Abu Hanīfa's Works on Aqidah (most of them related through weak narrators!)
Abu Hanīfa's Works on Aqidah (most of them related through weak narrators!)
* * Al-Fiqh al-Akbar ("The Supreme Wisdom"), authentically narrated from the Imām by his son Hammād. The Ash'arī Shaykh Abū al-Muzaffar al-Isfarāyīnī [2][2] said in his book al-Tabsīr fīl-Dīn: "Al-Fiqh al-Akbar was narrated to us by the trust*worthy through a reliable way and a sound chain of transmission from Nasīr ibn Yahyā [up to] Abu Hanīfa."[3][3] In it the Imām said: "Allāh is 'something' unlike any other thing, and the meaning of 'something' here is: neither a body (jism), nor an indi*visi*ble sub*stance (jawhar), nor an accident ('arad.); and He has no limit (hadd)." He also said: "Whatever Allāh I mentioned in the Qur'ān about the 'Face,' Hand,' and 'Essence,' these are His Attributes without ask*ing how. Let it not be said that His Hand is [but] His Power (qudra) or Bounty (ni'ma) because doing so is a nullifica*tion of the At*tribute and is the position of the Qadarīs and Mu'tazilīs. His Hand is an Attribute without asking how!" Mullā 'Alī al-Qārī comments in Sharh al-Fiqh al-Akbar: "That is, without knowledge of any modality, exactly as we are in*capable of having knowl*edge of the true nature (kunh) of the rest of His Attributes, not to mention the true nature of His Essence." Imam Abu Hanīfa's caveat does not contradict the Māturīdī position that the Attributes of corporeality are not corporeal (as in al-Tahāwī's 'Aqīda) but are among the Mutashābihāt (as in al-Pazdawī's Usul and its Sharh. by al-Bukhārī). These guidelines - avoidance of figurative interpretation, avoidance of corporeal explanation, and affirmation that Yad etc. are among the Mutashābihāt - are also within the Ash'arīs' method. The latter allow the option of in*ter*pretation if it coincides with the bases of the Arabic language and the general purport of
'Aqīda, as does Imām al-Māturīdī in Kitāb al-Tawhīd. The reconciliation with Imām Abu Hanīfa's statement is to understand it to mean: "It should not be categorically affirmed that His hand is His power and nothing else." And Allāh knows best. This work received no less than fif*teen commentaries, among them those of al-Qārī, al-Maghīsāwī, and al-Bayādī, all three of them in print.
* * Al-Wasiyya ("The Testament"), a brief epistle dictated by Abu Hanīfa on his death-bed according to the Sunna,[4][4] in which he states: "The meeting (liqā') of Allāh Most High with the dwellers of Paradise is by visual sight without modality, nor simile, nor direction" and "We affirm that Allāh estab*lished Himself on the Throne without his having need for it and without settlement on it as He is the Preserver of the Throne and other than the Throne. If He stood in need for it, He would have been unable to bring the world into being or dispose of it, just like created beings [are un*able]. And if He became in need of sitting down and settling, then, before creating the Throne, where was Allāh I? Rather, He is greatly and im*mensely tran*scendent beyond all such notions."
* * Risālat Abī Hanīfa ilā 'Uthmān al-Battī, a brief epistle to the Mujtahid of Basra Abu 'Amr 'Uthmān ibn Muslim al-Battī (d. 143) also narrated through Nasīr ibn Yahyā - from Abu 'Abd Allāh Muhammad ibn Samā'a al-Tamīmī, from Abu Yusuf, from Abu Hanīfa, in which the Imām explains the principle of his School whereby īmān has two, not three pil*lars, namely: conviction in the heart and affir*mation by the tongue, in refu*tation of those who imputed him with the label of Murji'.
* * Al-'Ālim wal-Muta'allim ("The Teacher and the Apprentice"), placed by Abu al-Muzaffar al-Isfarāyīnī "among the overwhelming proofs against atheists and inno*vators,"[5][5] narrated through two chains, both of them through Abu Hanīfa's stu*dent Abu Muqātil Hafs ibn Salm al-Fazārī al-Samarqandī but actually attributed by some to Abu Muqātil, who is - in either case - mostly discarded.[6][6]
* * Al-Fiqh al-Absat. ("The Greatest Wisdom"), the same work as the Fiqh al-Akbar but in catechetic form narrated from the Imām exclusively by Abu Mutī' al-Hakam ibn 'Abd Allāh ibn Muslim al-Balkhī al-Khurāsānī through Abu 'Abd Allāh al-Husayn ibn 'Alī al-Alma'ī al-Kāshgharī (d. >484), both of them discarded as narra*tors.
