Analysis of Chains of Transmission in Manaqib of Abu Hanifa(<Special Issue>Religion and Ethics)

Abstract

Traditionists in the ninth century vehemently attacked Abu Hanifa, the founder of the Hanafi school of law, primarily because he did not squarely rely on the Prophetic Sunna. From the turn of the ninth century onward the Hanafis began to compile manaqib (virtues) of Abu Hanifa to refute their criticism and to claim the orthodoxy of their school. The present article has two aims. First, it seeks to give the outlines of the Manaqib of al-Muwaffaq Ahmad al-Makki (d. 1172/3), one of the most popular writings on this subject. Second, it seeks to detect the criteria by which the compilers of the earliest manaqib selected the narratives concerning various features of Abu Hanifa, which were to be incorporated in the al-Makki's compilation. For this purpose it analyses the information of the transmitters of these narratives in the biographical dictionaries written by traditionists. It reaches, on the basis of the analysis, the conclusion that the fifth generation of the transmitters including the compilers of the earliest manaqib was the first to adopt the methodology of the traditionists in sorting out narratives concerning Abu Hanifa.