Imām Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan al-Shaybānī

About the Author and the Source

The Author

The author of this work is ʿAllāmah Muḥammad Zāhid ibn al-Ḥasan al-Kawtharī (1296 to 1371 AH / 1878 to 1952 CE), an Ottoman-trained Ḥanafī scholar of Circassian origin, a graduate and later a teacher at the Fātiḥ madrasa in Istanbul, and Deputy Shaykh al-Islām (Wakīl al-Mashīkhah) of the Ottoman state in its final years. After the abolition of the caliphate, he settled in Cairo, where he spent the rest of his life teaching and editing the works of the early Ḥanafī authorities. The present work is one of several biographies he devoted to the founding Ḥanafī authorities, alongside Ḥusn al-Taqāḍī fī Sīrat al-Imām Abī Yūsuf al-Qāḍī on Abū Yūsuf, and Taʾnīb al-Khaṭīb ʿalā mā Sāqahu fī Tarjamat Abī Ḥanīfah min al-Akādhīb, a biographical defence of Abū Ḥanīfah against the misrepresentations of al-Khaṭīb al-Baghdādī. His foremost student was Shaykh ʿAbd al-Fattāḥ Abū Ghuddah. He was among the most prolific defenders of the four-madhhab Sunnī tradition in the early twentieth century.

The Work

Bulūgh al-Amānī fī Sīrat al-Imām Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan al-Shaybānī is both a biography and a defence. Imām Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan al-Shaybānī (132 to 189 AH) is the principal codifier of the Ḥanafī school: nearly all of the ẓāhir al-riwāyah (al-Mabsūṭ, the two Jāmiʿs, the two Siyars and al-Ziyādāt) comes from his pen. He transmitted Imām Mālik's Muwaṭṭaʾ directly from him; some scholars regard his recension as a separate work, owing to the rulings, supporting aḥādīth and notes he added in defence of the Ḥanafī positions. He was also one of the formative teachers of Imām al-Shāfiʿī. Al-Kawtharī writes against the backdrop of an early-twentieth-century intellectual climate in which the rank of Imām Muḥammad, and by extension Imām Abū Ḥanīfah and the Ḥanafī school as a whole, had come under sustained attack. The book aims to set the record straight: to assemble the testimony of the Imāms who knew him and the generations who studied his books, and to rebut the slanders that had reached print in modern times.

The Source Edition

This translation is based on the printing by al-Maktabah al-Azhariyyah li-l-Turāth, Cairo, 1418 AH / 1998 CE, an 82-page volume reproducing al-Kawtharī's text.

I pray that this work is of benefit to the student, and I ask the reader's prayers. Wa al-ḥamdu lillāhi rabb al-ʿālamīn.

Author's Introduction

All praise belongs to Allāh, who has favoured some jurists over others; who has guided groups of them to perceive the difference between the wājib and the farḍ; who has expanded their faculties in the subtleties of legal questions and illumined their intellects to recognise the ranks of evidences. May the choicest peace and blessings be upon our master Muḥammad, sent with the easy and tolerant pure monotheistic religion; upon his pure and select family, and his devout and leading Companions; for as long as the minds of the jurists keep opening to the derivation of the rulings of the radiant Sharīʿah.

To proceed:

The history of fiqh testifies that the books authored upon the madhhabs of the imāms whose schools are followed, al-Mudawwanah, al-Ḥujjah, al-Umm and what came after them, were composed in the light of the books of that great imām, Abū ʿAbdillāh Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan al-Shaybānī, may Allāh be pleased with him. His books remained in the hands of the jurists of every madhhab, before the centuries of pure imitation set in, passed about and benefited from, in recognition of the qualities by which they distinguished themselves: solidity of expression, clarity of exposition, soundness of foundational construction and precision in derivation, with the citing of evidences for questions whose proofs were perhaps elusive even to many of the jurists of his own generation, let alone those who came later. This, alongside their breadth in generating subsidiary questions across the chapters, such that the books announce the deep penetration of their author into the secrets of Arabic, and his open hand in uncovering the mysteries of legislation, without ever showing on his pen the appetite to go alone or to break with the jurists when he debates their views, nor cunning and contention in the cause of preferring opinions which had become clear to him; this in contrast to what has afflicted many who lay claim to fiqh. Rather he highlights the merit of his shaykhs upon him and records their statements in his works, in acknowledgement of their good upon him; and the breadth of his knowledge did not deceive him, but only added sincerity to his sincerity, so Allāh, glory be to Him, recompensed him for that by placing barakah in his knowledge, until his books became the warp of the books composed in every madhhab, without exaggeration, and the benefit drawn from them was extended through the centuries.

You see that there has not reached us, from any jurist of his generation or one near it, books in fiqh of the order that has reached us of his works; and that is the bounty of Allāh which He gives to whom He wills.

I have gathered into these pages what is easy to transmit and unfitting to be ignorant of, from the life of that noble imām, in recognition of his merit, in illumination of one side of the history of fiqh, and to stir those qualified for the task to revive his legacy. I have named this brief work Bulūgh al-Amānī fī Sīrat al-Imām Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan al-Shaybānī. May Allāh make it sincere for His noble face. He suffices me, and how excellent a Trustee.

Name

He is Abū ʿAbdullāh Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan ibn Farqad al-Shaybānī. The majority of scholars are of the view that Imām Muḥammad, may Allāh ﷻ have mercy on him, has allegiance to Shaybān and is not from their descendants. Some have incorrectly said that Imām Muḥammad's grandfather was Wāqid and not Farqad.

Origin

Qāḍī Abū Khāzim ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz al-Baṣrī, the teacher of Imām al-Ṭaḥāwī, mentions that Imām Muḥammad was originally from a village close to Ramlah in Palestine, thereafter he migrated to Kūfah.

Muḥammad ibn Saʿd, the scribe of al-Wāqidī, mentions in his Ṭabaqāt al-Kubrā that Imām Muḥammad's origin is from al-Jazīrah (Upper Mesopotamia). His father was a soldier in Shām who came to Wāsiṭ, Iraq.

Al-Khaṭīb al-Baghdādī mentions in his Tārīkh that Imām Muḥammad was originally from a village called Ḥarastā in Damascus. His father came to Iraq, where Imām Muḥammad was born.

Perhaps the correct view is that Imām Muḥammad is originally from al-Jazīrah, from the pasture-lands of Banū Shaybān in Diyār Rabīʿah, thereafter his father served as a soldier in Shām and acquired wealth. Thus he resided for a time in Ḥarastā as well as in Palestine, both of which were considered part of Shām. Thereafter he moved to Wāsiṭ, where Imām Muḥammad was born, and later returned to Kūfah, where he was raised.

Birth

Imām Muḥammad, may Allāh ﷻ have mercy on him, was born in the year 132 AH. The opinion of Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr that Imām Muḥammad was born in the year 135 AH is incorrect.

Imām Muḥammad and Abū Ḥanīfah

Imām Muḥammad was an intelligent child, with a strong memory, beautiful in his features and character, stout and light-spirited. When Imām Muḥammad was young he began memorising a little of the Qurʾān, and thereafter attending lessons of Arabic and Ḥadīth. Kūfah at the time was a hub of Arabic, Fiqh, Ḥadīth and Islamic learning, since many senior ṣaḥābah had migrated there after ʿAlī (raḍ. ʿanhu) made it the capital of the Islamic empire.

At the age of fourteen, Imām Muḥammad attended the circle of Imām Abū Ḥanīfah, may Allāh ﷻ have mercy on him, to ask him a question which he had. So he asked him:

Imām Abū Ḥanīfah replied: "Yes." Thereafter Imām Muḥammad stood up, took his sandals and prayed in the corner of the masjid. This was the first thing Imām Muḥammad learnt from Imām Abū Ḥanīfah. When Imām Abū Ḥanīfah saw Imām Muḥammad repeating his ṣalāh, he remarked:

Indeed it came true. After Imām Muḥammad had seen the dignity of the gathering of fiqh, Allāh ﷻ placed a love of fiqh in his heart. Imām Muḥammad returned to the circle of Imām Abū Ḥanīfah to learn more; but Imām Abū Ḥanīfah said that he should first learn the Qurʾān. This is because the lessons and methodology of Imām Abū Ḥanīfah turned on drawing evidence from the Qurʾān, so the one who did not know the Qurʾān would find it difficult. At that time, Imām Muḥammad's memorisation of the Qurʾān was not yet strong, so he disappeared for seven days and thereafter returned with his father, saying: "I have memorised it."

Once Imām Muḥammad asked Imām Abū Ḥanīfah a question, and Imām Abū Ḥanīfah was so impressed that he asked him: "Did you receive this question from someone else, or are you asking it of your own accord?" Imām Muḥammad replied that it was his own. Imām Abū Ḥanīfah then said: "You have asked a man's question. Keep coming to us and to the circle."

Throughout this period, Imām Muḥammad frequented the lessons of Imām Abū Ḥanīfah, remaining in his company for four years, until Imām Abū Ḥanīfah passed away in 150 AH. During this time he would make a note of the answers to the questions in the lesson. After Imām Abū Ḥanīfah, may Allāh ﷻ have mercy on him, passed away, Imām Muḥammad completed studying the fiqh of Abū Ḥanīfah from Imām Abū Yūsuf.

Teachers in Ḥadīth

As for Imām Muḥammad's teachers in aḥādīth, he took from Abū Ḥanīfah, Abū Yūsuf and other than them, many of whom were from Kūfah, Baṣrah, Madīnah, Makkah, Shām, Iraq and others. He gathered knowledge from Imām al-Awzāʿī, al-Thawrī and Mālik until he became an expert in the fields of Tafsīr and Ḥadīth, and a master of the Arabic language. It is mentioned that Imām Muḥammad inherited 30,000 dirhams, so he spent half of it in acquiring Arabic language, and the other half was split between acquiring fiqh and ḥadīth.

As for his teachers of ḥadīth from Kūfah, they include:

1. Abū Ḥanīfah (80 to 150 AH)
2. Ismāʿīl ibn Abī Khālid al-Aḥmasī
3. Sufyān ibn Saʿīd al-Thawrī
4. Misʿar ibn Kidām (d. 155 AH)
5. Mālik ibn Mighwal
6. Qays ibn al-Rabīʿ
7. ʿUmar ibn Dharr
8. Bukayr ibn ʿĀmir
9. Abū Bakr al-Nahshalī ʿAbdullāh ibn Qiṭāf
10. Maḥall ibn Muḥriz al-Ḍabbī
11. Abū Kudaynah Yaḥyā ibn al-Muhallab al-Bajalī
12. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿUtbah al-Masʿūdī
13. Isrāʾīl ibn Yūnus
14. Badr ibn ʿUthmān
15. Abū al-Aḥwaṣ Sallām ibn Sulaym
16. Sallām ibn Sulaymān
17. Abū Muʿāwiyah al-Ḍarīr Muḥammad ibn Khāzim
18. Zufar ibn al-Hudhayl
19. Qāḍī Abū Yūsuf
20. Ismāʿīl ibn Ibrāhīm al-Bajalī
21. Fuḍayl ibn Ghazwān
22. Al-Ḥasan ibn ʿUmārah
23. Yūnus ibn Abī Isḥāq al-Sabīʿī
24. ʿAbd al-Jabbār ibn al-ʿAbbās al-Hamdānī
25. Muḥammad ibn Abān ibn Ṣāliḥ al-Qurashī
26. Saʿīd ibn ʿUbayd al-Ṭāʾī
27. Abū Farwah ʿUrwah ibn al-Ḥārith al-Hamdānī
28. Abū Zuhayr al-ʿAlāʾ ibn Zuhayr

His teachers of ḥadīth from Madīnah include:

1. Mālik ibn Anas
2. Ibrāhīm ibn Muḥammad ibn Abī Yaḥyā
3. ʿUbaydullāh ibn ʿUmar ibn Ḥafṣ al-ʿUmarī
4. ʿAbdullāh ibn ʿUmar ibn Ḥafṣ al-ʿUmarī
5. Khārijah ibn ʿAbdullāh ibn Sulaymān
6. Muḥammad ibn Hilāl
7. Al-Ḍaḥḥāk ibn ʿUthmān
8. Ismāʿīl ibn Rāfiʿ
9. ʿAṭṭāf ibn Khālid
10. Isḥāq ibn Ḥāzim
11. Hishām ibn Saʿd
12. Usāmah ibn Zayd al-Laythī
13. Dāwūd ibn Qays al-Farrāʾ
14. ʿĪsā ibn Abī ʿĪsā al-Khayyāṭ
15. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Abī al-Zinād
16. Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Abī Dhiʾb
17. Khuthaym ibn ʿIrāk

His teachers of ḥadīth from Makkah include:

1. Sufyān ibn ʿUyaynah al-Kūfī
2. Zamʿah ibn Ṣāliḥ
3. Ismāʿīl ibn ʿAbd al-Malik
4. Ṭalḥah ibn ʿAmr
5. Sayf ibn Sulaymān
6. Ibrāhīm ibn Yazīd al-Umawī
7. Zakariyyā ibn Isḥāq
8. ʿAbdullāh ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Yaʿlā al-Thaqafī al-Ṭāʾifī

His teachers of ḥadīth from Baṣrah include:

1. Abū al-ʿAwwām ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz ibn al-Rabīʿ al-Baṣrī
2. Hishām ibn Abī ʿAbdillāh
3. Al-Rabīʿ ibn Ṣabīḥ
4. Abū Ḥurrah Wāṣil ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān
5. Saʿīd ibn Abī ʿArūbah
6. Ismāʿīl ibn Ibrāhīm al-Baṣrī
7. Mubārak ibn Faḍālah

His teachers of ḥadīth from Wāsiṭ include:

1. ʿAbbād ibn al-ʿAwwām
2. Shuʿbah ibn al-Ḥajjāj
3. Abū Mālik ʿAbd al-Malik al-Nakhaʿī

His teachers of ḥadīth from Shām include:

1. Abū ʿAmr ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Awzāʿī
2. Muḥammad ibn Rāshid al-Makḥūlī
3. Ismāʿīl ibn ʿAyyāsh al-Ḥimṣī
4. Thawr ibn Yazīd al-Dimashqī

From Khurāsān he took from ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Mubārak; from al-Yamāmah, his teachers include Ayyūb ibn ʿUtbah al-Taymī. He also took from many others; we have not mentioned the narrations he took from his peers and from those below him.

