Development of law, theology and institutions
Family: How Islam changed over time · 28 entries
Entries on this theme
Person
Uthman ibn Affan
c. 576 CEThird caliph (644–656); the early community married him to two of the Prophet's daughters in succession. Under him the Qur'an was standardized into a single recension; he was killed by rebels in Medina, opening the first civil war.Umar ibn al-Khattab
c. 584 CESecond caliph (634–644); under his rule the early community conquered Syria, Egypt and much of the Sasanian Empire. Remembered in Sunni tradition as al-Faruq, the model of just rule.Mu'adh ibn Jabal
c. 603 CEA young Ansari convert of the pledges of Aqaba, remembered as the most learned of the community in what is lawful and forbidden; the Prophet sent him to Yemen as its teacher and judge.Zayd ibn Thabit
c. 611 CEA young Ansari who became the Prophet's scribe of revelation; Abu Bakr set him to gather the Qur'an, and Uthman's committee under him produced the standard recension still read today.Abdullah ibn Abbas
c. 619 CEThe Prophet's young cousin who grew up in Medina and became the tradition's founding authority on the interpretation of the Qur'an — remembered as the father of tafsir.Malik ibn Anas
c. 711 CE · 93 AHImam of Medina and author of the Muwatta; born in Medina, he studied with its scholars and taught there until his death in 179 AH. The Maliki school of law bears his name.Al-Abhari, Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Abd Allah
901 CE · 289 AHA Maliki jurist who combined the Qur'anic readings, high-grade chains of transmission and sound jurisprudence; from Abhar, between Qazvin and Zanjan.Abu al-Abbas Abd Allah al-Abyani
A scholar of Ifriqiya in the fourth century AH. Al-Asili and Abu al-Hasan al-Qabisi were among those who narrated from him; his lifetime spanned the late Aghlabid and early Fatimid periods.Ibn al-Ajdabi, Ibrahim ibn Isma'il
A jurist from Tripoli in Libya, named after the town of Ajdabiya. The sources give only a brief biography, and his death is given as around 470 AH.Ibn Rajab al-Hanbali
c. 1335 CE · Rabi' I 736 AHThe Hanbali hadith master and jurist Zayn al-Din Abu al-Faraj Abd al-Rahman ibn Ahmad, known as Ibn Rajab after his grandfather Rajab; born in Baghdad in 736 AH, moved to Damascus in 744, travelled for learning to Egypt, the Hijaz and Jerusalem, and died in Damascus in 795 AH. Author of 'Jami' al-Ulum wal-Hikam'.Al-Abbi, Muhammad ibn Khalfa
c. 1344 CE · c. 745 AH†A Maliki usuli scholar from the Maghrib, known for the rational sciences, memorization and rigorous editing; named after the village of Abba in Tunisia.Al-Ibshitay, Ahmad ibn Isma'il
1399 CE · 802 AHA Cairene jurist, first Shafi'i and then Hanbali; born in Ibshit in the Gharbiya province of Egypt.Al-Akhdari, Abd al-Rahman ibn Muhammad
1514 CE · 920 AHA Maliki jurist and versifier from the Maghrib, known for verse treatises on law and worship that were taught in the Quranic schools.Abu Bakr al-Khallal
He gathered Imam Ahmad's transmitted answers and wrote them down with their chains of transmission in the book al-Jami', which counts as the foundation of the school, and so prepared the way for the writing down of Hanbali jurisprudence.Abu Bakr Abd al-Aziz (Ghulam al-Khallal)
A Hanbali jurist, author of al-Shafi and al-Tanbih in the school's jurisprudence; he wrote on his copy of the Mukhtasar of al-Kharaqi a note on questions in which al-Kharaqi differed.al-Kharaqi
Author of the famous Mukhtasar al-Kharaqi on the jurisprudence of Imam Ahmad; he died in Damascus in 334 AH.Imam al-Nawawi
The jurist and ascetic Imam Abu Zakariyya Yahya al-Nawawi; compiler of the 'Arba'un', forty-two concise hadiths built on Ibn al-Salah's twenty-six, which became one of the most memorised and commented collections in Islam.Ibn al-Banna
A jurist, Qur'an reciter, hadith scholar and preacher of Baghdad; the book records that he wrote nearly five hundred works, among them al-Mujarrad on jurisprudence and a commentary on al-Kharaqi.Ibn Hamid
The leading Hanbali scholar and teacher of his time, the master of the judge Abu Ya'la; he wrote al-Jami' fi al-Madhhab and a commentary on al-Kharaqi.Ibn Shaqla
A Hanbali jurist and legal theorist who died in 369 AH; Ibn Badran's book lists him in this way among the notables who are referred to by shortened names.
Concept
The phrase "la yanbaghi" in Imam Ahmad's words
The expression "la yanbaghi" ("it is not proper") in Imam Ahmad's words: is it understood as prohibition or as dislike? His companions differed over it, an example of disagreement over the school's wording.The reports from Imam Ahmad
The statements transmitted from Imam Ahmad on a single question, and how his companions reconciled them and preferred one over another; they are the school's foundation in jurisprudence.Obedience to those in authority and not rebelling (in the Tahawi creed)
al-Tahawi's position: no rebelling against the imams and rulers even if they are unjust, obeying them is part of obeying God so long as they do not command disobedience, and the pilgrimage and jihad continue with them.
Group
Work
al-Mughni
Ibn Qudama al-Maqdisi's commentary on the Mukhtasar of al-Kharaqi, the most famous of its commentaries; he writes out each question from the base text, then lays out the imams' positions and their evidence and gives his preference. It ran to nine volumes in the author's own hand, and most copies today are in thirteen volumes.al-Madkhal ila Madhhab al-Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal
Ibn Badran's book in an introduction and eight chapters introducing the Hanbali school: the Imam's creed, the reason the school was chosen, its principles, the path of his companions, its legal theory, its terminology, its famous books, and the divisions of jurisprudence among the Hanbalis.Mukhtasar al-Kharaqi
The most famous base text of the Hanbali school among its early and middle generations, a concise work on jurisprudence composed by al-Kharaqi; Abu Ishaq al-Barmaki counted its questions at two thousand three hundred.Muwatta of Imam Malik
The Muwatta of Imam Malik ibn Anas (d. 179 AH): one of the earliest hadith and jurisprudence works arranged by chapter, compiled in Medina. Its most widely read transmission is the recension of Yahya ibn Yahya al-Laythi.
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