Kitab Ikhtilaf al-Iraqiyyin (The Disagreement of the Iraqis)

The Book of the Disagreement of the Iraqis is book 68 in the Dar al-Wafa' numbering of al-Shafi'i's al-Umm; its opening line reads: "This is the book of what Abu Hanifa and Ibn Abi Layla disagreed on, from Abu Yusuf." ¹ The two Iraqis are the Kufan jurists Abu Hanifa and Muhammad ibn Abd al-Rahman ibn Abi Layla, and the narrator of their disagreement is Abu Hanifa's companion Abu Yusuf. ¹

It states a question: Abu Hanifa used to say this, "and he takes it", meaning Abu Yusuf, and Ibn Abi Layla used to say that; then al-Shafi'i comments with his own view and argument. ¹ The first example: a man gave cloth to a tailor, who made it into an outer coat (qaba'); the owner says "I told you a shirt", the tailor "you told me a coat"; Abu Hanifa takes the owner's word and makes the tailor liable for the cloth's value, and Abu Yusuf follows him; Ibn Abi Layla takes the tailor's word. ¹ Then comes the loss of cloth with the tailor, fuller and dyer, with the three views and al-Shafi'i's comment, given in the entry on liability of craftsmen. ^{1 2}

In his comments al-Shafi'i cites reports with his own chains and judges them: he says Ali's holding the washer and dyer liable "is narrated by a route whose like the hadith scholars do not accept", and that what is narrated from Umar on liability is weaker still. ² The editor adds in the notes the sources of Abu Hanifa's and Abu Yusuf's views in Muhammad ibn al-Hasan's al-Athar and in the Musannafs of Abd al-Razzaq and Ibn Abi Shayba. ^{1 2}

The running heads of this edition show its chapters: usurpation, disputes over defects, sale of fruit before it ripens, silent partnership, salam, pre-emption, sharecropping, claims and settlement, alms and gifts, deposits, pledges, transfer of debt and suretyship, debt, oaths, bequests, inheritance, executors, partnership and manumission, the contracted slave, vows, loans for use, hire, division of property, prayer, the prayer of fear, zakat, fasting, pilgrimage, blood-money, theft, judgeship, slander, marriage, divorce and hadd penalties. ^{3 4 5 6 7 8 9}

Only the opening of the book and its chapter heads were read; what scholars have said about its relation to Abu Yusuf's own separate transmission is not given in this batch.