His Students

From amongst the students of Imām Muḥammad, may Allāh ﷻ have mercy on him, are:

1. Abū Ḥafṣ al-Kabīr al-Bukhārī Aḥmad ibn Ḥafṣ al-ʿIjlī¹
2. Abū Sulaymān Mūsā ibn Sulaymān al-Jūzjānī²
3. Abū ʿAbdullāh Muḥammad ibn Idrīs al-Shāfiʿī³
4. Abū ʿUbayd al-Qāsim ibn Sallām al-Harawī⁴
5. ʿAmr ibn Abī ʿAmr al-Ḥarrānī
6. Muḥammad ibn Samāʿah al-Taymī
7. ʿAlī ibn Maʿbad ibn Shaddād al-Raqqī⁵
8. Muʿallā ibn Manṣūr al-Rāzī⁶
9. Abū Bakr ibn Abī Muqātil
10. Asad ibn al-Furāt al-Qayrawānī⁷
11. Muḥammad ibn Muqātil al-Rāzī⁸
12. Yaḥyā ibn Maʿīn al-Ghaṭafānī⁹
13. ʿAlī ibn Muslim al-Ṭūsī
14. Mūsā ibn Naṣr al-Rāzī
15. Shaddād ibn Ḥakīm al-Balkhī
16. Al-Ḥasan ibn Ḥarb al-Raqqī
17. Ibn Jabalah
18. Abū al-ʿAbbās Ḥamīd
19. Abū Tawbah al-Rabīʿ ibn Nāfiʿ al-Ḥalabī
20. ʿUbaydullāh ibn Abī Ḥanīfah al-Dabūsī
21. Abū Burayd ʿAmr ibn Yazīd al-Jarmī
22. Muṣʿab ibn ʿAbdillāh al-Zubayrī
23. Ayyūb ibn al-Ḥasan al-Nīsābūrī
24. Khalaf ibn Ayyūb al-Balkhī
25. ʿAlī ibn Ṣabīḥ
26. ʿAqīl ibn ʿAnbasah
27. ʿAlī ibn Mihrān
28. ʿAmr ibn Mahīr
29. Yaḥyā ibn Aktham
30. Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Muʾaddib
31. ʿAlī ibn al-Ḥasan al-Rāzī
32. Hishām ibn ʿUbaydullāh al-Rāzī
33. Abū Jaʿfar Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn Mihrān al-Nasawī¹⁰
34. Shuʿayb ibn Sulaymān al-Kaysānī¹¹
35. ʿAlī ibn Ṣāliḥ al-Jurjānī¹²
36. Ismāʿīl ibn Tawbah al-Qazwīnī¹³
37. Abū Bakr Ibrāhīm ibn Rustum al-Marwazī¹⁴
38. Yaḥyā ibn Ṣāliḥ al-Wuḥāẓī al-Ḥimṣī¹⁵
39. Abū Mūsā ʿĪsā ibn Abān al-Baṣrī¹⁶
40. Sufyān ibn Saḥbān al-Baṣrī¹⁷

Muḥammad ibn ʿUmar al-Wāqidī narrates from Imām Muḥammad, just as Imām Muḥammad in turn narrates from al-Wāqidī, in the manner of peers narrating from one another.

Imām Muḥammad's occupation with knowledge

Imām al-Dhahabī, al-Ṣaymarī and al-Khaṭīb al-Baghdādī mention, with their chains to Muḥammad ibn Samāʿah, that he said: Imām Muḥammad said to his family:

Imām Muḥammad and Imām Mālik

Imām Muḥammad remained in the company of Imām Mālik for three years and heard about 700 aḥādīth from him. During this period, he also heard from the rest of the scholars in Madīnah.

The Muwaṭṭaʾ of Imām Mālik has approximately twenty-two different recensions, which vary in the number of narrations they contain.¹⁸ As for the Muwaṭṭaʾ of Imām Muḥammad, it is counted among the best recensions, if not the very best, due to Imām Muḥammad's having heard directly from Imām Mālik over a period of three years. After each ḥadīth, Imām Muḥammad mentions whether the people of Iraq follow that opinion, and he also notes their view where there is a difference.

Incident between Imām Muḥammad and Imām Mālik

Al-Khaṭīb al-Baghdādī mentions, with his sanad to Majāshiʿ ibn Yūsuf: I was with Imām Mālik in Madīnah whilst he was giving fatāwā, when Imām Muḥammad, the companion of Imām Abū Ḥanīfah, came to him and asked: "What do you say regarding a junub (person in the state of major ritual impurity) who does not find any water except that it is in the masjid?" Imām Mālik replied: "A junub should not enter the masjid." Imām Muḥammad asked: "What should he do if prayer has started and he can see the water?" Imām Mālik repeated: "A junub should not enter the masjid." After Imām Muḥammad's persistence, Imām Mālik asked him: "What do you say regarding this?" Imām Muḥammad replied that the junub should perform tayammum, enter the masjid, take the water, exit and then perform ghusl. Imām Mālik asked him: "Where are you from?" Imām Muḥammad pointed to the earth and said: "From the people of this," thereafter he left. The people informed Imām Mālik that this was Imām Muḥammad, the companion of Imām Abū Ḥanīfah. Imām Mālik said: "Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan; how can he lie by saying he is from the people of Madīnah?" They replied that Imām Muḥammad had said he was from the people of this, pointing to the earth.

Imām Muḥammad's view regarding the fiqh of Imām Mālik

Abū Ismāʿīl al-Harawī, in Dhamm al-Kalām, narrates with his chain to Imām al-Shāfiʿī that he heard, as it were, Imām Muḥammad say:

Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr mentions that Imām Muḥammad said:

This was said during a conversation between Imām Muḥammad and Imām al-Shāfiʿī. Imām Muḥammad meant that it was not fitting for Imām Mālik to give fatāwā in his era, given the presence of more senior scholars in his time. As for Imām Abū Ḥanīfah, there was no one more capable of giving fatāwā in his era; thus it was incumbent upon him to do so.

Thus, even though Imām Muḥammad travelled from Kūfah to Madīnah to study ḥadīth under Imām Mālik, he did not view him as authoritative in the field of fiqh. It is perhaps for this reason that many narrate that they would ask Imām Mālik a question and he would frequently say "I do not know". It is also known that Imām Mālik would not engage with hypothetical scenarios, and would refuse to answer a question unless the case had actually occurred. It is perhaps for this reason that his Muwaṭṭaʾ, in the riwāyah of Yaḥyā al-Laythī, mentions approximately 3,000 rulings, whereas the likes of Imām Abū Ḥanīfah and his companions would cover the same number of rulings in approximately three months. As for the many additional rulings found in the later versions of the Muwaṭṭaʾ narrated from Mālik, these are more likely rulings derived in line with the methodology of Imām Mālik, as others have clarified.¹⁹

Imām Muḥammad in comparison to Imām Mālik in terms of fiqh

Although Imām Muḥammad heard the Muwaṭṭaʾ from Imām Mālik, there were many positions he disagreed with, so much so that he wrote a book entitled al-Ḥujaj, known for refuting some of the practices of the people of Madīnah.

Many scholars have said that Imām Muḥammad was more accomplished in fiqh than many of his teachers of ḥadīth. ʿĪsā ibn Sulaymān says: when Yaḥyā ibn Aktham came with al-Maʾmūn, intending to travel to Egypt, they met Yaḥyā ibn Ṣāliḥ al-Wuḥāẓī (one of al-Bukhārī's teachers from Shām), and Ibn Aktham asked him: "O Abū Zakariyyā, which of the two was more alert of mind, Mālik ibn Anas or Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan?" Yaḥyā ibn Ṣāliḥ replied: "Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan asleep and heavy with sleep was more alert than Mālik sitting up and composed."

Al-Khaṭīb al-Baghdādī mentions, with his chain to Yaḥyā ibn Ṣāliḥ, that he said: 'Ibn Aktham asked me, "You saw Imām Mālik and heard ḥadīth from him, and you also accompanied Imām Muḥammad. Which of the two is more well-versed in fiqh?" I said: "Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan [in what he deduces himself] is more well-versed in fiqh than Mālik."' The phrase in square brackets is found in published versions, and was perhaps inserted by editors of the printed text.

Imām al-Dhahabī mentions:

Imām Muḥammad's role in the formation of the Mālikī Madhhab

Asad ibn al-Furāt left Qayrawān in the year 172 AH, and heard the Muwaṭṭaʾ from Imām Mālik in Madīnah. Imām Mālik's companions, Ibn al-Qāsim and others, used to urge Asad to put their questions to him, since Imām Mālik was gentle with him and would answer his questions, though not theirs, because he had come from a distant land. It is narrated that, on one occasion, Asad ibn al-Furāt asked Imām Mālik a question, and he answered him; he then asked another, and Imām Mālik answered him again. He then asked Imām Mālik a third question, to which Imām Mālik replied:

Thus Asad ibn al-Furāt realised that his stay with Imām Mālik had grown so long that much of what he had set out to gain (meeting scholars and hearing ḥadīth from them) was being missed. He therefore travelled to Iraq, where he met Imām Abū Yūsuf and, at his request, handed him his own copy of the Muwaṭṭaʾ; in this way Imām Abū Yūsuf came to know the Muwaṭṭaʾ in Asad's narration.

Asad ibn al-Furāt studied with the companions of Imām Abū Ḥanīfah, among them Qāḍī Abū Yūsuf, Asad ibn ʿAmr al-Bajalī, Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan and others. When he came to Imām Muḥammad he said to him: "I am a stranger to this land, little in terms of fiqh; what I can hear from you is little, and your students are many. What can I do?" Imām Muḥammad advised him: "Listen to the scholars in the daytime, and I will set aside a portion for you alone at night; come to me at night, and you may listen to me." Asad ibn al-Furāt says that he would spend the nights in the company of Imām Muḥammad, who would keep a container of water in front of him, and when the nights grew long and he began to tire, Imām Muḥammad would scoop a handful of water and sprinkle it on his face to wake him. He would do this until they had completed the portion they had set out to study.

Imām Muḥammad would give Asad ibn al-Furāt money whenever he learned that his funds had run out. Once he gave him eighty dinārs after seeing him drinking from the water set aside for wayfarers. It is indeed rare to find anyone more patient with his students, or more generous to them, than Imām Muḥammad, with the sole exception of his teacher, Imām Abū Ḥanīfah.

Asad ibn al-Furāt narrates in his al-Riḥlah al-ʿIrāqiyyah that he was once with Imām Muḥammad in one of his circles when a man announced that Imām Mālik, may Allāh ﷻ have mercy on him, had passed away. Imām Muḥammad said:

The people were greatly aggrieved at the death of Imām Mālik. Thereafter, whenever Imām Muḥammad narrated from Imām Mālik, large crowds would attend his circles; but when he narrated from others, only a few attended.

Al-Khaṭīb al-Baghdādī relates, with his sanad to Imām Muḥammad, that he said:

Similar narrations have been transmitted by Ibn ʿAdī in his al-Kāmil and by Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr in his al-Intiqāʾ. This should not come as much of a surprise: Iraq was filled with scholars narrating ḥadīth, and the people had access to them whenever they wished. As for the narrations of Imām Mālik, it is only right that people sought them out and treasured them, particularly from a scholar of the calibre of Imām Muḥammad, and all the more so once their opportunity to hear directly from Imām Mālik had been cut off by his passing.

After benefiting from Imām Muḥammad, Asad ibn al-Furāt travelled to Madīnah to question the companions of Imām Mālik regarding the rulings he had studied with Imām Muḥammad. However, he did not find the answers he was looking for, but was directed instead to Egypt, to put his questions to some of the companions of Imām Mālik there. On reaching Egypt, he went to ʿAbdullāh ibn Wahb and asked him about the rulings of Imām Abū Ḥanīfah and what the view of Imām Mālik was regarding them. ʿAbdullāh ibn Wahb hesitated to answer, so Asad ibn al-Furāt went to Ibn al-Qāsim²⁰ and asked him. Ibn al-Qāsim answered his questions to the best of his knowledge, narrating what he had heard from Imām Mālik, and where he was in doubt he would say: "I think such-and-such." Asad ibn al-Furāt compiled these rulings in his book al-Asadiyyah, and thereafter returned to Qayrawān, where he gained great standing on account of this work.

It is mentioned in Maʿālim al-Īmān that before going to Ibn al-Qāsim, Asad ibn al-Furāt went to Ashhab. He asked him a question, to which Ashhab replied. Asad ibn al-Furāt then asked him: "Who said this, Imām Abū Ḥanīfah or Imām Mālik?" Ashhab replied: "This is my saying, may Allāh ﷻ bless you". So Asad ibn al-Furāt said: "What is wrong with you, I ask you regarding Imām Abū Ḥanīfah and Imām Mālik, and you give me your opinion". Thereafter, ʿAbdullāh ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥakam said to Asad ibn al-Furāt, "What is the matter with you, a man answers your question, if you wish then accept it, if not then leave it".

On one occasion, Ashhab disrespected Imām Mālik and Imām Abū Ḥanīfah in a gathering, and voices were raised. Asad ibn al-Furāt said: "O Ashhab, O Ashhab, O Ashhab." The students silenced him, and it was said to him: "What do you intend to say to him?" Asad ibn al-Furāt replied:

Were it not for the books which Asad ibn al-Furāt had acquired from Imām Muḥammad on the fiqh of Imām Abū Ḥanīfah, and thereafter presented to Ibn al-Qāsim for the ruling from the Mālikī perspective, it would not have been possible for Asad ibn al-Furāt to put these questions, nor for Ibn al-Qāsim to answer each one in line with the framework of the scholars of Iraq. Thus, in the light of Imām Muḥammad's teaching, Asad ibn al-Furāt was able to compile the rulings of the Mālikī madhhab in sixty books known as al-Asadiyyah.

The development of the Mālikī madhhab was not due to Asad ibn al-Furāt's connection with Imām Muḥammad alone. We also know that Imām Mālik himself would frequently review his fiqh with Imām Abū Ḥanīfah whenever the latter visited Madīnah.

Qāḍī ʿIyāḍ mentions at the beginning of his Madārik that al-Layth ibn Saʿd saw Imām Mālik sweating, and asked him: "I see you sweating?" Imām Mālik replied:

It has also been narrated from ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz al-Darāwardī that Imām Mālik would read the books of Imām Abū Ḥanīfah and benefit from them. Imām al-Shāfiʿī likewise mentions in his Kitāb al-Umm, on the authority of al-Darāwardī, that Imām Mālik had approximately sixty thousand rulings from Imām Abū Ḥanīfah.

Thus Imām Mālik would benefit from Imām Abū Ḥanīfah in Masjid al-Nabawī. Imām Muḥammad heard the Muwaṭṭaʾ from Imām Mālik. Imām al-Shāfiʿī studied the Muwaṭṭaʾ from Imām Mālik and also benefited from Imām Muḥammad. Imām Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal gained his proficiency in fiqh through Imām Abū Yūsuf and Imām al-Shāfiʿī, and also benefited from the books of Imām Muḥammad. In this way the imāms of all four madhhabs are connected, and through this connection the blessings of knowledge were attained.

Asad ibn al-Furāt spread the madhhabs of Imām Abū Ḥanīfah and Imām Mālik in Ifrīqiyah; thereafter he confined himself to spreading the madhhab of Imām Abū Ḥanīfah, and thus it spread throughout the western lands. Asad ibn al-Furāt passed away in 213 AH.

Some of the senior scholars of the Mālikī madhhab have said that where no narration from Imām Mālik exists for a given ruling, one should take the ruling of Imām Abū Ḥanīfah. Some have said that the difference between the two madhhabs lies in only thirty-two rulings.

