The Deep Juristic Foresight & Prowess of The Hanafi Imams

In our Sunday evening course on hanafi fiqh this week, in which we are studying the excellent English translation of Imam Abu 'l-Ikhlas Hasan ibn 'Ammar al-Shurunbulali's (rah.) 'Maraqi 'l-Sa'adat' ('Ascent to Felicity' - pub. White Thread Press), we came across the mas'alah of whether one's wudhu is nullified by sleeping whilst leaning against something (e.g. a wall, pillar), with the buttocks FIRMLY placed on the floor. The author, as well as the English translator-editor, states that wudhu is not nullified. This surprised some of us, as hanafi Muslims are generally taught from childhood that sleeping whilst leaning on something nullifies wudhu. Out of curiosity, and in order to get to the bottom of it (excuse the pun), I then spent several hours trawling through volumes of key books of the madhhab on this mas'alah. Below is a list of the books I looked at, for the benefit of fellow students (or scholars). It quickly became clear to me that there has existed a disagreement on the issue between some of the giants of the madhhab, dating as far back as Imam Abu Yusuf and Imam Muhammad ibn al-Hasan - the two main students of Al-Imam al-A'zam Abu Hanifah (rah.). Without going into the jurisprudence of the matter here, what I wish to share is that after researching the mas'alah, my admiration, love and awe for all these great imams simply increased. The jurisprudence produced by both sides in arguing for their respective stances is breath-taking. This has happened to me countless times, when I have enquired into a simple ruling of the madhhab - something we students of the madhhab take for granted and seldom think about - only to be awed by the extreme juristic foresight and prowess of the hanafi fuqaha', and their phenomenal masterly conciliation between seemingly contradictory Qur'anic verses and ahadith, while maintaining logical sense.

I had a similar experience with another mas'alah recently. Some of the musallis of our masjid who follow the la madhhabiyyah (non-madhhabist) way objected to the hanafi musallis praying the 2 raka'at sunnah prayers of fajr, when the congregational prayer was already in progress. They argued that the hanafis were opposing the hadith of the Messenger of Allah (pbuh) by doing so. I knew that what the hanafi musallis were doing was precisely what the madhhab states. I then embarked on a little research on the matter in order to fully understand why the ruling is such in the madhhab. I was astounded by what I found in terms of hadith and athar evidences. Out the books I looked at, the following three works of hadith were the most informative.

- Musannaf Ibn Abi Shaybah - this is a primary work of hadith
- Nukhab al-Afkar, Imam Badr al-Din al-'Ayni al-Hanafi
- Nasb al-Rayah, Imam Jamal al-Din al-Zayla'i al-Hanafi

Out of the three books, the second one (Nukhab al-Afkar) was the most insightful and exhaustive on the issue. Imam Badr al-Din al-'Ayni expends 28 pages assessing the ahadith and athar on the issue, and thereby proves that what is stated in the books of the hanafi madhhab is in full conformity to the hadith of the Messenger of Allah (pbuh) and the athar of the Noble Companions and their successors.

Likewise, another more recent issue arose in our masjid when (again) our la madhhabiyyah brethren refused to send their children to the children's row. They wanted to pray in the congregation with their children in the same row, beside them. Asking them politely yielded no results. They accused us of "following the opinions of men", while they "followed the ahadith of the Messenger of Allah (pbuh)" (their usual mantra). When I looked into the mas'alah that is mentioned in some of our key books of the madhhab, in order to get to the source of it, I was fascinated. Besides the logical reasons, which should be obvious to any serious reflection, the practice of standing the boys in a separate row from the men is actually based on the teachings of the Messenger of Allah (pbuh) and the practice of his Companions and their companions. See below for some of the references that I looked at.

In the wider scheme of things, the above are just some very minor masa'il/rulings in the hanafi madhhab - a legal school that began during the lifetime of the Companions of the Messenger of Allah (pbuh) (Imam Abu Hanifah was born in 80 Hijri / approx. 699 CE and saw some of the younger Noble Companions), was the official judicial and governmental system of the Muslim Ummah for hundreds of years, governed vast swathes of the globe and has continued to develop for more than 1300 years. Half of the entire Muslim Ummah today are followers of this unparalleled madhhab, while the remaining half of the Ummah is constituted by the other three madhhabs, the la madhhabiyyah, variants of moderate Shi'ah etc. This magnificent madhhab (or legal school) is not the gobbledygook that some misguided and misguiding propagandists want to have you believe.

May Allah Most High grant all the imams, fuqaha', usuliyyun, muhaddithun, mufassirun of the hanafi madhhab - and indeed the other three madhhabs - Al-Firdaws Paradise. May they be with the Messenger of Allah and his Companions. For, had it not been for their selfless sacrifices, we may not even have been people of iman today.

---

---