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Four Schools / Founder
An extended study of his lineage, birth in Baghdad, formative learning, worship, trials, scholarly testimonies, and enduring legacy.
School
Ḥanbaliyyah
Legacy
Shaykhu-s-Sunnah, Imām of Ḥadīth and Fiqh, defender of Ahlu-s-Sunnah in the Miḥnah, and the mountain upon whose method the Ḥanbalī school was transmitted.
Biography sections
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ʾAḥmad ibn Ḥanbal
His passing in Baghdād, the scale of public grief, and his enduring place in Sunni memory.
Al-ʾImām ʾAḥmad رضي الله عنه passed away in Baghdād on the twelfth of Rabīʿ al-ʾAwwal in 241 AH, at approximately seventy-seven years of age. The city was overcome by grief, and the funeral attendance is reported in extraordinarily large numbers in the biographical sources, reflecting his rank among the people and scholars alike.1
He was buried in Baghdād, and the memory of his steadfastness remained a defining reference for the school and the wider Sunnī tradition.
Biographical sources also transmit posthumous dreams and testimonies in which the righteous expressed what his life had meant for the Ummah, including the well-known report in which ʾAḥmad ibn Naṣr al-Khuzāʿī said he saw the Prophet ﷺ in a dream and was told: “Hold fast to ʾAḥmad ibn Ḥanbal.”
With this, we conclude: may Allāh ﷻ be pleased with ʾImāmu-l-ʾAʾimmah, Shaykhu-s-Sunnah, ʾAbū ʿAbdillāh ʾAḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn Ḥanbal ash-Shaybānī رضي الله عنه, and grant us sincerity in loving the scholars who served this Dīn and firmness upon the creed and path he defended.
Reports on funeral numbers vary in expression but agree on the unprecedented scale of attendance in Baghdād. ↩