History of the Hanafi School

In this exclusive, comprehensive course delivered by Shaykh Dr. Salman Younas, students will take a journey across more than a millennium to understand the history and development of the Hanafi school. They will start in the study circle of Abu Hanifa (d. 150/767) in Kufa, travel to Baghdad with the qadi al-qudat (chief judge) Abu Yusuf (d. 182/798), move to Egypt to see Abu Jaʿfar al-Tahawi (d. 321/933) ground the school in hadith, and then jump to Iraq to witness the maturation of usul al-fiqh at the hands of jurists like Abu Bakr al-Jassas (d. 370/981). Students will continue to learn about the history of the Hanafi school in subsequent centuries across various regions (the Maghrib to Transoxiana) and empires (Abbasids to the Ottomans).

The Hanafi school, named after the preeminent jurist of his time, Abu Hanifa (d. 150/767), is the oldest and most widely followed of the four surviving Sunni legal schools (madhahib). Having its origins in 2nd/8th century Kufa, the school quickly spread across the Islamic world, developed a distinct body of rulings and a sophisticated legal theory, and evolved into an authoritative entity. In this course, students will learn about the history of the Hanafi school and its development from the time of its founders till the modern period. Recordings are available on the class forum.