Abu Mutī' al-Hakam ibn 'Abd Allāh ibn Muslim al-Balkhī al-Khurāsānī discarged and declared weak and some labeled as a liar by; Ahmad bin Hanbal & Yahya b.Main, Amr b.Ala el Kalanisi, Buhari, Abu Dawud, Nesai, Ebu Hatem er-Razi, Ebu Hatem b.Hibban el Bestiy, Ukayli, Ibn Adiy, Darequtni and others
In this ver*sion the Imām is related to state:
[1] "Who*ever says, 'I do not know whether my Lord is in the heaven or on earth' commits disbelief (qad kafar), as does whoever says, 'He is on the Throne and I do not know whether the Throne is in the heaven or on earth.'" Imām Abū al-Layth al-Samarqandī (d. 373) in his Sharh. al-Fiqh al-Akbar (misattributed to al-Māturīdī) and his commentary on the Fiqh al-Absat., and Imām al-Bayādī in Ishārāt al-Marām all said: "He is a disbeliever because he attributes a place to Allāh Most High."[7][7]
[2] "(The Hand of Allāh is above their hands) (48:10), not like the hand of creatures, and it is not a limb (laysat bi-jārih.a)."
[3] "If someone says, 'Where is Allāh?' The answer for him is that Allāh existed when there was no 'where,' no creation, nothing! And He is the Creator of everything!" This is confirmed as the true position of the Imām by al-Tahāwī's article in his "Exposition of the Doctrine of Ahl al-Sunna wal-Jamā'a" that "This is the religion of the Muslims. Anyone that does not guard himself against negation [of the Divine Attributes] or likening [Allāh to some*thing else], has gone astray and missed transcendence. For our Lord - Glorified and Exalted! - is only described in terms of oneness and absolute singularity. No creation is in any way whatsoever like Him. He is beyond having limits placed on Him, or having boundaries, or having parts, limbs, or organs! Nor is He con*tained by the six directions as all created things are."
Certain versions of the Fiqh al-Absat. have undergone identifiable interpolations such as that narrated by the anthropomorphist al-Harawī al-Ansārī in his book al-Fāruq fīl-Sifāt as pointed out by al-Kawtharī.[8][8]
Footnotes:
[1][1]The full chains of transmission for all these works are given in
al-Muwaffaq's Manāqib and al-Kawtharī's Ta'nīb al-Khatīb as well as (in
part) his introduction to al-Bayādī's Ishārāt al-Marām (p. 6).
[2][2]Imām Abū al-Muzaffar Tāhir ibn Muhammad al-Isfarāyīnī al-Shāfi'ī
al-Ash'arī, known as Shahafur (d. 471), author of Tāj al-Tarājim fī Tafsīr
al-Qur'ān lil-A'ājim cf. Hajjī Khalīfa, Kashf al-Z.unūn (1:268, 1:442). In
his book al-Tabsīr fīl-Dīn wa-Tamyīz al-Firqat al-Nājiya min Firaq
al-Hālikīn he defines Ahl al-Sunna as the Ash'arīs.
[3][3]In al-Tabsīr (p. 113) as cited by al-Kawtharī in his introduction to
al-Bayādī's Ishārāt al-Marām (p. 5). The complete chain is: 'Alī ibn Ahmad
al-Fārisī < Nasīr [not Nusayr nor Nasr] ibn Yahyā [al-Balkhī (d. 268)] <
Abu Muqātil < 'Isām ibn Yusuf [ibn Maymun al-Balkhī (d. 210 or 215)] <
Hammād ibn Abī Hanīfa < Abu Hanīfa. (Ibid. p. 6.) Shaykh Wahbī Sulaymān
Ghāwijī said in his edition of al-Qārī's Sharh. al-Fiqh al-Akbar (p. 13)
that he saw in Maktabat Shaykh al-Islām 'Ārif Hikmat in Madīna (Com*pendium
#226 or #234) a manuscript of the Fiqh al-Akbar with the same chain.
[4][4]Printed together with al-Nasāfi's Matn al-Manār fī Us.ūl al-Fiqh
(Cairo: al-Matba'at al-Mahmudi*yya, 1326).
[5][5]In al-Tabsīr (p. 113) as cited by al-Kawtharī in his introduction to
al-Bayādī's Ishārāt (p. 5).
[6][6]Cf. al-H.ākim, al-Madkhal ilā al-S.ah.īh. (p. 130 #42), al-Dhahabī,
Mīzān ('Ilmiyya 2:219), Ibn H.ajar, Lisān (2:322-323), Ibn al-Jawzī,
al-D.u'afā' wal-Matrūkīn (1:221), and al-Khalīlī, Irshād (3:975).
[7][7]Cf. Ghāwjī, Abū H.anīfa (p. 260).
[8][8]In his introduction to al-Bayād.ī's Ishārāt al-Marām (p. 6 n. 1) as
well as his edition of the Fiqh al-Absat. together with al-'Ālim
wal-Muta'allim and other doctrinal texts of the Imām.
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Originally Posted by mujahid7ia
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