Imām al-Shāfiʿī and Imām Muḥammad

Muḥammad ibn Idrīs al-Shāfiʿī studied fiqh under Muslim ibn Khālid al-Zanjī (100 to 180 AH) in Makkah until he gave him permission to give fatāwā. Thereafter, Imām al-Shāfiʿī travelled to Madīnah, when he was approximately fourteen years old, where he studied the Muwaṭṭaʾ under Imām Mālik. During this time he also heard from Ibrāhīm ibn Muḥammad ibn Abī Yaḥyā al-Aslamī, one of the competitors of Imām Mālik. After this he travelled to Makkah to study under Sufyān ibn ʿUyaynah, and after that he went to Yemen to work due to financial difficulties and stayed there for a while. In the year 184 AH Imām al-Shāfiʿī travelled to Iraq where he studied under Imām Muḥammad and accompanied him for a long time. During this period Imām al-Shāfiʿī devoted himself to studying fiqh under Imām Muḥammad and he copied the works of Imām Muḥammad for approximately sixty dinars. This stay with Imām Muḥammad was a great gift to Imām al-Shāfiʿī, for it marked the beginning of his rise in stature.

It is narrated that Imām al-Shāfiʿī once wrote to Imām Muḥammad asking to borrow his books²¹ so that he could copy them. As Imām Muḥammad did not answer his request, Imām al-Shāfiʿī wrote the following verses:

Thereafter, it is said, Imām Muḥammad immediately gifted his books to Imām al-Shāfiʿī. It is well known that Imām al-Shāfiʿī met and benefited from the likes of Imām Mālik, Wakīʿ ibn al-Jarrāḥ and Sufyān ibn ʿUyaynah; yet in these verses he acknowledges that he had not seen the like of Imām Muḥammad, and he treats him as the image of Imām Abū Ḥanīfah's knowledge, which al-Shāfiʿī never reached.

Imām al-Dhahabī mentions in his Tārīkh al-Kabīr, with his chain to Abū ʿUbayd, that he said: I saw Imām al-Shāfiʿī with Imām Muḥammad, and Imām Muḥammad had given him fifty dīnārs, having previously given him fifty dirhams. He would say to him: "If you desire knowledge, then stay with us." Abū ʿUbayd says: I heard Imām al-Shāfiʿī say: "I wrote a camel-load of books from Imām Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan." Whenever Imām al-Shāfiʿī came to Imām Muḥammad, the latter would say to him: "Do not be embarrassed." Imām al-Shāfiʿī replied: "If you were someone I should be shy of, I would not have accepted your kindness."

Imām Muḥammad was thus very generous with his students, both in financial aid and in the time he gave them. This is why we know that Imām al-Shāfiʿī took many narrations from Imām Muḥammad which others do not have. This was because Imām Muḥammad gave Imām al-Shāfiʿī time for private lessons, just as he did for Asad ibn al-Furāt, Abū ʿUbayd and other great scholars of his time. This patience and dedication shown by Imām Muḥammad to his students is unmatched among the scholars of the past, with the exception of Imām Abū Ḥanīfah.

Imām al-Shāfiʿī mentions:

Al-Samʿānī mentions, from al-Buwayṭī, that Imām al-Shāfiʿī said:

Al-Rabīʿ narrates from Imām al-Shāfiʿī that he said:

Imām Muḥammad always looked after Imām al-Shāfiʿī and treated him with kindness; so much so that Ibn Samāʿah narrates that Imām Muḥammad gathered from his companions one hundred thousand dirhams for the sake of Imām al-Shāfiʿī.

Imām al-Dhahabī mentions from Idrīs ibn Yūsuf al-Qarāṭīsī that he heard Imām al-Shāfiʿī say:

As for some of the rivalry mentioned between Imām Muḥammad and Imām al-Shāfiʿī, these accounts have been refuted on various grounds, including bias, weak narrators and confusion in wording.

Imām Muḥammad and Imām Abū Yūsuf

After Imām Abū Ḥanīfah passed away, Imām Muḥammad joined the circles of Imām Abū Yūsuf to continue his study of fiqh and ḥadīth under him. He completed his studies and became the principal narrator of the opinions of Imām Abū Ḥanīfah and Imām Abū Yūsuf in his books: al-Mabsūṭ, al-Jāmiʿ al-Ṣaghīr and al-Siyar al-Ṣaghīr. He was the one who spread the madhhab through his other books, whether or not he attributed the views to them by name.

Imām al-Ṭaḥāwī mentions, with his narration through Ismāʿīl ibn Ḥammād, that he said: Imām Muḥammad would arrive early at the gatherings of ḥadīth, while we would go early to the gathering of Imām Abū Yūsuf. Imām Muḥammad would therefore come having missed some of the rulings; and while we conversed, Imām Abū Yūsuf would go over those rulings again with him. One day, while we were talking, Imām Muḥammad came in, and Imām Abū Yūsuf asked him about a ruling that had been covered earlier; Imām Muḥammad gave an answer that differed from what had been said before. Imām Abū Yūsuf said that this was not the correct reply, and a disagreement followed, with Imām Muḥammad saying: "This is not his (i.e. Imām Abū Ḥanīfah's) statement." They then sent for the book to check the reference. Once the book was checked, it became clear that Imām Muḥammad was correct, whereupon Imām Abū Yūsuf said: "This is how memorisation should be."

Al-Khaṭīb al-Baghdādī mentions, with his chain to Yaḥyā ibn Maʿīn, that he heard someone say to Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan, the jurist: "Have you heard these books from Abū Yūsuf?" He replied: "No, by Allāh, I did not hear them from him; but I am among those who know them best. I have heard nothing from Abū Yūsuf except for al-Jāmiʿ al-Ṣaghīr."

Imām al-Ṭaḥāwī narrates, from Ibn Abī ʿImrān from al-Ṭabarī, that he heard Muʿallā ibn Manṣūr say: I met Abū Yūsuf while he was serving as judge, and he said to me: "O Muʿallā, whose company have you kept today?" I said: "I accompanied Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan." Abū Yūsuf said:

He met me again afterwards and said: "O Muʿallā, whose company have you kept today?" I said: "Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan." So Imām Abū Yūsuf said:

Thus, in his second statement, Imām Abū Yūsuf placed Imām Muḥammad at a lower rank than in his first, on account of the judgeship.

The likely reason for the hostility between Imām Muḥammad and Imām Abū Yūsuf was the matter of the judgeship. This is what has been narrated by Ibn Abī al-ʿAwwām, with his chain to Muḥammad ibn Samāʿah. He mentions: Abū Yūsuf was consulted about the best person to be appointed judge of Raqqah. Abū Yūsuf said: "I know of no one more worthy of the post than Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan, even though he is in Kūfah. If you wish, then seek him out." They therefore sought out Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan, and when he came, he went to Abū Yūsuf and asked him why he had been chosen. Abū Yūsuf replied: "They sought my counsel about the judge of Raqqah, so I pointed to you. I thought that Allāh ﷻ has transmitted our knowledge in Kūfah and Baṣrah and throughout the east, so I wished that, from this side too, our knowledge should also be spread through you in the lands of Shām." Imām Muḥammad replied: "Subḥān Allāh! Did I not have standing enough with you to be told, before I was summoned, why I was being summoned?" This incident alone was the cause of the hostility between Imām Muḥammad and Imām Abū Yūsuf, as Imām al-Dhahabī also mentions.

Imām Muḥammad was extremely wary of taking up positions of leadership and governorship, as such posts would distract him from knowledge and teaching, following in the path of his teacher Imām Abū Ḥanīfah. Some have said that, for this reason, Imām Muḥammad did not attend the funeral of Imām Abū Yūsuf when he passed away, may Allāh ﷻ have mercy on him. However, the most likely reason that Imām Muḥammad did not attend the funeral prayer is that the janāzah took place in Baghdād while he was serving as Qāḍī of Raqqah, and it was not possible for him to leave his duties.

ʿAllāmah al-Sarakhsī mentions in his Sharḥ al-Siyar al-Kabīr that Imām Muḥammad did not mention the name of Abū Yūsuf in his Siyar al-Kabīr, as he authored this work after the growing hostility between them. Every time he uses a narration of Imām Abū Yūsuf, he says: "akhbaranī al-thiqah" (a reliable narrator informed me).

Al-Sarakhsī then relates, without any chain, a tale that some chroniclers tell on the authority of Muʿallā and others: that after Imām Abū Yūsuf became judge, students thronged to Imām Muḥammad's circle in Baghdād; that Imām Abū Yūsuf grew envious and, to keep him away from al-Rashīd, told the caliph that Imām Muḥammad suffered from incontinence of urine; and that he then had him sent away from Baghdād as judge of Egypt. This tale is false. Imām Abū Yūsuf was a great scholar of his time: he had mastery over the various sciences, an abundance of students and many written works to his name. His work entitled Kitāb al-Amālī alone consisted of some three hundred parts (juzʾ), as narrated by Abū ʿĀṣim al-ʿĀmirī. How could a man of such stature be jealous of his student, Imām Muḥammad, simply because of the great number of students he had, as some have falsely claimed? On the contrary, this should have been a source of pride and honour for him. Furthermore, had he harboured such jealousy towards him, why would he have praised him on multiple occasions and selected him for the Qaḍāʾ of Raqqah? The section that follows, "Hiya al-kidhb min ayyi al-nawāḥī ataytahā", answers all such claims.

It Is a Lie from Whichever Angle One Approaches It

Consider, further, the very setting in which this hostility between Imām Abū Yūsuf and Imām Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan is alleged to have taken place. Imām Muḥammad was in Kūfah until he was summoned for the judgeship. How then could Imām Abū Yūsuf have previously seen the throngs frequenting Imām Muḥammad's circle and become resentful and envious of him? And how could he have wished to remove him from the seat of the caliphate when Imām Muḥammad was not in it at all, but rather in Kūfah? How then could Imām Abū Yūsuf have invented for him an illness that he did not have? Would Imām Abū Yūsuf have been so foolish as to expose himself to disgrace, when al-Rashīd sent a physician to treat Imām Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan and many physicians gathered at his door, as the tale itself relates? Yet does the same story not also state that al-Rashīd was already fond of him? And the one then chosen for the judgeship was not chosen for Egypt, but rather for Raqqah, which was the summer capital of the ʿAbbāsid caliphs and as close as could be to the gatherings of the caliphs themselves.

Furthermore, Imām Muḥammad's habit, when narrating from Imām Abū Yūsuf even after this estrangement, was to say "akhbaranī al-thiqah" (a reliable narrator informed me), by which he intended Imām Abū Yūsuf. How could he describe Imām Abū Yūsuf as al-thiqah if such atrocities had truly emanated from him? Thus lies are, in most cases, accompanied by what reveals their own inconsistency.

Perhaps al-Sarakhsī's excuse for narrating this anecdote in the manner he did is that he was in prison, far from his books, dictating from memory; the story had clung to his mind from some of the books of evening tales (kutub al-asmār), and he did not have the time to verify it, so he fell into this snare while dictating his work. We hold him to be a mountain among the mountains of knowledge, immovable in his lofty stature in scholarship, and it pains us to see him dictate such a clear fabrication in his enduring book. But Allāh has refused that anything be free of error save His own Book, as al-Shāfiʿī said to al-Muzanī when al-Muzanī presented al-Risālah to him several times and al-Shāfiʿī kept finding things in it to correct: "Leave it; Allāh has refused that anything be sound except His own Book", or words to that effect.

Asceticism of Imām Muḥammad

Imām Abū Yūsuf was the teacher of Imām Muḥammad; despite this, Imām Muḥammad kept away from him for the rest of his life, because Imām Abū Yūsuf had pressed him into accepting the judgeship of Raqqah. Abū Yūsuf's wish was to spread the knowledge of Imām Muḥammad in Raqqah and its surrounding areas, and this was a commendable wish on his part. Imām Muḥammad, however, was deeply displeased by it. He regarded it as a distraction from knowledge, following in the footsteps of his teacher Imām Abū Ḥanīfah.

It is narrated that when Imām Abū Yūsuf accepted the role of judgeship towards the end of the rule of al-Mahdī, Imām Muḥammad reproached him for it, and Imām Abū Yūsuf prayed against him, saying:

He was indeed tried with the chief judgeship before his death, after he had been dismissed from the judgeship of Raqqah and barred from giving legal opinions for a long time on account of his explicit answer regarding the safety of al-Ṭālibī, as mentioned in the Tārīkh of Ibn Jarīr, the book of Ibn Abī al-ʿAwwām and the book of al-Ṣaymarī, with their various chains and wordings.

Abū ʿAbdillāh al-Ṣaymarī relates with his chain to Muḥammad ibn Samāʿah, who said: I heard Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan say: When al-Rashīd came to al-Raqqah, I was summoned, and I went in to him with al-Ḥasan ibn Ziyād and Abū al-Bakhtarī Wahb ibn Wahb, who was the Chief Justice after the death of Abū Yūsuf. He presented us with the security document that was written to Yaḥyā ibn ʿAbdullāh ibn al-Ḥasan, who was from the descendants of al-Ḥasan ibn ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib. He handed it to me, and when I had read it I chose the command of Allāh and the abode of the Hereafter, and said: 'This is a binding safe-conduct; there is no way to annul it.'

In al-Ṭaḥāwī's wording, as Ibn Abī al-ʿAwwām narrates it: the Ṭālibī had been placed on the leather execution mat, with a man standing over him, sword in hand, and the Ṭālibī was pleading, for Hārūn had granted him safe-conduct. The document was then taken from my hands and handed to al-Ḥasan ibn Ziyād. He read it and said, in so faint a voice that I do not know whether it was heard or not: 'This is a safe-conduct.' He then took it from his hands and handed it to Abū al-Bakhtarī, who read it and said: 'I am not satisfied with it. This is an evil man who has broken the unity of the community, shed the blood of Muslims, and done this and that; there is no safe-conduct for him.' Then, as I watched, he reached into his boot, drew out a knife and slit the document in two. He handed it to the servant, then turned to al-Rashīd and said: 'Kill him, and his blood be on my neck.' We left the gathering, and a messenger from al-Rashīd came to me to inform me not to give fatwās to anyone nor to issue any judgments.

(In another narration: and he appointed ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Harawī to give the people fatwās.) I remained in this state until Umm Jaʿfar wished to make a waqf and sent to me about it. I told her that I had been forbidden to give fatwās, so she spoke to al-Rashīd about me, and he gave me permission.

Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan said: I and everyone in the house (meaning al-Rashīd's house) were astonished at Abū al-Bakhtarī: a judge and a jurist, giving the fatwā he gave, taking upon himself the blood of a Muslim man, and then carrying a knife in his boot. He said: al-Rashīd did not kill Yaḥyā at that time; instead, he died later in prison. In another narration, it was said that he was killed during that session.

Muḥammad ibn Samāʿah said in his account: After this, al-Rashīd drew Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan close, advanced him, appointed him chief judge and took him with him to al-Rayy, where he and al-Kisāʾī died on the same day (it is also said that al-Kisāʾī died two days after Muḥammad); and al-Rashīd said: 'I have buried fiqh and grammar at al-Rayy.' Bakr al-ʿAmmī said in his account: When Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan gave the fatwā that the safe-conduct was valid, and Abū al-Bakhtarī gave the fatwā that it was void and declared the man's blood lawful, Yaḥyā ibn ʿAbdullāh al-Ṭālibī said to Hārūn al-Rashīd:

'O Commander of the Believers, Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan, whose standing in fiqh is what it is, gives you the fatwā that my safe-conduct is valid, and this man gives you the fatwā that it is void. What has he to do with fatwā? His father was only a drummer in Madīnah.'

