Ḥanafiyyah

Creed

Al-Madhab al-Ḥanafī has historically been affiliated with al-Māturīdiyyah in matters of theological creed, a school systematised by al-ʾImām ʾAbū Manṣūr al-Māturīdī رحمه الله (d. 333 AH) of Samarqand, who built upon the creedal principles that al-ʾImām ʾAbū Ḥanīfah رحمه الله had himself laid down in his theological works al-Fiqh al-ʾAkbar, al-Fiqh al-ʾAbsaṭ, and al-Waṣiyyah. The relationship between the Ḥanafī Madhab and the Māturīdī school of theology is among the most deeply rooted affiliations in Islamic scholarship, both sharing an intellectual heritage traced through the Fiqh and theology of Transoxiana and ʿIrāq¹. It should however be noted that the Ḥanafī scholars of the Arab lands, Egypt, ash-Shām, and the Ḥijāz, often affiliated with the ʾAsḥʿarī school in theology, a well-known divergence that does not affect the unity of the Madhab in its legal positions, and that what unites both orientations within the Madhab is the common commitment to the creed of ʾAhlu-s-Sunnah wa-l-Jamāʿah, the absolute transcendence (tanzīh) of Allāh ﷻ, and the rejection of all innovation in the foundations of belief.

The theological position of al-ʾImām ʾAbū Ḥanīfah رحمه الله himself on the divine attributes is among the most precisely transmitted of any early scholar, and it represents one of the foundational statements of Sunnī theology. When asked in al-Fiqh al-ʾAbsaṭ about the question of where Allāh is, he replied:

"Allāh the Exalted existed when there was no place before He created creation; and Allāh the Exalted existed and there was no 'where,' no creation, and no thing, and He is the Creator of everything."

╾ al-Fiqh al-ʾAbsaṭ (p. 57) ╼

On the question of makān (place), al-ʾImām ʾAbū Ḥanīfah رحمه الله ruled that whoever says "I do not know whether my Lord is in the heaven or on the earth" has disbelieved, and likewise whoever says "He is above the Throne but I do not know whether the Throne is in the heaven or on the earth" has also disbelieved. Al-ʾImām ʾAbū-l-Layth al-Samarqandī رحمه الله explained the reason:

"Because this statement suggests that Allāh the Exalted has a place, and whoever suggests a place for Him is a mushrik."

╾ Sharḥ al-Fiqh al-ʾAkbar (p. 25) ╼

Al-ʾImām al-Kawtharī رحمه الله elaborated upon this, noting that the position of al-ʾImām ʾAbū Ḥanīfah is grounded in the principle that place is not conceivable except for created things, and that Allāh ﷻ existed before place and did not change when He created it, a principle confirmed by al-ʾImām al-Ṭaḥāwī رحمه الله in his ʿAqīdah as the explicit consensus of the three great ʾImāms of the school when he wrote:

"The six directions do not contain Him, just as all created things do not contain Him."

╾ al-ʿAqīdah al-Ṭaḥāwiyyah ╼

Al-ʾImām Akmal al-Dīn al-Bābartī رحمه الله² drew out the full theological implication of this position with precision:

"It is impossible for the Creator to be established in a place, because being free from place is established in pre-eternity, as He is other than the originated established things. If He were to be established in a place after creating the place, He would have changed from how He was, and that would necessitate contact. Change and the acceptance of originated traits are signs of origination, and that is impossible for the Pre-Eternal."

╾ Sharḥ al-Fiqh al-ʾAbsaṭ ╼

On the question of ʾĪmān, al-ʾImām ʾAbū Ḥanīfah رحمه الله held that faith is the inward affirmation of the heart together with verbal declaration, and that it neither increases nor decreases in its essence. This position led some to count him among the Murjiʾah, a charge that al-ʾImām ash-Shahrastānī رحمه الله addressed directly in al-Milal wa-n-Niḥal, noting that the labelling of al-ʾImām ʾAbū Ḥanīfah as a Murjiʾī was spread by the Muʿtazilah and Qadariyyah who called all who disagreed with them on qadar by that title, and that the man who devoted his life to issuing fatwās in every chapter of applied Fiqh could hardly be accused of considering action irrelevant to the religion³. Al-ʾImām ash-Shahrastānī رحمه الله wrote:

"It is astonishing that some counted him among the Murjiʾah. This is a lie against him. By my life, ʾAbū Ḥanīfah and his companions were called Murjiʾatu-s-Sunnah. Perhaps the reason is that he said: 'ʾĪmān is inward affirmation by the heart and it does not increase or decrease' — so they assumed he was detaching action from faith. But how could the man, given his deep engagement in the derivation of rulings concerning action, ever issue fatwās neglecting action?"

