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The Hanafi school or Hanafism is the largest Madhhab of Islamic jurisprudence out of the four principal schools within Sunni Islam. It developed from the teachings of the jurist and theologian Abu Hanifa (), who systemised the use of reasoning (). Hanafi legal theory primarily derives law from the Quran, the sayings and practices of Muhammad ( sunnah), scholarly consensus () and analogical reasoning (), but also considers juristic discretion () and local customs (). It is distinctive in its greater usage of qiyas than other schools.
The school spread throughout the Muslim world under the patronage of various Islamic empires, including the Abbasids and Seljuk Empire. The region of Transoxiana emerged as a centre of classical Hanafi scholarship between the 10th and 12th centuries, which gave rise to the Maturidi school of theology. The Ottoman Empire adopted Hanafism as its official school of law and influenced the legal thought of the school, eventually codifying it as the Mecelle in the 1870s.
Followers of the Hanafi school are called Hanafis, who are estimated to comprise one third of all Muslims. It is the largest Islamic legal school and is predominant in the Balkans, Central Asia, Turkey, the Levant, and South Asia, in the latter of which it is mainly split between the Barelvi and Deobandi movements.
There is no record of legal treatises authored by Abu Hanifa. His teachings were transmitted by his disciples Abu Yusuf () and Muhammad al-Shaybani (), the last of whom was the most prolific. Later Hanafis termed the corpus of al-Shaybani as the " zahir al-riwaya" and ascribed it an authoritative status. The students of Abu Hanifa established Halaqa in Baghdad, an emerging hub of cultural activity and the seat of the Abbasid Caliphate. The school won the support of the centralising Abbasid state, which sought to unify the legal system. The Abbasids' preference for appointing Hanafi judges assisted in spreading the school. Abu Yusuf served as a qadi in Baghdad; the Abbasid caliph Harun al-Rashid () later appointed him as the Great Qadi. By the time of al-Shaybani's death, the school had spread to Egypt and Balkh in Tokharistan. Ra'y dialectics involved the interlocutors exploring a series of hypothetical legal cases to delineate the limits of legal assumptions. In practice, it led Hanafis to favour widely accepted hadith, particularly those which enshrined general principles that were applicable to other cases. When the widespread collection of hadith led to the circulation of reports that contradicted Hanafi positions, the Hanafis prioritised those that were acted upon by the Iraqi legal tradition. Reports supported by Iraqi juristic practice were deemed more authoritative than those which were not. Abu Yusuf and al-Shaybani separately authored works named Kitab al-Athar () , which sought to ground Hanafi teachings in the precedent of the early Kufan jurists and the Kufan companions of Muhammad, notably Abd Allah ibn Mas'ud and Ali. Abu Hanifa himself is known to have used hadith; in Abu Yusuf's Ikhtilaf Abi Ḥanifa wa-Ibn Abi Layla, which lists cases where Abu Hanifa differed with his contemporary Ibn Abi Layla, Abu Hanifa is quoted as citing a hadith in around 10% of the cases presented, but cites narrations attributed to Muhammad's companions more often.
In contemporary external sources, members of the nascent school were described as the ashab abi ḥanifa ("companions of Abu Hanifa") and the ashab al-ra'y ("companions of ra'y"). Early Hanafi doctrine was attacked by the Ahl al-hadith, who accused Hanafis of preferring their ra'y to hadith. The traditionists primarily found objectionable the Hanafi practice of sometimes favouring qiyas over hadith that were not widely transmitted ( ahad). The identification of Hanafis with the ashab al-ra'y in contradistinction to the traditionist ashab al-hadīth strengthened during the resurgence of the latter following the Mihna. Al-Shafi'i (), too, critiqued the Hanafis' treatment of hadith and their claim that their positions reflected those of the Kufan companions of Muhammad. He further argued that istihsan was subjective, which later led to classical Hanafi legal theorists articulating it as being completely dependent on the primary sources of law.