Al-Ṣaymarī also said: Abū Bakr al-Damghānī informed us with his chain to ʿAbdullāh ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn al-Qāsim ibn Muḥammad ibn Abī Bakr al-Ṣiddīq, who said: 'I witnessed all of this between Hārūn and Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan. He added that when Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan left he cried profusely, so I asked him: "O Abū ʿAbdullāh, are you weeping like this because of this head wound?" This is because Hārūn had thrown an inkpot at him when he gave a fatwā contrary to his preference in the assembly. The blood flowed on to his face and clothing. He said: "No, I am not crying for that, but I am crying due to my own shortcomings." I asked him: "What shortcomings do you speak of? You have reached a position where no one on earth has more dignity than you." He said: "When Abū al-Bakhtarī said what he said, I ought to have asked him, 'On what basis do you say that?', so that I could establish the proof that what he said was unsound."

Ibn Abī al-ʿAwwām narrated with his chain to Muḥammad ibn Samāʿah that he said: Hārūn ordered that the books of Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan be searched, fearing that they might contain something that would encourage the Ṭālibids to rebel. Muḥammad said to me: 'O Abū ʿAbdullāh (meaning Ibn Samāʿah, who was with him in that ordeal), for Allāh's sake look to my affair: go ahead of them to my house and guard my books, so that nothing that is not from them is slipped into them.' I did so. When his books were searched, nothing was found in them except a collection on the merits of ʿAlī (peace be upon him), which was brought to Hārūn al-Rashīd, and he said: 'We have more than this.'

Al-Ṭaḥāwī said: I heard Bakkār ibn Qutaybah relate this account from Hilāl ibn Yaḥyā from Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan, and added that Hārūn al-Rashīd sent for Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan and said: 'This is a security document that I did not write myself, but I ordered someone else to write it. What would you say about a man who swears not to write a letter, but then orders someone else to write it?' Muḥammad replied: 'If this man is one of the common people, he does not break his oath unless he writes it himself; but if he is a ruler, he does break it, for a ruler's letter is whatever is written at his command.' He said: At this, Hārūn's anger against him grew fierce, and he did to him what he did.

Al-Ṭaḥāwī also narrated with his chain to Ibn Samāʿah: When Hārūn ordered the killing of al-Ṭālibī, he said to him: 'O Hārūn, Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan and al-Ḥasan ibn Ziyād, the two jurists of the world, tell you that this is a valid safe-conduct, and you do not accept it from them; yet this lying impostor tells you that it is void, and you accept it from him and order my death!'

He was alluding to the fact that the lineage of Abū al-Bakhtarī Wahb ibn Wahb, the judge, was impugned; and Allāh ﷻ knows best.

Ibn Abī al-ʿAwwām narrated from al-Ṭaḥāwī, from Abū Khāzim, from Bakr ibn Muḥammad al-ʿAmmī, from Muḥammad ibn Samāʿah, that he said: "We were with Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan in the palace of Hārūn al-Rashīd (this was after Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan had been dismissed from the judiciary of al-Raqqah and reconciled with Hārūn through the intercession of Umm Jaʿfar). While we were sitting, Hārūn, the Commander of the Believers, entered. Everyone rose to their feet except Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan, who remained seated. Hārūn kept looking at him, and when he had gone inside he summoned Muḥammad alone, without the others. I thought to myself that he intended to reprimand him for not standing in his presence.

After some time, Muḥammad emerged, and I followed him to his house to inquire about what had happened. He explained: 'When I entered, he (Hārūn) said to me, "I have resolved to kill the fighters of Banū Taghlib and enslave their children." I asked him, "Why is that, O Commander of the Believers, when ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb had made peace with them?" Hārūn replied, "ʿUmar only made peace with them on the condition that they would not baptise their children. They have since baptised them, thus breaching the terms of the agreement."

I responded, "ʿUmar upheld their peace agreement even after they baptised their children, which indicates they retained their security without additional conditions." Hārūn objected, "No, ʿUmar merely refrained from fighting them at the time because the duration (of his rule) was short."

I said, "Even if the time after that was short, he was followed by two just imāms whose rule was long, ʿUthmān and ʿAlī, and they did not move against them; this shows that they had confirmed the peace for them without condition." At this point, he told me to leave.'

Al-Ṣaymarī added in his narration through the route of Ibn ʿAṭiyyah: al-Ḥasan ibn Ziyād bore ill-will towards Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan. When the people from the caliph's court entered, Hārūn al-Rashīd waited a little while and then the attendant came out and said, 'Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan.' His companions were distressed for him. He entered, and after some time, he came out in good spirits and happy. He said: 'Hārūn asked me, "Why did you not stand with the people?" I replied, "I disliked leaving the rank you placed me in. You honoured me with knowledge, and I did not want to descend to the rank of service, which is outside of it. The son of your uncle ﷺ said: 'Whoever loves that people stand for him, let him prepare his seat in the Fire.' He meant by this the scholars. As for those who stand for rightful service and to honour the ruler, this is a form of deterrence for the enemy. But as for those who sit and follow the Sunnah which we took from you, it is dignity for you."'

He (Hārūn) said: 'You have spoken the truth.' Then he asked him about the Banū Taghlib, and his response was similar to what has been mentioned before. He said in the end: 'This is a peace made by the caliphs after him, and nothing in it falls upon you. I have laid the knowledge out for you, and your judgement stands above mine.' He said: 'Then we shall let it run as they let it run, if Allāh wills. Allāh ordered His Prophet to consult, and so he would consult in his matters, and then Jibrīl would come to him with Allāh's direction. However, you must pray for the one whom Allāh has placed in charge of your affairs, and order your companions to do the same. I have commanded something to be given to you, which you may distribute among your companions.' Then a great amount of wealth was given to him, and he distributed it.

Something similar is mentioned in al-Khaṭīb's al-Tārīkh. These incidents highlight the firmness with which he upheld justice, whether the matter concerned Muslims or Christians, and his honesty in refuting falsehood and avoiding flattery or compromise, regardless of what he faced along this path. They also show his sincere determination in serving knowledge and religion.

Subtle Anecdotes and Valuable Benefits Narrated by Some of His Companions

In Manāqib al-Kurdarī, al-Ḥasan ibn Shahūb says: "I saw Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan go to the dyers and ask them about their work and how they went about it." Consider this great mujtahid: he was not content with his knowledge of the Qurʾān, the Sunnah, the statements of the Ṣaḥābah, the Tābiʿīn and the rest of the jurists of the lands, nor with his renown in the Arabic sciences. He still saw himself as needing to learn how the tradesmen carried out their dealings, and to know the difference between long-established custom and newly-arising custom, so that his speech would be safe from error in any aspect of explaining the rulings of the Sharīʿah. This is ijtihād in its true sense.

Ibn Abī al-ʿAwwām narrates: Imām Abū Jaʿfar al-Ṭaḥāwī, may Allāh have mercy on him, told me, saying: I heard Ibrāhīm ibn Abī Dāwūd (al-Burullusī) say: "I heard Yaḥyā ibn Ṣāliḥ al-Wuḥāẓī say: 'I performed Ḥajj in the company of Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan, and I said to him, "Narrate to me your book on such-and-such"; meaning one of his books in fiqh. He said, "I do not have the strength for it." I said, "Then I will recite it to you." He said, "Which is easier for you, that I read it to you, or that you read it to me?" I said, "That I read it to you." He said, "No: my reading it to you is easier for me. When I read it to you, I use only my eyes and tongue; but when you read it to me, I must use my eyes, my mind and my hearing, which is more taxing."'" Al-Dhahabī also reports this in his juzʾ. This same al-Wuḥāẓī is the one who used to prefer Imām Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan over Imām Mālik in fiqh, and is also a teacher of Imām al-Bukhārī, as has already been mentioned. This is a point of benefit.

Al-Badr al-Zarkashī mentions, in al-Baḥr al-Muḥīṭ that Imām Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan said: "If we accept the narration of upright transmitters (ahl al-ʿadl), believing that whoever lies among them is a fāsiq, then it is even more proper to accept the narration of ahl al-ahwāʾ, believing that whoever lies among them is a kāfir."

Ibn Abī al-ʿAwwām said: I heard Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad ibn Ḥammād say: I heard Muḥammad ibn Shujāʿ say: I heard Muʿallā ibn Manṣūr al-Rāzī say: "Whenever Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan was told that some people were speaking ill of the companions of Abū Ḥanīfah, he would recite this verse:

In Manāqib al-Kurdarī, Ibn Jabalah said: I heard Imām Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan say: "It is not lawful for anyone to narrate from our books except what he has heard, or unless he knows what we know." This was because the practice of the companions of Imām Abū Ḥanīfah, may Allāh have mercy on him, was to discuss an issue among themselves for two or three days, and then write it down, in most cases without mentioning the proofs. They relied on the length of the discussions and their familiarity with the matter, satisfied with the recollection of the proofs they had before the issue was committed to writing. Thus, when one of them, well-versed in the school, heard the proof for a given issue, his heart was put at ease. The same was the case when his knowledge matched theirs; otherwise, his transmission would be a blind imitation.

Ibn Abī al-ʿAwwām also narrates from Imām al-Ṭaḥāwī, from Ibrāhīm ibn Abī Dāwūd, who said: I heard Yaḥyā ibn Ṣāliḥ al-Wuḥāẓī say: "I performed Ḥajj in the company of Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan. When we were at Minā, I saw Khālid ibn ʿAbdullāh (he is Abū al-Haytham al-Wāsiṭī) and went to his gathering. The people of ḥadīth crowded around him until they troubled him, and he said: 'Perhaps if these people were asked a single question of fiqh, they would not know the answer.' I said: 'May Allāh set you right, ask them; perhaps there is someone among them who is not like that.' He asked about a question, and I answered it. He approved of my answer and said to me: 'From whom did you learn this?' I said: 'From Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan, and he is on Ḥajj with you.' He said: 'When we have finished, take me to his tent so that I may greet him.' When I went with him to Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan and Muḥammad saw him, he stood up for him and showed him great honour."

Imām al-Ṭaḥāwī also narrates from Ibn Abī ʿImrān that he heard al-Ṭabarī say: Ḥamīd Abū al-ʿAbbās told me: "The circle in the mosque on Fridays in Baghdād was Bishr ibn al-Walīd's, and so it remained, and we used to sit with him in it, until Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan came to us (from al-Raqqah). We went to him and learnt these questions of his from him; then we would come to Bishr ibn al-Walīd and ask him about them, and trouble him with them. When this became too much for him, he left the circle to us and rose from it." Imām al-Ṭaḥāwī said: I heard Ibn Abī ʿImrān say: "I heard Abū ʿAbdillāh Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan ibn Abī Mālik say: 'I saw Bishr ibn al-Walīd one day at my father's, and Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan was mentioned, and Bishr spoke against him. My father said to him: "Do not do that, Abū al-Walīd!" Then he said to him: "This Muḥammad: there have come into people's hands these books of his, containing the questions he generated and worked out. We would be content if you could pose for us a single question of that kind, and Allāh had excused you from answering it."'" Imām al-Ṭaḥāwī said: I heard Ibn Abī ʿImrān relate from Ibn al-Thaljī, who said: When the issues of Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan were read to al-Ḥasan ibn Abī Mālik, he said: "Imām Abū Yūsuf, may Allāh have mercy on him, was not as precise as this."

This Bishr ibn al-Walīd is the transmitter of Abū Yūsuf; from him Abū Yaʿlā al-Mawṣilī heard the books of Abū Yūsuf, so that al-Dhahabī, in Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥuffāẓ, says to this effect: "Were it not for the long time Abū Yaʿlā spent hearing the books of Abū Yūsuf from Bishr ibn al-Walīd, his isnād would have been elevated and he would have met such-and-such." This shows that Abū Yūsuf's books were so many that hearing them all took time, even with the speed of the muḥaddithīn, to the point that some of them would hear al-Jāmiʿ of al-Bukhārī in three days. This is supported by what is said: that the Amālī of Abū Yūsuf alone was about three hundred juzʾ; otherwise hearing his books would not have kept Abū Yaʿlā from an elevated isnād. Allāh knows best. Al-Ḥasan ibn Abī Mālik was among the most distinguished and most learned of Abū Yūsuf's companions, may Allāh have mercy on them.

Ibn Abī al-ʿAwwām likewise narrates, from al-Ṭaḥāwī, from Sulaymān ibn Shuʿayb al-Kaysānī, from his father, who said: "Imām Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan dictated to us, saying: 'When people differ over an issue, one jurist regards it as forbidden, another regards it as lawful, and each gives a ruling according to his ijtihād, then what is correct in the sight of Allāh is one and the same: lawful or forbidden, the matter is one. Allāh has charged each one according to the level of his ijtihād, that he should exert it until his judgement reaches what is, in his view, the truth. So whoever has hit upon what is true in the sight of Allāh has hit upon it both in his view and in fact. And whoever exerted what was required of him but did not happen upon the truth in the sight of Allāh, has still done what was required, and is rewarded. As for someone who says, "What is forbidden in the sight of Allāh and what is lawful in the sight of Allāh are both correct"; this is something one should not say. Rather, what is correct in the sight of Allāh is one. The people have done what was required when they exerted their ijtihād and gave their verdict, but one of them has erred in this, since what was required of him was that he reach the position of the one who hit upon the truth. So though he erred, he discharged his ijtihād, and is rewarded; and though he erred, the truth in the sight of Allāh in all matters is one. This is the position of Imām Abū Ḥanīfah and Imām Abū Yūsuf, and it is our position too.'"

This shows that Abū Ḥanīfah and his companions were not among those who held that every mujtahid is correct in the absolute sense; and it refutes whoever has suggested otherwise about them.

Imām al-Ṭaḥāwī also narrates: I heard Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī ibn Maʿbad ibn Shaddād al-ʿAbdī say: I heard my father say: "I came to al-Raqqah while Imām Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan was its judge. I came to his door and asked permission to enter, but I was kept out, so I went away and stayed in al-Raqqah for a time without going to him. One day, while I was in one of its streets, Imām Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan came along on his mount in the dress of a judge. When he saw me, he came over to me, reproached me for staying away, and had someone take me to his house. When he had sat down in his house, I was brought in to him, and he said: 'What has kept you from me since you arrived? I had heard that you were here.' I said: 'I came to your house and was kept out; I came to you only as I used to come to you when you were not a judge.' This upset and grieved him, and he said: 'Which of my doorkeepers kept you out?' I thought he meant to punish him, so I did not tell him. He said: 'If you do not tell me, I will dismiss them all.' I said: 'Then you would wrong those who did not keep me out.' He summoned them all and said to them: 'Do not consult me about Abū Muḥammad's coming in.' Then he turned to me and said: 'When you come to us, there will be nothing between me and you except the curtain that screens me from the people. Clear your throat then, and give the greeting. If I am in a state in which you may enter, I shall give you permission myself; if I am otherwise, I shall stay silent, and you will go away.' After that I would come to him while people were at his door; I would step over them and pass his doorkeepers until I reached his curtain, clear my throat and give the greeting, and he would say, 'Come in, Abū Muḥammad,' and I would enter; or he would stay silent, and I would go away."