╾ al-Milal wa-n-Niḥal ╼

On the question of ʿIlm al-Kalām, al-ʾImām ʾAbū Ḥanīfah رحمه الله was among its foremost practitioners before turning his full attention to Fiqh, having travelled to Baṣrah over twenty times to debate the theological deviants of his age. He described his early view of the discipline in terms recorded in Kashf al-ʾĀthār al-Sharīfah: he considered it the most superior of sciences in the religion, as it is the science in which the core of the religion is discussed and defended. His student Ḥammād ibn ʾAbī Ḥanīfah transmitted that the ʾImām said to him: "Learn Kalām, for it is the greater jurisprudence."⁴

The occasional narrations in which al-ʾImām ʾAbū Ḥanīfah رحمه الله warned against the excessive use of theological argumentation were directed at specific contexts, the descent into enmity, the raising of voices, and the pursuit of debate for its own sake rather than for the defence of the religion, and not a general prohibition of the science itself, as the scholars of the Madhab have consistently clarified⁵.

On matters of the Ṣaḥābah, the creed of the Madhab is firmly among ʾAhlu-s-Sunnah in affirming the uprightness (ʿadālah) of all the Companions رضي الله عنهم, loving the entire household of the Prophet ﷺ, and approaching the conflicts among the Ṣaḥābah with the restraint and charitable interpretation that the people of knowledge have always prescribed. On matters of Taṣawwuf and Tazkiyyah, the Ḥanafī tradition has been deeply connected with the science of the purification of the soul across the centuries. Al-ʾImām ʾAbū Ḥanīfah رحمه الله himself combined the outward science of Fiqh with the inward science of the purification of the heart, and the long line of Ḥanafī scholars who were simultaneously jurists and masters of spiritual wayfaring bears witness to a tradition in which the outward and inward dimensions of the religion were never separated⁶.

The broader Ḥanafī tradition affirms the divine attributes as they come in revelation, upholds the absolute incomparability of Allāh ﷻ with His creation, and categorically rejects both tashbīh (anthropomorphism) and taʿṭīl (negation of the attributes). Al-ʾImām ʾAbū Manṣūr al-Māturīdī رحمه الله, whose school represents the dominant theological expression of the Madhab, wrote:

"Through reason one recognises the truthfulness of revelation, and through revelation the details of what reason alone cannot reach are known."

╾ Kitābu-t-Tawḥīd ╼

And al-ʾImām ʾAbū-l-Muʿīn al-Nasafī رحمه الله, one of the greatest systematisers of the Māturīdī school⁷, articulated the creedal position of the tradition in a formulation that equally describes the Ḥanafī theological consensus across every age:

"The path of ʾAhlu-s-Sunnah lies between tashbīh and taʿṭīl, affirming what is established while exalting Allāh above likeness."

╾ Tabṣiratu-l-ʾAdillah ╼

Footnotes

1. Al-ʾImām ʾAbū Manṣūr al-Māturīdī رحمه الله (d. 333 AH) was born in Māturīd, a district of Samarqand, and studied under the students of the students of al-ʾImām ʾAbū Ḥanīfah. His two foundational works, Kitābu-t-Tawḥīd and Taʾwīlāt ʾAhli-s-Sunnah, established the Māturīdī school as the primary theological expression of the Ḥanafī tradition in the East. ↩

2. Al-ʾImām Akmal al-Dīn al-Bābartī رحمه الله (d. 786 AH) was among the foremost Ḥanafī scholars of his age and the author of a celebrated commentary on al-Hidāyah. His commentary on the creedal position of al-ʾImām ʾAbū Ḥanīfah on place and transcendence is among the clearest statements of the school's theological consensus on this matter. ↩

3. Al-ʾImām ash-Shahrastānī رحمه الله (d. 548 AH) was the author of al-Milal wa-n-Niḥal, the most celebrated classification of Islamic theological schools in the tradition. His defence of al-ʾImām ʾAbū Ḥanīfah against the charge of Irjāʾ represents the scholarly consensus on the question. ↩

4. The statement of al-ʾImām ʾAbū Ḥanīfah رحمه الله that Kalām is the greater jurisprudence is transmitted in al-Musnad of al-Thaʿālabī in the biography of Ḥammād ibn ʾAbī Ḥanīfah, and is consistent with the well-documented fact that the ʾImām engaged deeply with ʿIlm al-Kalām before and during his career as a jurist. ↩

5. The correct interpretation of al-ʾImām ʾAbū Ḥanīfah's occasional warnings against theological argumentation is discussed in detail in al-ʿĀlim wa-l-Mutaʿallim, one of the theological works attributed to the ʾImām himself. The context in each case makes clear that the warning was against a specific manner of argumentation rather than the science itself. ↩

6. Among the Ḥanafī scholars who combined mastery of Fiqh with the science of Tazkiyyah are figures such as ʾIbrāhīm ibn ʾAdham رحمه الله (d. 161 AH), one of the foremost ascetics of the early period, who was Ḥanafī in his legal practice, and the scholars of the Naqshbandī and Qādirī paths who transmitted both the outward and inward sciences across the Ottoman and Mughal worlds. ↩

7. Al-ʾImām ʾAbū-l-Muʿīn al-Nasafī رحمه الله (d. 508 AH) was one of the greatest systematisers of the Māturīdī school after al-Māturīdī himself. His Tabṣiratu-l-ʾAdillah is among the most comprehensive works of Māturīdī theology ever produced and remains a primary reference in the tradition. ↩