Masjid of Imam Abu Hanifa near Baghdad, Iraq
(photo by APAAME)
continued on page 10
3. to spread the hadith to its seekers and lovers, and
4. to write and preserve for later generations (Aujaz al-Masalik,
1/239-40).
Imam Bukhari says, “I never wrote a hadith in the book until I
bathed and prayed two rak‘a” (Fat-h al-Bari, 1/7).
Abu ‘Ali al-Ghassani narrates that Imam Bukhari said, “I selected
the Sahih from 600,000 hadith,” (ibid).
Take out your calculator and let us do some calculations.
Here is the math riddle: If Imam Bukhari bathed and prayed
two rak‘a before accepting any hadith into his book and his
selection was made from 600,000 hadith, how many times
did he bathe and pray two rak‘a?
Besides, there were others. Many others. They were jurists,
muhaddithun, mujahidun, mufassirun, and mutakallimun
(theologists), but rarely are they recognized as gestalts. Below
is a selection of a few famous scholars we know. Make
note of the esoteric of iman, the component we so brazenly
disregard.
Imam Abu Hanifa
Imam Abu Hanifa is revered by all, even by those who did
not agree with or follow his fiqh principles of derivation.
Imam Dhahabi, Suyuti, Tahawi, and numerous other eminent
predecessors lauded him, and in some cases, even devoted
biographies to him. They were overawed by his immense
knowledge and astuteness.
Imam Malik claimed that he was so sharp that if Imam Abu
Hanifa was to say that he could convert that pillar (pointing
toward a pillar in Masjid al-Nabawi) to gold, he would make
you believe it (Manaqib Abi Hanifa, 1/31).
Imam al-Shafi‘i said, “Everyone is the child of Imam Abu
Hanifa” (ibid, 1/30).
Many have also attributed the prophesy, “There will be a
man from the progeny of Persia who will gather the knowledge,
even if it is in the Pleiades,” (Tirmidhi) to him. He is the
only renowned mujtahid of Persian descent to systematize
the sacred knowledge, which became the building block
upon which the other schools founded their own madhhab.
Imam Suyuti narrates that the first thing one noticed about
Imam Abu Hanifa were the two permanent, dark marks that extended
from below his eyes to his cheeks; This was from excessive
weeping out of fear of Allah (Tabyeed al-Saheefa).
In his amazing biography of Imam Abu Hanifa, Manaqib al-
Imam Abi Hanifah wa Sahibayh, Imam Dhahabi reports other
mostly unheard-of facts:
1. He would revive the whole night in salat, du‘a, and submissiveness.
2. ‘Abdul Rahman bin al-Muqri’ says, “If you saw him praying,
you’d think that nothing else mattered to him.”
3. Abu Hanifa Juwayriya says, “I was with him for six months
and not once saw him lie on his side in the night.”
4. Yahya bin Nasr says, “He completed about sixty Qur’an in
Ramadan.”
5. His weeping could be heard well into the night until the neighbors
were moved and felt pity on him.
Abdullah bin Mubarak
Abdullah bin al-Mubarak was the Imam of the muhaddithun
and a faqih from the second century. He was listed among
the ‘four imams’ along with Imam Malik, Sufyan al-Thauri,
and Hammad bin Zayd (Al-Jarh wa al-Ta‘deel 1/263 Ibn Abi
Hatim).
One brief biographical sketch describes his ‘gestaltness:’ He
was a faqih, a scholar, a worshipper, an ascetic, generous, courageous,
and a poet (ibid, 1/262).
Imam Malik
Imam Malik was the author of the first corpus of hadith, Al-
Muwatta, which was to be the forerunner to Bukhari, Muslim,
and other major hadith compilations. He also laid the
framework of juristic principles that established his madhhab.
But this is not all. Throughout the night and day, he
8 January – February 2022 | AL-MADINAH