Imām al-Ṭaḥāwī also narrates from Yūnus ibn ʿAbd al-Aʿlā, who said: al-Shāfiʿī said: "Whenever Imām Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan sat down to debate in fiqh, he would seat with him an arbiter between himself and his opponent, who would say to one, 'You have gone too far,' and to the other, 'You have fallen short.'" Imām al-Ṭaḥāwī said: Abū al-ʿAbbās al-Ubullī told us: "That man was ʿĪsā ibn Hārūn." This is the most balanced way of conducting a debate.

Al-Ṣaymarī said: ʿAbdullāh ibn Muḥammad al-Shāhid told us, from al-Qāḍī Mukram, from Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn al-Mughallis, from Muḥammad ibn Samāʿah, who said: "ʿĪsā ibn Abān used to pray with us, but I would call him to come to Imām Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan; he would say: 'Those people contradict the Ḥadīth.' ʿĪsā was excellent at retaining Ḥadīth. One day he prayed the dawn prayer with us. It was the day of Muḥammad's session, and I did not leave ʿĪsā until he sat in it. When Muḥammad had finished, I brought him close and said: 'This is the son of your brother Abān ibn Ṣadaqah, the scribe, and along with his sharp mind he has knowledge of Ḥadīth. I am calling him to you, and he refuses, saying, "You contradict the Ḥadīth."' Muḥammad came forward and said to him, 'Young man, what is it from the Ḥadīth in which you see us going against it? Do not give witness against us until you have heard from us!' Then he asked him about twenty-five chapters of Ḥadīth that day; Imām Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan answered him on each, telling him what in them was abrogated, and producing the supports and proofs. ʿĪsā left, and when we left after him he turned to me and said: 'There was a veil between me and the light, and it has been lifted from me. I never imagined there could be in any kingdom a man like this!' Imām Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan kept close company with him until ʿĪsā became deeply learned in fiqh."

This ʿĪsā ibn Abān was a mountain among the mountains of knowledge. He is the transmitter of al-Ḥujaj ʿalā Ahl al-Madīnah from Imām Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan, and the author of Kitāb al-Ḥujaj al-Ṣaghīr, in which he refuted ʿĪsā ibn Hārūn al-Hāshimī (a companion of al-Maʾmūn) for the claims he had made in his Kitāb al-Hāshimī about Imām Abū Ḥanīfah contradicting authentic ḥadīth. Al-Maʾmūn called upon the scholars to bring forth what they had in answer to Kitāb al-Hāshimī. Yet what Ismāʿīl ibn Ḥammād put together did not satisfy him, nor what Bishr wrote, nor what Yaḥyā ibn Aktham compiled. He was deeply impressed only with the book of ʿĪsā ibn Abān, and he took it as a final verdict against Kitāb al-Hāshimī. The matter is well known in Kitāb Ibn Abī al-ʿAwwām and Kitāb al-Ṣaymarī.

ʿĪsā ibn Abān also has Kitāb al-Ḥujaj al-Kabīr, which was the cause of Imām al-Shāfiʿī, may Allāh have mercy on him, leaving Iraq on his last journey: he stayed there only a few months, for after ʿĪsā ibn Abān's book he found no room in Iraq to spread his old teaching. ʿĪsā ibn Abān also has a book refuting al-Marīsī and Imām al-Shāfiʿī on the conditions for accepting reports, and his books contain points of uṣūl that he transmits from Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan; Abū Bakr al-Rāzī quotes from his books at length in his Uṣūl. In short, ʿĪsā ibn Abān counts as one of the great masters of argument in fiqh.

Statements Narrated from Imām Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal Regarding the Books of Imām Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan

Al-Khaṭīb said: al-Khallāl told me, ʿAlī ibn ʿAmr informed us, ʿAlī ibn Muḥammad al-Nakhaʿī told us, Abū Bakr al-Qarāṭīsī told us; Ibrāhīm al-Ḥarbī said: "I asked Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal: 'These subtle issues, where do you take them from?' He said: 'From the books of Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan.'"

Shaykh ʿAbd al-Ḥayy al-Lakhnawī mentioned, in his introduction to al-Taʿlīq al-Mumajjad on the Muwaṭṭaʾ of Imām Muḥammad; narrating from al-Ansāb of Ibn al-Samʿānī, from Imām Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal, may Allāh have mercy on him, that Aḥmad said: "When in any issue there are three positions [taken by these three], you will not hear of one differing from them." It was said to him: "Who are they?" He said: "Abū Ḥanīfah, Abū Yūsuf and Muḥammad. Abū Ḥanīfah was the most penetrating in qiyās; Abū Yūsuf was the most knowledgeable of people in al-athar; and Muḥammad was the most knowledgeable in Arabic."

In Kitāb Miḥnat Imām Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal, on the authority of Mūsā ibn Ḥizām al-Tirmidhī, who said: "I used to go to Abū Sulaymān al-Jūzjānī to study the books of Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan. I met Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal at the bridge. He said to me: 'Where are you going?' I said: 'To Abū Sulaymān.' He said: 'Astonishing! You have left three [generations of transmission] up to the Prophet ﷺ, and have settled for three up to Abū Ḥanīfah.' I said: 'How is that, O Abū ʿAbdillāh?' He said: 'Yazīd ibn Hārūn, at Wāsiṭ, says: Ḥumayd told us, from Anas, that the Messenger of Allāh ﷺ said such-and-such. And this man (i.e. Abū Sulaymān) says: Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan told us, from Yaʿqūb, from Abū Ḥanīfah.' Mūsā ibn Ḥizām said: 'His words struck my heart. I hired a boat that very hour, went down to Wāsiṭ and heard from Yazīd ibn Hārūn'"; meaning whatever was easy of Ḥadīth, with no concern for deep fiqh.

ʿĀṣim ibn ʿIṣām al-Thaqafī said: "I was with Abū Sulaymān al-Jūzjānī when a letter from Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal reached him: 'If you give up narrating Muḥammad's books, we will come to you to hear ḥadīth from you.' He wrote back to him on the back of his note: 'Your coming to us will not raise us, nor will your staying away lower us. I only wish I had camel-loads more of these books, so that I could narrate them for the sake of Allāh.'" Al-Kurdarī narrates this; and something similar passed between Aḥmad and Yaḥyā ibn Ṣāliḥ al-Wuḥāẓī, who received a comparable reply from him.

What was it, then, that drove Aḥmad to such inconsistency? At one time you see him praising Muḥammad's books and his knowledge; at another, trying to turn people away from hearing his books by pointing them to an elevated chain elsewhere, though he knows that hearing with an elevated chain, without understanding of fiqh, is of little use; and at a third, approaching those who narrate his books, to turn them from narrating them with the promise that he would come to them for knowledge if they gave it up. And when have people ever seen a student dictate to his teacher which sciences to choose? A student says to a scholar, "I will come to you to learn from you if you give up teaching such-and-such a science"; this is very strange indeed. Then a remark escaped him on occasion, and it was answered with great harshness. All of this is hard to account for.

The truth is that, at the start of his life, Imām Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal studied with Imām Abū Yūsuf, may Allāh have mercy on him, for three years, heard Ḥadīth from him, and wrote down from him three satchels (qamāṭir) of knowledge, as al-Ḥāfiẓ Ibn Sayyid al-Nās mentions in his commentary on the Sīrah and elsewhere. He also benefited from the books of Muḥammad, as is mentioned here. Then he became ascetic with regard to al-raʾy in the absolute sense; meaning deductive fiqh. His remarks on the views of Imām Mālik, may Allāh have mercy on him, al-Thawrī, Imām al-Shāfiʿī, may Allāh have mercy on him, Abū ʿUbayd and Abū Thawr, and on their fatwās, are well known in Manāqib Aḥmad of Ibn al-Jawzī and elsewhere.

We have alluded to some of this in our notes on Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr's al-Intiqāʾ: when he heard that Abū Yaʿqūb Isḥāq ibn Manṣūr al-Kawsaj was narrating, in Khurāsān, questions of fiqh and raʾy from Aḥmad himself, he was greatly upset by it and called people to witness that he had retracted those questions, as more than one scholar mentions. Yet Kitāb Isḥāq ibn Manṣūr on the issues of Aḥmad and Ibn Rāhawayh is, in fact, among the most trustworthy of books on their views; al-Tirmidhī relies on it for citing the views of Aḥmad and Ibn Rāhawayh in al-Jāmiʿ. The book of Isḥāq ibn Manṣūr is among the manuscripts of al-Ẓāhiriyyah in Damascus.

Aḥmad's retraction was not because those fatwās were unsound; it came from his scruple about being taken as a model in fatwā, for fear of bearing the blame for any error in them. Indeed, he stopped narrating ḥadīth some thirteen years before his death, as Abū Ṭālib al-Makkī and others mention. Had he been willing to bear the responsibility of narrating the ḥadīth he held, he could not have permitted himself to stop narrating and so withhold knowledge. And it is not uncommon among the people of narration for a man to wash out the books he spent his life gathering and narrating, for fear of the responsibility that narration brings.

It is well known that the gathering of the Qurʾān in the time of Abū Bakr (raḍ. ʿanhu) took place only after much deliberation. The exchanges between him and ʿUmar are recorded: how Abū Bakr hesitated over the need to gather it, until the manifest need for it became clear. The same was the case when ʿUthmān (raḍ. ʿanhu) wished to make many copies of the Qurʾān and send them to the regions of the Muslims. Many of the early transmitters did not, at first, see fit to write down Ḥadīth or to codify it, and likewise tafsīr, fiqh and the rest of the sciences. Such caution was, the more ancient the period, the more excusable; but it would have been an unsound stance had it persisted into the third century, after the ummah as a whole had moved on to the codification of all the sciences, and the majority had affirmed the need for it.

Imagine what would have happened: if Abū Bakr had not gathered the Qurʾān between two covers, and ʿUthmān had not sent the standard copy under the supervision of the Companions to the regions of the Muslims, with skilled and trusted qurrāʾ attending to it, if they had not codified the Ḥadīth, taught it and authored books in fiqh and the rest of the sciences; religious, intellectual and literary. Reflect on this, how the rectitude of the ummah depended on the codification of these sciences. Imām Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal, like any other scholar, has the right to hold whatever positions he wishes in al-raʾy, al-riwāyah, fiqh and ḥadīth, on his own responsibility, and the right to refuse to be taken as a model in any of them. It is not for the people, however, to take him as a model in matters in which he himself, against his own wish, refused to be made one. The other imāms, before him and after him, did what they saw as their duty, and in their footsteps we follow.

In sum: Imām Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal, at the start of his affair, wrote Ḥadīth and fiqh, and held the words of Imām Abū Ḥanīfah, may Allāh have mercy on him, and his companions in high regard. Then his statements wavered in the days of the Miḥnah, and in the end he spoke well of Imām Abū Ḥanīfah, as Abū al-Wurd, one of the Imāms of the Ḥanbalīs, mentioned in his book on the principles of religion. This is what ʿAllāmah Sulaymān ibn ʿAbd al-Qawī al-Ṭūfī al-Ḥanbalī conveyed in Sharḥ Mukhtaṣar al-Rawḍah, a work on their uṣūl, which is among the manuscripts of al-Ẓāhiriyyah in Damascus and is one of the books Ibn Badrān copied; may Allāh send someone to attend to it.

As for the words attributed to some of the companions of Aḥmad against Imām Abū Ḥanīfah and his companions, none of it lowers the standing of those imām-jurists. Look at Kitāb al-Sunnah of ʿAbdullāh ibn Aḥmad, the Ṭabaqāt of Abū al-Ḥusayn ibn Abī Yaʿlā, the Jāmiʿ of Ḥarb ibn Ismāʿīl and the Naqḍ of ʿUthmān ibn Saʿīd, and you will see from them what the attackers believed and what their attacks are worth: whether they are the kind of thing that clings to these imām-jurists and lowers their great standing, or the kind that exposes the folly of the fabricators and brings them down.

Imām Muḥammad's Creedal Positions

Al-Ḥāfiẓ Abū al-Qāsim Hibatullāh ibn al-Ḥasan al-Lālakāʾī said, in Sharḥ al-Sunnah: with his chain to Abū Sulaymān al-Jūzjānī, who said: I heard Imām Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan, may Allāh have mercy on him, say: "Whoever says that the Qurʾān is created, do not pray behind him." He means the Qurʾān as it subsists in Allāh. As for the writing of the scribe, the voice of the reciter and the mental images in the mind of the one who has memorised it, their createdness is evident to the senses; whoever tries to deny that, and declares people disbelievers over what does not subsist in Allāh, defies the senses and resists the self-evident, whatever his standing among the narrators. One pities the religion of those who put into their books a chapter of 'reports declaring disbelief in whoever suspends judgement on the Qurʾān' (meaning whoever refrains from saying that it is uncreated, since that wording is not found in the Book or the authentic Sunnah), and a chapter of 'reports declaring disbelief in whoever says that his pronunciation (lafẓ) of the Qurʾān is created', though the utterer and his utterance are themselves originated. The extremism of some narrators in this reached a frightening degree, and it must be said, with every regret, that Ibn Abī Ḥātim and the Banū Mandah, the ḥuffāẓ, are counted among these extremists.

Al-Lālakāʾī also said: Muḥammad ibn Sulaymān informed us, Abū ʿAlī ibn Yūsuf ibn Yaʿqūb told us, Abū Muḥammad Aḥmad ibn ʿAlī ibn Zayd al-Ghijduwānī told us, Abū ʿAbdillāh Muḥammad ibn Abī ʿAmr al-Ṭawāwīsī told us, ʿAmr ibn Wahb said: "I heard Shaddād ibn Ḥakīm relate from Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan, regarding the aḥādīth that have come, such as 'Allāh descends to the lowest heaven,' and the like, that these are aḥādīth narrated by trustworthy transmitters: we narrate them and believe in them, but do not interpret them."

He also said: Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn Ḥafṣ informed us, Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad ibn Salamah told us, Abū Muḥammad Sahl ibn ʿUthmān ibn Saʿīd ibn Ḥakīm al-Sulamī said: "I heard Abū Isḥāq Ibrāhīm ibn Aḥmad say: I heard Abū Sulaymān Dāwūd ibn Ṭalḥah say: I heard ʿUbaydullāh ibn Abī Ḥanīfah al-Dabūsī say: I heard Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan say: 'The jurists have all agreed, from east to west, upon belief in the Qurʾān and in the aḥādīth that have come, from the trustworthy transmitters, from the Messenger of Allāh ﷺ describing the Lord ﷻ, without interpretation, description or comparison. Whoever interprets anything of this today has gone outside what the Prophet ﷺ was upon, and has parted from the community (fāraqa al-jamāʿah): for they neither described nor interpreted, but gave fatwā by what is in the Book and the Sunnah and then were silent. Whoever holds the view of Jahm has parted from the community, for he has described Him with an attribute of non-being.'"

This refutes the fabricators who claim that he called to the createdness of the Qurʾān or to the view of Jahm. He did not think it right to go into the attributes, which was the way of the righteous salaf and was the preferred course in that period. Later, sects arose that made taʾwīl necessary, to repel tashbīh and to suppress those who ascribe voice, movement and the like to Allāh ﷻ.

