Abu Hanifa Nu’man the son of thabit, was born at basara in the year 80./699 A.D. In his early life, he lived in kufa as a manufacture and merchant of a kind of silk material. From his early childhood he was marked as an intelligent person and was known for his piety. He was a student of Hammad bin Abi sulaiman (d. 120) who tough theology in kufa. He also learnt from ‘Ata’ bin Abi Rabah in Macca, and the number of other well known scholars of that time. When his teacher hammad died, Abu hanifa become the foremost authority on question of religion law in kufa.
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• The Outlines of Islamic Theology and Its Sources
A large number of student were attracted by him from different part of muslim world who come to learn fiqh from him. Al- Mansur (136 A.H./754 A.D.) THE Abbasid caliph invited him to come to Baghdad, the newly founded capital. He was offered the important post of a Qadi (judge), but the imam refused the offer. As a result, Mansur ordered him to be thrown in to prison.
He become a victim of persecution so much so that he was flogged in order to make him accept the post of the qadi, when all his effort failed. At last he died in prison in Baghdad in 150 A.H./767 A.D. At the age of seventy. He is buried at the same place which is known as A’zamiyya given after the imam’s epithet ‘al-imam al-A’zam
Abu hanifa was a cary great theologian whose school of though of Islamic theology is known as the hanfite school.
He played the role of a theatrical systematizer who achieve a great success in technical legal thought. Since he had not accepted any position under the khalfa, he was free I giving legal decision without any fear or favour. Imam Abu hanifa’s legal thought shows of high degree of reasoning. He used his personal judgment (Ra’y) and conclusion by analogy (Qiyas) to the extent customary in the school of Islamic law of that time. He avoided extremes and relied on scriptural rather then on ration proofs. He is known in the hanafite world as imam al-a’zam, the great imam.
His well known work are Al-alim wal muta-alim (the teacher and the pupils), fiqh al-akbar (the great theology) and his famous wasiya addressed to his disciple Yusuf bin khald Al-sumti al-basri. He was one of the most vigorous personalities of islam which he has profoundly influenced in its historical development. There are approximately 340 million followers of the hanafi school of fiqh in the world, mostly concentration in India, Pakistan, Turkey, Afghanistan, Indo-China, China and Soviet Russia.