Ḥanafiyyah

Distinct Opinions

Al-Madhab al-Ḥanafī holds a number of well-known positions that distinguish it from the other three schools, flowing directly from its methodological foundations and the transmitted inheritance upon which it was built.

On the times of Ṣalāh: the school holds that delaying Fajr until ʾIsfār (the brightening of the sky) is recommended, such that there is enough time to recite forty verses in each unit of the prayer and still have time to repeat the wuḍūʾ and perform the prayer again. Ẓuhr should be delayed in the summer heat until the shade increases sufficiently for one to walk to the masjid in comfort. ʿAṣr should be prayed before the brightness of the sun diminishes to the point where one can comfortably stare at it. Maghrib is to be prayed immediately without delay in all circumstances, and ʿIshāʾ is recommended to be delayed until just before the first third of the night has passed. It is makrūh taḥrīmī to delay ʿAṣr until the yellowing of the sun, to delay Maghrib until the appearance of stars, or to delay ʿIshāʾ past the middle of the night¹.

On the Basmalah in Ṣalāh: the school holds that Bismillāhi-r-Raḥmāni-r-Raḥīm is not a verse of Sūratu-l-Fātiḥah and is to be recited quietly (sirr) at the beginning of each unit of prayer, and is not recited aloud in the prayers in which recitation is audible. This stands in well-known contrast to the Shāfiʿī Madhab, which holds that the Basmalah is a verse of al-Fātiḥah and is to be recited aloud in the audible prayers.

On Qunūt in Ṣalāh: unlike the Shāfiʿī Madhab which holds Qunūt in Fajr to be a confirmed Sunnah in every cycle, the Ḥanafī school holds that Qunūt in Fajr is not legislated in ordinary circumstances, and that Qunūt al-Witr in the third unit of the Witr prayer is a confirmed Sunnah of the school².

On the Friday Prayer: the school holds that the Friday prayer requires a governing authority (sulṭān) or his representative for its validity, and that it must be performed in a city (miṣr) rather than a village, positions that distinguished the Ḥanafī school from the Shāfiʿī and Ḥanbalī schools in their conditions for the validity of Jumuʿah.

On ʾIstiḥsān: unlike the Shāfiʿī school which rejected ʾIstiḥsān as an independent principle, the Ḥanafī school regards it as one of the most important instruments of the jurist and has systematised it into six distinct types, each representing a principled departure from an apparent Qiyās in favour of a stronger evidence. The rejection of ʾIstiḥsān by al-ʾImām ash-Shāfiʿī رضي الله عنه was directed at the undefined and undisciplined use of personal preference, not at the principled instrument the Ḥanafī school developed, as the scholars of both traditions have acknowledged³.

On the Solitary Narration: the school's conditions for accepting khabar al-wāḥid as a proof are more stringent than those of the other schools in certain respects, reflecting the founder's conviction that the transmitted Fiqhī inheritance of Kūfah, where it spoke clearly, represented a form of transmission stronger than many isolated chains. Among the specific conditions the school added is that the narrator must not have acted contrary to his own narration, and that the narration must not contradict an established principle of the school that is itself rooted in stronger transmitted evidence⁴.

On the purity of the skin of dead animals: the Ḥanafī school holds that the skin of a dead animal becomes pure through tanning, a position that distinguishes it from the Shāfiʿī school which restricts this ruling and from the Ḥanbalī school which does not permit the use of such skin at all after the animal's death⁵.

On touching a non-Maḥram: unlike the Shāfiʿī school which holds that direct skin to skin contact between a man and a marriageable woman nullifies Wuḍūʾ, the Ḥanafī school holds that mere touching does not nullify Wuḍūʾ unless accompanied by desire in circumstances that the school defines precisely, a position rooted in a different understanding of the Qurʾānic verse and in the transmitted Fiqhī practice of the Ṣaḥābah of Kūfah⁶.

On the prayer behind a person of innovation: the school generally permits prayer behind any Muslim whose outward condition meets the requirements of Imāmah, reflecting the Ḥanafī principle that the validity of the prayer is not affected by the personal theological positions of the Imām provided he does not hold a position that takes him outside the fold of Islam altogether. This is a well-known point of practical distinction between the Ḥanafī school and certain positions within the Ḥanbalī tradition⁷.

