith
until he was considered the best of those who explain 
hadiths,
because he did not confine himself to the outward sense but explained the intentions underlying the outward 
sense and what the 
hadiths
indicated. The fact that there were not a great number of 
hadiths
to be found in 
Iraq also compelled him to make more extensive use of analogy than he might otherwise have done. 
Abu Hanifa divided texts into two categories: those dealing with worship in which case he did not 
investigate the reasons behind the rulings because analogy was of no use in them, and those dealing with 
matters of this world. In these texts he would attempt to infer the underlying reason which could then be 
applied to other cases.