Criticism from the traditionists led to the Hanafis grounding their positions in hadith over the 9th century. Some Hanafis moved towards using the traditionists' method of Hadith sciences to justify the school's positions, such as the Egyptian jurist al-Tahawi (). Nonetheless, the classical legal theorists focused on formulating a Hanafi approach to hadith criticism that emphasised a hadith's acceptance by early jurists, with transmitter analysis taking a secondary role. ()]]During the 9th century, the Hanafi school also emerged as the prevailing school in Transoxiana and Tokharistan. The school was introduced to Transoxiana by the students of Abu Hanifa and al-Shaybani, but became prevalent under the Samanids, during whose rule Hanafi scholars received official favour. The Transoxianan Hanafi tradition was highly influential in defining the doctrine of the later school. Works authored by Transoxianan jurists and accorded a high status in later Hanafi tradition include:
In the 10th century, the Hanafi theologian Abu Mansur al-Maturidi () developed a kalam tradition that crystallised into the Maturidi school of theology, which had descended directly from the theological views of the earliest Hanafis. Due to philosophical differences, the Transoxianan Maturidis disagreed with the Mu'tazilite strain of Iraqi Hanafis on several technical points of legal theory, but saw limited success in expunging the Mu'tazilite influence.
The Oghuz Turks who founded the Seljuk Empire became attached to the Transoxianan Hanafi tradition. The Seljuks favoured these eastern Hanafis and appointed them to various official positions in their new territories, encouraging their migration out of Central Asia. During the Seljuk expansion of the 11th and 12th centuries, the Hanafi and Maturidi schools spread westward into Syria, Anatolia and western Persia. In Syria and Iraq, the Central Asian scholars brought with them an increased emphasis on the zahir al-riwaya. Hanafi migration out of Central Asia accelerated during the Mongol invasions, which ravaged the region.
Criticism of the Hanafi approach to hadith prompted Mamluk Hanafi scholars to treat the subject in more detail. In his legal commentary Fath al-Qadir, the Mamluk jurist Ibn al-Humam () engages with the traditionists' approach to hadith criticism, and attempts to navigate the associated legal consequences. His approach to hadith influenced later Egyptian and Syrian Hanafi scholars. This "Egyptian school" of Hanafi hadith criticism referenced hadith from the hadith collections instead of Hanafi legal works, and employed the traditionists' terminology to assess their authenticity.
Mamluk jurists faced difficulties in interpreting the plurality of legal opinions that had accrued in the school. In his work al-Tashih wa-al-tarjih, the Mamluk jurist () developed and detailed the process of rule-determination, clarifying the role of precedent and enabling other jurists to engage in the process themselves, and thus determine the applicable legal ruling for a given case. It marked a shift in the material consulted by muftis from the primary literature of the school to its secondary literature, comprising legal commentaries and compendia which contained rulings.
Hanafi law co-existed with the qanun (dynastic law), decrees and edicts promulgated by the sultans. The qanun often reaffirmed religious laws; in other cases, it authorised actions that the jurists opposed, such as torture. The Şeyḫülislâm would sometimes request sultanic edicts to require the imperial religious hierarchy to enforce particular rulings of the school. The Maʿrūḍāt of the Şeyḫülislâm Ebussuud Efendi (), a collection of fatwas endorsed by Suleiman I, contained sultanic edicts and was frequently referenced in later Hanafi works which considered its opinions binding. Late Hanafis believed that judges could act as deputies of the sultan who could thus regulate, inter alia, the legal opinions judges could reference, such as in the case of inter-school disputes. In the 17th and 18th centuries, Hanafi jurists began to incorporate sultanic edicts into authoritative legal works. edition of the Mecelle]]
Ibrahim al-Halabi ()'s legal manual Multaqa al-Abhur was among the most popular in the empire and was the subject of over 70 commentaries. By the 19th century, it had become the standard legal textbook. Other popular Ottoman manuals were the Durar al-Hukkam of Molla Hüsrev () and al-Durr al-Mukhtar of Haskafi. The Radd al-Muhtar of the late Arab-Ottoman jurist Ibn Abidin () is considered an authoritative and representative work of the late Hanafi tradition. It lists most opinions within the school and their level of authoritativeness, incorporating most primary Hanafi sources produced until its writing. It employs legal devices such as necessity ( darura) to depart from the canonical zahir al-riwaya where necessary to ensure the continued relevancy of the school, and references sultanic edicts to revise the school's opinions.