Al-Ṣaymarī said: ʿAbdullāh ibn Muḥammad informed us, Mukram told us, Muḥammad ibn Masrūr told us, Abū ʿAbdillāh Ibrāhīm ibn Muḥammad told us, Shuʿayb ibn Ayyūb told us: I heard al-Ḥasan ibn Ziyād say: I heard Imām Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan say: "My way, and the way of Abū Ḥanīfah and Abū Yūsuf, is the way of Abū Bakr, then ʿUmar, then ʿUthmān, then ʿAlī (raḍ. ʿanhum)." His statement on al-Īmān is the same as the position of Imām Abū Ḥanīfah: that īmān is al-ʿaqd and al-kalimah, and the details of his belief in each chapter are as set out in the creed of Imām al-Ṭaḥāwī. Whoever's breast is constricted by this, and who sets about accusing him of Jahmism (al-tajahhum) or of deferral (al-irjāʾ), is as far from the Sunnah as the earth is from the sky.

Some Words of the People of Knowledge in Praise of Imām Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan

Ibn Abī al-ʿAwwām al-Ḥāfiẓ mentioned, with his isnād, that Imām Mālik ibn Anas, may Allāh have mercy on him, said one day, while his Ḥadīth-companions were with him: "No one comes to us from the East in whom there is anything of substance." Imām Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan, may Allāh have mercy on him, was present at that gathering. Imām Mālik's eye fell upon him and he said: "except this young man." Note that Ibn al-Mubārak, Wakīʿ and ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Mahdī had also come to him; yet he gave Muḥammad this kind of preference over them.

He also mentioned, with his isnād, that Imām al-Shāfiʿī, may Allāh have mercy on him, said: "I have not seen anyone more knowledgeable of the Book of Allāh ﷻ than Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan, as if it had been sent down upon him." He also said: "I never heard anyone who, when he spoke, made me think the Qurʾān had been revealed in his dialect, except Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan; and I wrote from him the load of a male bukhtī camel." He singled out the male bukhtī because it carries more than other camels.

He also mentioned that a man said to al-Muzanī: "Muḥammad said." Al-Muzanī asked: "Which Muḥammad?" The man said: "Ibn al-Ḥasan." Al-Muzanī said: "Welcome to one who fills the ear with hearing and the heart with understanding." Then he said: "What I have just said, al-Shāfiʿī said."

Al-Ṣaymarī mentioned with his isnād that Imām al-Shāfiʿī said: "I have not seen anyone more knowledgeable of the lawful and the forbidden, of al-ʿilal and the abrogating and the abrogated, than Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan." He also said: "I recognise the position of teacher (al-ustādhiyyah) for Mālik, and then for Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan." And he also said: "If the people did Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan justice, they would acknowledge that they have not seen his like. I never sat with a jurist whom I found more learned than him in fiqh, nor did anyone loosen my tongue in fiqh as he did. He grasped of fiqh and its causes what even the great could not match." He also said: "I wrote from Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan a camel-load of books, and were it not for him, knowledge would not have opened up for me as it did. All people are dependants of the people of Iraq, and the people of Iraq are dependent on the people of Kūfah, and the people of Kūfah are dependent on Abū Ḥanīfah."

Al-Muzanī said about the companions of Imām Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan: "By Allāh, they would fill the ears when they spoke, and when they reasoned they would open up for the jurists what was closed to them." His companions looked at him, and he said: "By Allāh, I did not say this of my own accord; rather, I heard al-Shāfiʿī say more than this." Al-Shāfiʿī also said: "I have not seen anyone more eloquent than Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan." He also said: "I have never asked anyone about an issue without his face changing, except Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan."

Al-Khaṭīb mentioned with his isnād that Imām al-Shāfiʿī said: "If I wished to say that the Qurʾān had been sent down upon the tongue of Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan, I would say so, for his eloquence." He also said: "I have not seen a stout man lighter of spirit than Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan; nor have I seen anyone more eloquent than him." He also said: "I have not seen anyone more sound of intellect than him." He also said: "I carried from Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan a bukhtī-load of books." He also said: "When Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan al-Shaybānī took up an issue, it was as though the Qurʾān were being sent down upon him: he would advance no letter and delay none." And to a man who disputed with him about jurists, Imām al-Shāfiʿī said: "Have you ever seen a jurist? Not unless you have seen Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan, for he filled the eye and the heart." And: "I have not seen any stout man keener of mind than Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan." He also said: "The person who did me the greatest favour in fiqh is Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan."

Imām al-Nawawī mentions much of this in al-Tahdhīb, and so did Imām al-Dhahabī, may Allāh have mercy on him, in his juzʾ. Among what Imām al-Dhahabī mentioned in his juzʾ is what Ibn Kās al-Nakhaʿī narrated from Aḥmad ibn Ḥammād ibn Sufyān, from al-Rabīʿ, from Imām al-Shāfiʿī, who said: "I have not seen anyone more sound of intellect, more learned in fiqh, more ascetic, more devout, nor better in expression and speech, than Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan." Imām al-Dhahabī said that only Aḥmad ibn Ḥammād transmits it. I say: no one has spoken against Aḥmad ibn Ḥammād, and the report has supporting narrations.

In Manāqib al-Kurdarī, from Imām al-Shāfiʿī: "Allāh helped me by means of two men: Ibn ʿUyaynah in Ḥadīth, and Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan in fiqh." Also from him: "On the day I first met him, he was sitting in the room, with the people gathered around him. I looked at his face: he was one of the most beautiful of people in countenance, his forehead like ivory. I then looked at his garment: he was one of the best-dressed of people. I asked him about a contested issue, hoping some weakness would overtake him and that he would slip in his speech. But he expounded his words and strengthened his school, and did not slip at all." Also from him: "I would frequent Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan, and sit with him, until I had heard his books." And: "No one has done me a favour in knowledge, nor in worldly matters, comparable to what Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan has done for me." He used to invoke Allāh's mercy on him often. Also from him: "I have not seen anyone more knowledgeable of the lawful and the forbidden, and of the abrogating and the abrogated, than Muḥammad." Also from him: "I have not seen anyone more knowledgeable in giving fatwā than Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan; it was as though he was granted success in it." And from him also: "I have not seen the like of Muḥammad: he speaks with wisdom, and when he hears what he dislikes, he bears it patiently."

Al-Badr al-ʿAynī mentions, in Maghānī al-Akhyār fī Rijāl Maʿānī al-Āthār, on the authority of Ibn al-Athīr and Ibn Kathīr and others, words of Imām al-Shāfiʿī about Imām Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan that do not depart from what has come before. Al-Taqī al-Tamīmī is similar in his Ṭabaqāt.

Ibn Abī al-ʿAwwām brought forth, with his isnād, from Dāwūd al-Ṭāʾī, who said of Imām Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan, when he was an early Ḥadīth student: "If he lives, he will have standing." And from Imām Abū Yūsuf, may Allāh have mercy on him, on the memory of Imām Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan as a youth: "Such is what memory should be." And from him also concerning Imām Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan, when he was small: "What a sword he is; except that there is rust upon him, and he requires polishing." And from him also concerning Muḥammad: "He is the most knowledgeable of the people"; and in another wording: "Of the most knowledgeable of the people." And from Yaḥyā ibn Maʿīn: "I copied al-Jāmiʿ al-Ṣaghīr from Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan." This is in the Tārīkh of Ibn Maʿīn, in al-Dūrī's recension from him, which is among the manuscripts of al-Ẓāhiriyyah in Damascus. Ibn Abī al-ʿAwwām likewise brought forth that al-Ḥasan ibn Abī Mālik said, when the issues of Imām Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan were read to him: "Abū Yūsuf was not as precise as this." The chains for all this are in the Kitāb of Ibn Abī al-ʿAwwām al-Ḥāfiẓ.

Al-Ṣaymarī brought forth, with his isnād from Abū ʿUbayd, that he said: "I have not seen anyone more knowledgeable of the Book of Allāh than Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan." And in Manāqib al-Kurdarī, from Muḥammad ibn Salām: "I spent on the books of Muḥammad ten thousand dirhams. If I could begin my affair from where I left off, I would not occupy myself with anything except the books of that righteous man, Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan." ʿĪsā ibn Abān was asked: "Is Abū Yūsuf the more learned in fiqh, or Muḥammad?" He said: "Take note of their books"; meaning that Muḥammad was the more learned in fiqh.

From Muḥammad ibn Salamah: "He divided the night into three parts: a part for sleep, a part for prayer, and a part for study. He kept long vigils. It was said to him: 'Why do you not sleep?' He replied: 'How can I sleep, when the eyes of the Muslims have closed in sleep, relying on us, and they say: "If anything befalls us, we shall refer it to him, and he will clarify it for us"? If I were to neglect this, I would be squandering the religion.'"

In Tārīkh al-Khaṭīb (vol. 2, p. 174), with his isnād to Ismāʿīl ibn Ḥammād ibn Abī Ḥanīfah, that: "Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan held a sitting in the mosque of Kūfah while he was twenty years old." Al-Dhahabī mentions in his juzʾ that Imām Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan had exceptional sharpness of mind, complete intellect, eminence and abundance of recitation. Imām al-Ṭaḥāwī said: I heard Aḥmad ibn Abī ʿImrān relate from some of the companions of Imām Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan that Muḥammad's daily portion was a third of the Qurʾān every day and night. Abū Khāzim said: I heard Bakr ibn Muḥammad al-ʿAmmī say: "It was from Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan that Ibn Samāʿah and ʿĪsā ibn Abān took the excellence of his prayer."

Ibn Abī al-ʿAwwām narrated from Imām al-Ṭaḥāwī, may Allāh have mercy on him, from Ibn Abī ʿImrān, from Muḥammad ibn Shujāʿ, who used to say (with a leaning towards his shaykh al-Ḥasan ibn Ziyād, after his parting from Imām Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan): "There has not been laid down in Islam, in the field of fiqh, a book like al-Jāmiʿ al-Kabīr of Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan." He also narrated from Imām al-Ṭaḥāwī, from Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan ibn Mardās, from Muḥammad ibn Shujāʿ: "Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan, in al-Jāmiʿ al-Kabīr, was like a man who built a great house: every time he raised it up to a level, he built a stairway by which to climb up to what he had raised, until he completed its construction in this manner. Then he came down from it and demolished its stairs, and said to the people: 'This is your concern, climb up if you can!'"

The truth is that this book is a marvel of original composition. It contains exquisite precision in branching upon the rules of language and the foundations of arithmetic, alongside its attainment of the fine points of the principles of the radiant Sharīʿah. He composed it as a touchstone by which the discernment of the jurists could be known, and the differing levels of their understanding distinguished, by how they unravelled its branchings.

Muḥammad ibn Saʿd said: "He grew up in Kūfah; sought knowledge; sought Ḥadīth; listened a great deal; sat with Abū Ḥanīfah and heard from him; reflected deeply in al-raʾy, became proficient in it and was renowned for it. He went down to Baghdād; his school there flourished, and the people frequented him to listen to him in Ḥadīth and al-raʾy."

Al-Khaṭīb mentioned, with his isnād, that ʿAlī ibn al-Madīnī, when asked about Imām Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan, said: "Ṣadūq." The like is in al-Muntaẓim of Ibn al-Jawzī and in Taʿjīl al-Manfaʿah of Ibn Ḥajar. Imām al-Dhahabī mentioned in his juzʾ that Imām al-Shāfiʿī took proof through him in Ḥadīth. Al-Dhahabī also said in Mīzān al-Iʿtidāl: "Al-Nasāʾī and others weakened him on account of his memory; yet he was one of the oceans of knowledge and fiqh, and strong in [his narration from] Mālik." How, I wonder, can he be strong in what he heard by reading to his shaykh, yet weak in that to which he devoted his life? Truly, the critics of narrators sit on the brink of a pit of fire, as Ibn Daqīq al-ʿĪd says. Al-Badr al-ʿAynī said in Rijāl Maʿānī al-Āthār: Sibṭ Ibn al-Jawzī said in Mirʾāt al-Zamān: "The scholars of biography say that Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan was an imām and an authority (ḥujjah) in all the sciences." I say: what his grandfather transmits about him in Kitāb al-Ḍuʿafāʾ from Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal and Yaḥyā ibn Maʿīn is prejudice; far be it from these two imāms to speak ill of the like of Imām Muḥammad, when they knew and acknowledged his abundant knowledge, his religion, his trustworthiness and reliability, his scrupulousness and his asceticism. His virtues are very many. (End of al-Badr al-ʿAynī's words.)

Ibn Abī Ḥātim relates from his father that the Kitāb al-Siyar of Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan, the ṣāḥib al-raʾy, contains ḥadīths from al-Wāqidī, and that they did not record them accurately from Muḥammad: they narrated some from Muḥammad from al-Wāqidī, and the rest from Muḥammad directly from al-Wāqidī's shaykhs, such as Khārijah ibn ʿAbdullāh ibn Sulaymān ibn Thābit, Muḥammad ibn Hilāl and al-Ḍaḥḥāk ibn ʿUthmān, all of this through al-Wāqidī from Imām Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan from these shaykhs.

If by these words this speaker wishes to discredit those aḥādīth on the ground that they are transmitted through al-Wāqidī, then al-Wāqidī has been declared trustworthy by more than one of the early scholars; and although some have criticised him for various reasons, those reasons are not accepted in the eyes of these [trustworthy authorities]. And if he means that Muḥammad sometimes transmits from al-Wāqidī's shaykhs without al-Wāqidī as intermediary, what objection lies in this? There is no problem in Muḥammad's having heard some aḥādīth from al-Wāqidī's shaykhs through al-Wāqidī, and others from these same shaykhs directly. Muḥammad had made the pilgrimage early in life, and he met those of the same generation as these shaykhs of Madīnah, such as Usāmah al-Laythī, ʿUbaydullāh al-ʿUmarī and Ibn Abī Dhiʾb. Al-Badr al-ʿAynī indeed mentions a narration from Abū Ḥafṣ: that al-Wāqidī used to come to Imām Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan, and Muḥammad would recite to him Kitāb al-Maghāzī, and al-Wāqidī would recite to him Kitāb al-Jāmiʿ al-Ṣaghīr, the like is in Manāqib al-Kurdarī. This is the transmission of contemporaries (riwāyat al-aqrān), in which they narrate from one another. How could Muḥammad have done without one such as al-Wāqidī in al-maghāzī, when Imām Abū Yūsuf could not do without Muḥammad ibn Isḥāq in this same field? The affair of such a noble Imām is not to be referred for arbitration to the likes of al-ʿUqaylī and Ibn ʿAdī, among the trailing edges of the Ḥashawiyyah.

Imām Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan was far removed from the circle of the Ḥashawiyyah among the transmitters, and was openly disdainful of their fancies, like his shaykh Imām Abū Ḥanīfah. For this their tongues stretched against the two of them; unlike Imām Abū Yūsuf, who used to humour them. Eventually they said: "Abū Yūsuf was fair in Ḥadīth, as for Abū Ḥanīfah and Muḥammad, they were opposed to the athar." There is none among our Imāms who contradicts the authentic Sunnah. But whoever holds that the Lord sits upon the Throne and moves, that letter and sound are pre-eternal, and who sides with the Khawārij on the question of īmān or with the Qadariyyah, says whatever he pleases, and no one pays heed to his ravings except his fellows in error; may Allāh guide them.

The Books and Works of Imām Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan

From no scholar of his class has there reached us a body of fiqh comparable to what has reached us from Imām Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan. His books are the foundation of the codified books of the schools in fiqh. Many lawyers given to research (let alone the jurist-judges of the Sharīʿah courts) have shown a sincere desire to publish the books of Imām Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan, acknowledging that his books are the foundation of the codified works in the fiqh of the schools.