The Muʿtamad of the Madhab

The determination of what is Muʿtamad, the relied upon opinion, in al-Madhab al-Ḥanafī follows a precise hierarchy that the scholars of the school articulated in detail, most accessibly in the treatise of al-ʾImām Qāsim ibn Quṭlūbughā رحمه الله⁸ and in the introduction of Radd al-Muḥtār of ʾIbn ʿĀbidīn رحمه الله. The principle was stated with clarity by al-ʾImām Qāsim ibn Quṭlūbughā:

"To follow one's caprice is impermissible, and the non-preponderant opinion in the face of a preponderant opinion is effectively non-existent. To grant preponderance to one ruling over its contrary without grounds is forbidden."

╾ Rasm al-Muftī, Qāsim ibn Quṭlūbughā ╼

In terms of the opinions of the three ʾImāms, the hierarchy is as follows. When the three ʾImāms, ʾAbū Ḥanīfah, ʾAbū Yūsuf, and Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan, agree, their joint position is the Muʿtamad without qualification. When ʾAbū Ḥanīfah is supported by one of the two Ṣāḥibayn, their position is taken. When the two Ṣāḥibayn agree in opposition to ʾAbū Ḥanīfah in matters affected by the changing conditions of people and time, commerce, transactions, and similar matters, their position is preferred, as the later scholars of the Madhab settled by consensus. In matters of ʿIbādāt, the opinion of ʾAbū Ḥanīfah is generally followed; in matters of the judiciary, the opinion of ʾAbū Yūsuf; and in matters of kinship and family, the opinion of Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan⁹.

When no transmitted opinion from the three ʾImāms is found on a matter, the later scholars of the Madhab would derive a ruling consistent with the foundational principles of the school through Ijtihād, and if they agreed upon it, it would be implemented. If they differed, the mufti would exert himself in arriving at a ruling and provide a legal response in accordance with what he believed to be correct, attributing it to the scholar whose opinion he followed. Al-ʾImām Qāḍīkhān رحمه الله stated:

"If the mufti is himself bound by precedent and is not an independent jurist, he is to adopt the position of the most learned of jurists in his estimation, and must attribute the legal position to that jurist."

╾ al-Fatāwā al-Khāniyyah, Qāḍīkhān ╼

In terms of authoritative texts, the final reference for fatwā in the Madhab rests primarily upon Radd al-Muḥtār of ʾIbn ʿĀbidīn رحمه الله and al-Fatāwā al-Hindiyyah, alongside Tanwīru-l-ʾAbṣār and its commentary al-Durru-l-Mukhtār. The scholars explicitly warned against the caprice of selecting between transmitted opinions without grounds, and al-ʾImām ʾIbn al-Ṣalāḥ رحمه الله stated in ʾĀdab al-Muftī:

"Whoever allows himself to be satisfied with providing legal responses in accordance with any legal position haphazardly, without observing the procedure of determining preponderance, is indeed ignorant and has broken all bounds of juristic consensus."

╾ ʾĀdab al-Muftī, ʾIbn al-Ṣalāḥ ╼

It is from the special characteristics of al-Madhab al-Ḥanafī that despite the passage of centuries and the spread of the school across the most diverse lands and peoples in the history of Islam, its internal framework for determining the relied upon opinion remained precise, documented, and accessible, a framework that the great scholars of every generation renewed and transmitted, so that the school never lost its coherence even as it served the needs of Muslims from the steppes of Central Asia to the shores of the Indian Ocean.

And Allāh ﷻ knows best. May He be pleased with al-ʾImām ʾAbū Ḥanīfah al-Nuʿmān ibn Thābit al-Kūfī رحمه الله, with his companions ʾAbū Yūsuf, Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan ash-Shaybānī, and Zufar ibn al-Hudhayl رحمهم الله, with all the scholars of al-Madhab al-Ḥanafī across every century and every land, from the jurists of Kūfah and Baghdād to the scholars of Khurāsān and Transoxiana, from the Fuqahāʾ of ash-Shām and Egypt to the ʿUlamāʾ of the Indian Subcontinent and the Ottoman lands, and may He grant us the tawfīq to follow in their footsteps, to benefit from their scholarship, and to love them for His sake alone. Āmīn.