Between 1869 and 1877, the Ottomans promulgated the Mecelle, a codification of Hanafi jurisprudence. The Mecelle was drafted by a committee led by the jurist Ahmed Cevdet Pasha, who had successfully argued against the implementation of the Napoleonic Code. It drew from the Hanafi literature on legal maxims ( qawaʿid fiqhiyya) and to a great degree favoured the opinions of the late Hanafi tradition. Many of its articles were fully or partially derived from al-Halabi's Multaqa al-Abhur. However, the Mecelle also marked the state's assumption of control over jurisprudence, which had previously been the purview of the decentralized juristic community.
During the colonization of India, the East India Company sought to create a "complete digest of Hindu and Mussulman law" to eliminate legal pluralism. The resulting Anglo-Muhammadan law was based in part on a translation of al-Marghinani's Hidayah, which was chosen for its brevity and its belonging to the Hanafi school, which most Indian Muslims followed. Consequently, the Hidayah was effectively codified and severed from the Hanafi commentarial tradition under which it was traditionally interpreted.
In the 19th century, the Hanafi Deobandi movement emerged in India. The Deobandis' Deobandi fiqh include strict adherence ( taqlid) to a legal school in contradistinction to the Ahl-i Hadith movement, and emphasise the importance of hadith. The Deobandi acceptance of Ibn al-Humam's approach to hadith criticism culminated in the I'la al-Sunan of Deobandi scholar Zafar Ahmad Usmani (), a work that attempts to justify Hanafi positions using hadith.
In Pakistan, it is estimated that 75% of Muslims subscribe to the Barelvi movement and Deobandi movements of the Hanafis.
The Ottoman Mecelle was repealed by most post-Ottoman states over the first half of the 20th century. Parts remained in force in Jordan and Israel until the 1970s. Where it is dominant, the Hanafi school is followed in religious observance and, in some regions, continues to govern Muslim family law.
Compared to the other Sunni and Shi'ite schools of law, Hanafis use qiyas more extensively and grant it greater authority. However, it is deemed a last resort only to be used when no ruling can be derived from the Quran, sunnah and ijma. Hanafis view qiyas as a means of revealing pre-existing implicit rulings within the law rather than as a source of new rulings. Because the law is viewed as coherent and internally consistent, a valid qiyas must accord with the internal rationality of the law.
If a ruling derived from qiyas conflicts with that from an ahad hadith, the Hanafis disagree on which takes precedence. One group argues that the ahad hadith always takes precedence, while a second group, led by Isa ibn Aban (), opine that it only takes precedence if transmitted by a companion of Muhammad known to be a jurist. In general, the early classical school always followed hadith transmitted by jurist-companions regardless of its correspondence with qiyas, but followed hadith transmitted by non-jurist companions only if it corresponded with a possible qiyas, and thus accorded with the internal rationale of the law. By the Ottoman period, however, the distinction had become less popular and non-jurist companions were largely treated the same as jurist companions.
The Hanafis require the original case to not directly state the illah. The illah must be deduced by other means . If the illah is stated, then the ruling is applied to other cases via the "indication of the text" ( dalalat al-nass), not qiyas. Dalalat al-nass is an exercise in linguistic interpretation rather than analogical reasoning.
Istihsan emerged out of concerns among Hanafis that unrestrained qiyas could lead to results that were absurd or contradicted the sunnah. The earliest Hanafis, including Abu Hanifa and al-Shaybani, more frequently used istihsan justified by subjective and pragmatic reasoning rather than on evidential grounds. Their use of istihsan sought to change the scope or outcome of a ruling due to its potential effects. More often than not, they deployed istihsan in a way that cannot be considered as ameliorating hardship, such as establishing the liability of a group of thieves involved in theft even if only one of them carried the stolen goods. Subjective istihsan declined due to attacks from al-Shafi'i, and Hanafi legal theorists would systemise it into the form eventually espoused by al-Sarakhsi, attempting to incorporate elements of subjectivity into the definition of necessity.
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