A group of leading scholars in India, under the leadership of ʿAllāmah al-Faqīh al-Muḥaddith Abū al-Wafāʾ; may Allāh preserve him, has undertaken the search for the manuscripts of these works in the libraries of the world for the sake of publishing them, one after another. This effort of theirs deserves great thanks, for they have taken up a great duty that the people concerned neglected for centuries. May Allāh strengthen them and grant them success in bringing this beneficial work to completion. He is the One who answers.

The extent to which the codified books of the schools depend on the books of Imām Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan is no secret. Al-Asadiyyah, which is the basis of al-Mudawwanah in the school of Imām Mālik, may Allāh have mercy on him, was authored only in the light of Muḥammad's books, as has already been mentioned. Al-Shāfiʿī composed both his old and his new works only after he had studied fiqh under Muḥammad, copied his books and memorised from them what he memorised. Imām Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal, may Allāh have mercy on him, also used to answer questions on issues from the books of Muḥammad, and likewise the jurists who came after them.

The largest of Muḥammad's works to reach us is Kitāb al-Aṣl, known as al-Mabsūṭ. It is said that Imām al-Shāfiʿī, may Allāh have mercy on him, memorised it and authored al-Umm in imitation of al-Aṣl. A learned man of the People of the Book embraced Islam after reading al-Mabsūṭ, saying: "This is the book of your lesser Muḥammad; what then must be the Book of your greater Muḥammad!" Al-Mabsūṭ is in six volumes, each of about five hundred sheets, narrated by a group of his companions such as Abū Sulaymān al-Jūzjānī, Muḥammad ibn Samāʿah al-Tamīmī and Abū Ḥafṣ al-Bukhārī al-Kabīr. Allāh ﷻ has decreed a wide circulation for this book, for it contains tens of thousands of branchings in matters of the lawful and the forbidden, knowledge of which is incumbent upon the people. It is the book with which Abū al-Ḥasan ibn Dāwūd used to vie with the people of Baṣrah. His method in the book is to set out the branches according to the school of Imām Abū Ḥanīfah and Imām Abū Yūsuf, may Allāh have mercy on them, stating his own view on each question. He does not set out proofs where the ḥadīths bearing on the questions were within reach of most jurists of his class; he sets them out only for questions whose proofs might escape them.

If the reports (āthār) in this large book were extracted, they would fill a slim volume. Several complete copies exist in the libraries of Istanbul: one in six volumes, the copy in the Fayḍ Allāh library; others in four volumes, the copies in the libraries of Jār Allāh, Walī al-Dīn, Qara Muṣṭafā Pāshā and Murād Mullā, the oldest being the Murād Mullā copy; all of them from the recension of al-Jūzjānī. The number of volumes varies according to the handwriting. There exists, in Maktabat al-Azhar, a volume of its first part; and in Dār al-Kutub al-Miṣriyyah several volumes, under the name al-Aṣl and under the name of a book on furūʿ, though they do not make up a single complete copy.

Among his books that have come down to us is al-Jāmiʿ al-Ṣaghīr, a blessed book containing about 1,532 issues, in which mention is made of disagreement on 170 issues. Qiyās and istiḥsān are mentioned in only two issues. Allāh ﷻ decreed a wide circulation for it too, so that eminent imāms wrote commentaries on it; Shaykh ʿAbd al-Ḥayy al-Lakhnawī lists its commentators exhaustively in al-Nāfiʿ al-Kabīr li-man Yuṭāliʿ al-Jāmiʿ al-Ṣaghīr. Among its narrators in the registers of the shaykhs are al-Jūzjānī, Abū Ḥafṣ and ʿAlī ibn Maʿbad; it was arranged into chapters by Abū Ṭāhir al-Dabbās and al-Zaʿfarānī, for it originally contained only a listing of questions. The reason for its composition was that Imām Abū Yūsuf, after Muḥammad had finished al-Mabsūṭ, asked him to compile a book of what he had memorised from him of his narration from Imām Abū Ḥanīfah. Muḥammad compiled this book and presented it to him, and Imām Abū Yūsuf said: "Abū ʿAbdillāh has preserved it well from me, except that he erred in three questions." Muḥammad replied: "I did not err; rather, he forgot the narration." It is said that Imām Abū Yūsuf, despite his eminent rank, would not part from this book at home or on a journey. Al-Jāmiʿ al-Ṣaghīr was printed in India together with the commentary of Shaykh ʿAbd al-Ḥayy al-Lakhnawī, and also in Istanbul and in Egypt.

Among Muḥammad's other books is Kitāb al-Siyar al-Ṣaghīr, which he transmits from Imām Abū Ḥanīfah. Al-Awzāʿī tried to refute Imām Abū Ḥanīfah's Siyar, and Imām Abū Yūsuf wrote al-Radd ʿalā al-Awzāʿī in answer.

And among them is al-Jāmiʿ al-Kabīr, a book that gathers the major questions and contains the choicest narrations and texts of dirāyah, so that it is almost a miracle, as al-Akmal says in his commentary on al-Khilāṭī's Talkhīṣ al-Jāmiʿ al-Kabīr. We have already mentioned the saying of Ibn Shujāʿ regarding it: "Nothing has been laid down in Islam in fiqh like it." Imām al-Mujtahid Abū Bakr al-Rāzī said in his commentary on al-Jāmiʿ al-Kabīr: "I used to read some questions of al-Jāmiʿ al-Kabīr to one of the masters of grammar (meaning Abū ʿAlī al-Fārisī), and he would marvel at the author's deep penetration in grammar." Ibn Abī al-ʿAwwām narrated, with his isnād to al-Akhfash, that he praised this book of Muḥammad greatly for its complete agreement with the rules of Arabic.

ʿAllāmah al-Sharīf al-Naqīb Jamāl al-Dīn ibn ʿUbayd Allāh al-Mawṣilī wrote in Muḥarram of the year 615 [AH] to al-Qāḍī Sharaf al-Dīn ibn ʿUnayn, saying: "For a long time I have studied Kitāb al-Jāmiʿ al-Kabīr of Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan, may Allāh have mercy on him, and some of it has stayed in my mind. The book is wonderful and rare in its art; no one has written its like." He goes on to say that questions in it which people found difficult were put to al-Malik al-Muʿaẓẓam ʿĪsā, who answered them and included them in his refutation of al-Khaṭīb, citing texts from the book that show the deep penetration of Muḥammad and his shaykh in the secrets of Arabic. This book is a test-piece for jurists: by it the differences in their understanding and the measure of their alertness in fiqh are tried. The great majority of scholars acknowledge the author's mastery of Arabic and that he is an authority (ḥujjah) in language as he is in fiqh; Ibn Taymiyyah acknowledged this in places, despite his aversion to the people of raʾy. Yet you find the Shāfiʿīs themselves differing amongst themselves on whether Imām al-Shāfiʿī is ḥujjah in language, as may be inferred from the discussion of the meaning of al-ṣifah in al-Burhān of Ibn al-Juwaynī.

This book has been commented on by scores of imāms, and those enduring commentaries are still preserved in the libraries of the world. There are numerous copies of al-Jāmiʿ al-Kabīr in the libraries of Istanbul, the oldest of which is in the library of Maktabat al-Fātiḥ, another copy is in the library of Walī al-Dīn Shaykh al-Islām, another in the library of Yenī Jāmiʿ. Al-Jāmiʿ al-Kabīr has been transmitted from Muḥammad by a great number of his companions, among them ʿAlī ibn Maʿbad ibn Shaddād.

Some of Muḥammad's other books are al-Ziyādāt and Ziyādat al-Ziyādāt, both authored after al-Jāmiʿ al-Kabīr as supplements to remedy what had passed in it of issues. They are among the most original of his books, and the scholars have given full attention to commenting on them. Copies of both exist in the libraries of Istanbul. They are among the books transmitted from him by way of wide fame (shuhrah), and whoever counted them among the Nawādir was mistaken. It is said about the reason for his composing al-Ziyādāt: that Imām Abū Yūsuf branched out some subtle questions in one of his dictation sessions and then said: "Branching these questions further would be hard for Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan." When this reached Muḥammad, he authored al-Ziyādāt; so that it might be evidence that those branchings, however subtle, were not difficult to expound. Allāh ﷻ knows best.

Among his books is Kitāb al-Siyar al-Kabīr, one of the latest of Muḥammad's compositions, written after Abū Ḥafṣ al-Kabīr's departure to Bukhārā. Its recension was confined among Baghdādīs like al-Jūzjānī and Ismāʿīl ibn Tawbah al-Qazwīnī. Hārūn al-Rashīd held this book in extraordinary regard, and had his two sons, al-Amīn and al-Maʾmūn, hear it; the high standing of this book is well known. A group of the Imāms have commented on it, and Imām al-Sarakhsī's commentary upon it has been printed in India in four volumes. The Shaykh of Shaykhs ʿAllāmah Muḥammad al-Munīb al-ʿAyntābī has a fine gloss on it titled al-Taysīr ʿalā al-Siyar al-Kabīr, found in the library of Shaykh al-Islām ʿĀrif Ḥikmat in al-Madīnah al-Munawwarah. There exist manuscript copies of al-Siyar al-Kabīr in the libraries of Istanbul. Al-Siyar al-Kabīr was translated into Turkish by the pen of our shaykh of shaykhs, al-ʿAyntābī (the said one), in the time of Sultan Maḥmūd Khān al-ʿUthmānī, to make it easier for the leaders of the armies of the State to read in the rulings of jihād. The said translation was printed in Istanbul.

These six books, namely al-Mabsūṭ, al-Jāmiʿ al-Ṣaghīr and al-Jāmiʿ al-Kabīr, al-Siyar al-Ṣaghīr and al-Siyar al-Kabīr, and al-Ziyādāt comprise what is called ẓāhir al-riwāyah of his school: the rulings transmitted from him by way of fame and tawātur. Beyond them lie his other books in fiqh, narrated by way of singular reports.

Among them is al-Ruqayyāt: issues which Imām Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan branched out during his judgeship at al-Raqqah, transmitted from him by Muḥammad ibn Samāʿah, who was in his company for much of his stay there. And among them is al-Kaysāniyyāt, which Shuʿayb ibn Sulaymān al-Kaysānī narrates from Muḥammad. Al-Ṭaḥāwī transmits from Sulaymān ibn Shuʿayb, from his father, from Muḥammad. They are also called al-Amālī. A portion of them is in al-Maktabah al-Āṣafiyyah in Hyderabad Deccan, and Dāʾirat al-Maʿārif there intends to print that portion, as I have learnt from my friend ʿAllāmah al-Faqīh al-Muḥaddith Abū al-Wafāʾ, Shaykh al-Ḥadīth at al-Madrasah al-Niẓāmiyyah in Hyderabad Deccan.

Among them is al-Jurjāniyyāt, which ʿAlī ibn Ṣāliḥ al-Jurjānī narrates from Muḥammad. And among them is al-Hārūniyyāt. He also has Kitāb al-Nawādir, in the recension of Ibrāhīm ibn Rustam, another in the recension of Ibn Samāʿah and another in the recension of Hishām ibn ʿUbayd Allāh al-Rāzī. Such books have come to be regarded as nawādir in the libraries, just as their issues count as nawādir in the school.

Of his is Kitāb al-Kasb; it is said that he died before putting the final touches to it. They had asked him to compose a book on al-waraʿ (scrupulousness in earnings), and he answered them that he had written a book on sales (al-buyūʿ), meaning that when a man's earning is good, his deeds are good. When they insisted, he began to compose this book, but death prevented him from completing it. Shams al-Aʾimmah Imām al-Sarakhsī commented on this Kitāb al-Kasb, as stated in al-Tarājim. There is, in Dār al-Kutub al-Miṣriyyah, a copy preserved under no. 11 in the section on crafts (fann al-ṣināʿah), of about forty-five leaves, dealing with earnings (al-makāsib); it is said to be Ibn Samāʿah's abridgement of Muḥammad's Kitāb al-Kasb, and on its back is written: Kitāb al-Iktisāb fī al-Rizq al-Mustaṭāb. The book is fine of its kind, though I have some reservation about attributing the book under this title to Ibn Samāʿah; and Allāh knows best.

Recently a book on al-Makhārij wa-l-Ḥiyal has been printed under the name of Imām Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan; it is the same work that is catalogued under the name of Imām Abū Yūsuf at Dār al-Kutub al-Miṣriyyah. Ibn Abī al-ʿAwwām said: I heard Ibn Abī ʿImrān say: I heard Ibn Samāʿah say: I heard Imām Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan say; concerning Kitāb fī al-Makhārij wa-l-Ḥiyal that some people circulated: "This book is not from our books; rather, it has been thrust into them." Ibn Abī ʿImrān said: "Ismāʿīl ibn Ḥammād ibn Abī Ḥanīfah composed it." I have spoken about this in my note on Kitāb Zaghal al-ʿIlm of Imām al-Dhahabī, may Allāh have mercy on him, p. 14.

As for those of his books in which the narration of ḥadīth predominates, among those in our hands is Kitāb al-Muwaṭṭaʾ, which Muḥammad compiled from his narration from Imām Mālik. It contains more than a thousand ḥadīths and reports, marfūʿ and mawqūf, that he narrated from Imām Mālik, and about 175 ḥadīths from some forty shaykhs other than Imām Mālik. This Muwaṭṭaʾ is among the works Abū al-Walīd al-Bājī heard from Abū Dharr al-Harawī, as stated at the end of al-Bājī's commentary on the Muwaṭṭaʾ (vol. 7, p. 300), and through him Muḥammad's Muwaṭṭaʾ spread in al-Andalus. The chains of the Muwaṭṭaʾ in Muḥammad's recension are set out in the thabats of our shaykhs in the East. The importance of this Muwaṭṭaʾ has been spoken of in the account of Muḥammad's journey to Imām Mālik, may Allāh be pleased with them. It has been commented on by al-Qārī, al-Bīrī (commentator on al-Ashbāh) and ʿUthmān al-Kamākhī. The Muwaṭṭaʾ of Muḥammad was printed in India many times, with the gloss of al-Taʿlīq al-Mumajjad of ʿAllāmah ʿAbd al-Ḥayy al-Lakhnawī.

However, a ḥadīth that stood in the margin of Abū ʿAlī al-Ṣawwāf's copy was entered into the main text by mistake: the ḥadīth on reciting behind the imām, narrated by the shaykh Abū ʿAlī from Maḥmūd al-Marwazī to the end of the chain. Al-Lakhnawī was confused about the men of this chain. He thought that "Abū ʿAlī" was Abū ʿAlī, the shaykh of Imām Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan, but he has nothing to do with Imām Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan in this ḥadīth, for Abū ʿAlī is in fact Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad ibn Ḥasan al-Ṣawwāf, of the rijāl of the fourth century. See the entry on his shaykh al-Marwazī in Tārīkh al-Khaṭīb (vol. 13, p. 94), where this ḥadīth is cited. Its insertion into the main text was the work of a copyist; the copy transcribed from al-Itqānī's copy, preserved at Dār al-Kutub al-Miṣriyyah under no. 439, has it correctly. Shaykh ʿAbd al-Ḥayy was likewise perplexed in the rijāl of the ḥadīth of al-Shaʿbī on the prayer of one who sits: "Muḥammad; Bishr; Aḥmad; informed us Isrāʾīl." But "Muḥammad" at the head of the isnād is Abū ʿAlī al-Ṣawwāf, the said one; "Bishr" is Bishr ibn Mūsā al-Asadī, the rāwiyah of al-Muwaṭṭaʾ; "Aḥmad" is Aḥmad ibn Mihrān al-Nasawī, the companion of Muḥammad and the transmitter of the Muwaṭṭaʾ from him; and Isrāʾīl is the shaykh of Imām Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan. "Muḥammad" has dropped out between Aḥmad and Isrāʾīl, as appears from another copy preserved there under no. 440. The copyist here inserted several of the later transmitters from Muḥammad into the body of the chain, as many early copyists used to do. ʿAllāmah Muḥammad Qāsim al-Ḥāfiẓ has authored a work on the rijāl of the Muwaṭṭaʾ.

Among his books is Kitāb al-Ḥujjah, the well-known argumentation against the people of Madīnah; a substantial portion of it has reached our hands, printed long ago in India from the Maḥmūdiyyah manuscript in al-Madīnah, mentioned earlier.

And among them is Kitāb al-Āthār, in which he narrates from Imām Abū Ḥanīfah aḥādīth, marfūʿ, mawqūf and mursal, and many narrations from Ibrāhīm al-Nakhaʿī, the shaykh of the Iraqi way. He narrates a few from some twenty shaykhs other than Imām Abū Ḥanīfah. It is a most beneficial book; al-mashāyikh gave it special concern in its narration. Al-Ḥāfiẓ Ibn Ḥajar wrote al-Īthār bi-Maʿrifat Ruwāt al-Āthār on its narrators at the suggestion of his companion ʿAllāmah Qāsim al-Ḥāfiẓ, who then wrote another book on them himself; likewise al-Musnad of Imām Abū Ḥanīfah in the recension of Muḥammad. Of what is mentioned among Muḥammad's compositions in al-Fihrist of Ibn Isḥāq al-Nadīm: Kitāb Ijtihād al-Raʾy, Kitāb al-Istiḥsān, Kitāb al-Ḥujaj (containing many books), Kitāb al-Khiṣāl, Kitāb al-Radd ʿalā Ahl al-Madīnah and Kitāb Uṣūl al-Fiqh. So al-Shāfiʿī's Risālah can be called the first work on uṣūl only with respect to his own school; indeed, in al-Umm he debates the groups that preceded him in uṣūl. Muḥammad had a book on uṣūl, as did Abū Yūsuf, as al-Ḥāfiẓ Ṭalḥah mentions, and Abū Ḥanīfah had his Kitāb al-Raʾy, as mentioned earlier; Mālik, for his part, narrates his uṣūl from Rabīʿah from Ibn al-Musayyab, as in Ṣilat Ibn Bushkuwāl.

Chains of Transmission for Some of Imām Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan's Books, as Recorded in the Registers of Teachers

In most of the ithbāt and muʿjams, across the centuries, chains are mentioned for many of the books of Imām Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan, may Allāh have mercy on him: al-Āthār, al-Musnad, al-Muwaṭṭaʾ and the Six Foundational Books (al-Uṣūl al-Sittah). Al-Jamāl al-Ḥaṣīrī in his time was unique in transmitting these by way of samāʿ through his well-known chains. The chains of our shaykhs to him are codified in the registers, but it does no harm here to point out our own chains in respect of the said books of Imām Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan.

As for Kitāb al-Āthār, I narrate it by general ijāzah, with my chain to Imām Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan.

(ḥ) I also have it conveyed to me by an elevated chain, through general ijāzah, with my chain to Imām Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan al-Shaybānī. And I narrate it again through reading of its opening sections, with ijāzah for the rest, by another chain.

As for Musnad Imām Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan, I narrate it likewise by general ijāzah, with my chain to its author.

Ibn Ḥajar mentioned his chains for the Muwaṭṭaʾ of Muḥammad, al-Āthār and al-Siyar al-Kabīr in al-Muʿjam al-Mufahras.

As for Kitāb al-Muwaṭṭaʾ in the recension of Imām Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan, I likewise narrate it by general ijāzah, with the isnād up to Ibn Ṭūlūn, from Umm ʿAbd al-Razzāq Khadījah bint ʿAbd al-Karīm al-Urmawiyyah, mushāfahatan (orally), from Umm ʿAbdillāh ʿĀʾishah bint Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Hādī, from al-Ḥajjār, from Abū al-Ḥasan Muḥammad al-Quṭayʿī, in writing, from Ibn al-Baṭṭī, from Ibn Khayrūn and Abū al-Ḥasan ʿAlī ibn al-Ḥusayn ibn Ayyūb; both said: We were informed by Abū Ṭāhir ʿAbd al-Ghaffār ibn Muḥammad ibn Jaʿfar al-Muʾaddib, who said: We were informed by Abū ʿAlī Muḥammad²² ibn Aḥmad ibn al-Ḥasan ibn al-Ṣawwāf, who said: We were informed by Abū ʿAlī Bishr ibn Mūsā ibn Ṣāliḥ al-Asadī, who said: We were informed by Abū Jaʿfar Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn Mihrān al-Nasāʾī, who said: It was conveyed to him by Imām Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan al-Shaybānī, may Allāh have mercy on him.

As for the Six Books, namely al-Jāmiʿ al-Ṣaghīr, al-Jāmiʿ al-Kabīr, al-Siyar al-Ṣaghīr, al-Siyar al-Kabīr, al-Mabsūṭ and al-Ziyādāt: I narrate them by general ijāzah, with my chain to Imām Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan, may Allāh have mercy on him.

As for the recension of al-Siyar al-Kabīr through the way of Ismāʿīl ibn Tawbah in particular, I narrate it by general ijāzah, with my chain to Imām Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan, may Allāh be pleased with him; may He continue the unbroken sequence of chains for his sciences, that we may be filled with his blessings.

Death of Imām Muḥammad

It is said Imām Muḥammad, may Allāh ﷻ have mercy on him, passed away on the same day as Imām al-Kisāʾī²³ such that the Caliph Hārūn al-Rashīd exclaimed:

Imām Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan, may Allāh have mercy on him, was born in the year 132 AH, as Ibn Abī al-ʿAwwām, Ibn Saʿd, Imām al-Khaṭīb and others state; those who gave 135 AH erred, as mentioned earlier. He died in 189 AH, on which Ibn Saʿd, Ibn al-Khayyāṭ and Imām al-Khaṭīb agree; those who gave 188 AH, as appears in Ibn Abī al-ʿAwwām, erred.

Abū ʿAbdillāh al-Ṣaymarī said: al-Marzubānī informed us: Ibrāhīm ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿArafah al-Naḥwī told us: "Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan and al-Kisāʾī died at al-Rayy in the year 189 AH. Hārūn al-Rashīd said: 'I have buried fiqh and Arabic at al-Rayy.'" It has been mentioned that al-Kisāʾī died after Muḥammad by two days, and it has also been said that they died on the same day. Allāh ﷻ knows best.

In Manāqib al-Kurdarī, it is narrated that Abū al-Ḥasan ʿAlī ibn Mūsā al-Qummī mentioned that Imām Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan was buried on the hill of Ṭabarak, a citadel at al-Rayy, near the house of Hishām ibn ʿUbaydullāh al-Rāzī, with whom he had been lodging. Al-Kisāʾī was buried in the village of Ranbūyah, four farsakhs away; al-Rashīd's camp extended over four farsakhs. Imām Muḥammad camped on one side, and Imām al-Kisāʾī on the other side. This was when al-Rashīd had set out on his campaign against the rebel Rāfiʿ ibn al-Layth ibn Naṣr ibn Sayyār in Samarqand.

Imām al-Dhahabī mentioned in his juzʾ, from Yūnus ibn ʿAbd al-Aʿlā, from ʿAlī ibn Maʿbad, concerning the Rāzī in whose house Muḥammad died (that is, Hishām ibn ʿUbaydullāh), who said: "I was with Muḥammad as he was dying. He wept, and I said to him: 'Do you weep, with all your knowledge?' He said to me: 'Tell me: if Allāh ﷻ were to make me stand before Him and say, "O Muḥammad, what brought you to al-Rayy: jihād in My path, or seeking My pleasure?", what would I say?' Then he died, may Allāh have mercy on him."

Al-Ṣaymarī said: ʿUmar ibn Ibrāhīm informed us, Mukrim told us, Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Salām told us, Sulaymān ibn Dāwūd ibn Kathīr al-Bāhilī and ʿAbd al-Wahhāb ibn ʿĪsā told us, Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn Abī Rajāʾ told us: I heard my father say: "I saw Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan in a dream and said to him: 'What did your Lord do with you?' He said: 'He admitted me into Paradise and said to me, "I did not make you a vessel of knowledge while intending to punish you."' I said: 'And what about Abū Yūsuf?' He said: 'He is above me, or above us, by a degree.' I said: 'And what about Abū Ḥanīfah?' He said: 'He is in the highest heights (aʿlā ʿilliyyīn).'"

Ibn Abī al-ʿAwwām al-Ḥāfiẓ said: Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad ibn Ḥammād told us, Aḥmad ibn al-Qāsim al-Birtī told us, Abū ʿAlī Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn Abī Rajāʾ told us: I heard my father say: "I saw Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan in a dream. I said: 'What did your Lord do with you?' He said: 'He has forgiven me.' I said: 'For what?' He said: 'We did not place this knowledge in you except that We would forgive you.' I said: 'And Abū Yūsuf?' He said: 'Above me by a degree.' I said: 'And Abū Ḥanīfah?' He said: 'In the highest heights.'" Al-Khaṭīb's wording is close to this, except that he narrates it by way of Ibn al-Mughallis, from Sulaymān ibn Abī Shaykh, from Ibn Abī Rajāʾ, from Makhmūyah, one of the Substitutes (al-Abdāl). Allāh ﷻ knows best.

May Allāh send abundant rain upon his grave, and His pleasure and mercy upon him; and may He grant us benefit from his knowledge and his blessings; He is responsive.

Al-Ṣaymarī brought forth from al-Marzubānī, from Abū Bakr (ibn Durayd), from Saʿīd al-Sukrī, who said: Ismāʿīl, son of Abū Muḥammad Yaḥyā ibn al-Mubārak al-Yazīdī, recited to me from his father that he recited, in mourning over Imām Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan and al-Kisāʾī:

Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr mentions the like of this in al-Intiqāʾ, attributing to al-Rashīd that he himself recited:

these verses; perhaps al-Rashīd took up the lines of al-Yazīdī. This is the close of what we wished to mention in this brief summary. May Allāh send blessings upon our master Muḥammad, his family and his Companions, with abundant peace; and our final prayer is: al-ḥamdu lillāhi rabb al-ʿālamīn.

Completed by the hand of the poor servant of Allāh ﷻ, Muḥammad Zāhid ibn al-Ḥasan al-Kawtharī; may He pardon them both, on the afternoon of Thursday, the 9th of the blessed Ṣafar, of the year 1355 [AH].

Bibliography

Primary source

• al-Kawtharī, Muḥammad Zāhid. Bulūgh al-Amānī fī Sīrat al-Imām Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan al-Shaybānī. al-Maktabah al-Azhariyyah li-l-Turāth: Cairo, 1418 AH / 1998 CE.

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• al-Lālakāʾī, Hibatullāh. Sharḥ Uṣūl Iʿtiqād Ahl al-Sunnah wa-l-Jamāʿah.
• ʿAbdullāh ibn Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal. al-Sunnah.
• al-Marzubānī, Muḥammad ibn ʿImrān.
• al-Nawawī, Yaḥyā ibn Sharaf. Tahdhīb al-Asmāʾ wa-l-Lughāt.
• al-Sarakhsī, Shams al-Aʾimmah. Sharḥ al-Siyar al-Kabīr.
• al-Ṣaymarī, Ḥusayn ibn ʿAlī. Akhbār Abī Ḥanīfah wa-Aṣḥābih.
• Sibṭ Ibn al-Jawzī. Mirʾāt al-Zamān fī Tawārīkh al-Aʿyān.
• al-Ṭaḥāwī, Abū Jaʿfar.
• al-Ṭūfī, Sulaymān ibn ʿAbd al-Qawī. Sharḥ Mukhtaṣar al-Rawḍah.
• al-Zarkashī, Badr al-Dīn. al-Baḥr al-Muḥīṭ fī Uṣūl al-Fiqh.

Editions cited from manuscript collections at al-Ẓāhiriyyah, Damascus; Maktabat al-Azhar, Cairo; Maktabat al-Fātiḥ and other Istanbul libraries; al-Āṣafiyyah and Dāʾirat al-Maʿārif, Hyderabad Deccan; and Dār al-Kutub al-Miṣriyyah, Cairo.

Footnotes

1. From him al-Bukhārī received the fiqh of the people of raʾy and the Jāmiʿ of al-Thawrī, before his travels. ↩

2. Through him the six books spread east and west. ↩

3. One of the four Imāms of the madhāhib. ↩

4. That great mujtahid imām. ↩

5. Among those who narrated al-Jāmiʿ al-Kabīr and al-Jāmiʿ al-Ṣaghīr from Imām Muḥammad (Siyar Aʿlām al-Nubalāʾ). ↩

6. Muftī of Baghdād. ↩

7. Codifier of the Mālikī madhhab and teacher of Saḥnūn. ↩

8. Teacher of Ibn Jarīr. ↩

9. Imām of jarḥ and taʿdīl. ↩

10. Rāwī of the Muwaṭṭaʾ from Imām Muḥammad. ↩

11. Rāwī of the Kaysāniyyāt from Imām Muḥammad. ↩

12. Rāwī of the Jurjāniyyāt from Imām Muḥammad. ↩

13. Rāwī of al-Siyar al-Kabīr from Imām Muḥammad. ↩

14. Rāwī of the Nawādir from Imām Muḥammad. ↩

15. One of the teachers of al-Bukhārī in Shām. ↩

16. Rāwī of al-Ḥujaj ʿalā Ahl al-Madīnah from Imām Muḥammad, and author of Kitāb al-Ḥujaj al-Kabīr, Kitāb al-Ḥujaj al-Ṣaghīr and Kitāb al-Radd ʿalā al-Marīsī wa-l-Shāfiʿī fī Shurūṭ Qabūl al-Akhbār. ↩

17. Author of Kitāb al-ʿIlal. ↩

18. Al-Dāraquṭnī has written regarding the different versions of the Muwaṭṭaʾ and those narrations which are found in all, and those which differ. ↩

19. Such as ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Ḥabīb and Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz al-ʿUtbī, the author of al-ʿUtbiyyah, which records the views of Imām Mālik narrated through his students, and others. ↩

20. Ibn al-Qāsim accompanied Imām Mālik for approximately twenty years, and is from amongst the more distinguished companions of Imām Mālik. ↩

21. Imām al-Ṭaḥāwī mentions that it was his Kitāb al-Siyar. ↩

22. From him Abū Dharr al-Harawī heard the Muwaṭṭaʾ of Muḥammad, and from Abū Dharr, Abū al-Walīd al-Bājī heard it; through him the Muwaṭṭaʾ of Muḥammad spread in the Maghrib. ↩

23. It has also been narrated that al-Kisāʾī passed away two days after Imām Muḥammad. ↩