The eighth leading jurisprudent: Ahmad b. Hanbal al-Shaybani (241/855)

Abu 'Ubaydillah Ahmad b. Muhammad b. Hanbal b. Hilal al-Shaybani (164—241/781—855) attended the circle of al-Qadi Abu Yusuf, but eventually left it in 187/803 and became at­tracted to hadith.

A Shafi'i jurist, he gradually became an independent mujtahid who taught such hadith scholars as al-Bukhari, Muslim, al-Shafi'i, Abu Dawud, who wrote about him in his Kitab al-Sunan,⁴⁹ and his two sons Salih and 'Abdullah b. Hanbal was an ‘imam of hadith’ and an ascetic who was concerned with the points of law in all their details. Al-Shafi'i, despite his wide knowledge, relied upon Ibn Hanbal’s views with respect to hadith and frequently praised him for his righteousness and the high caliber of his scholarship. Ibn Hanbal took a firm stand under the Caliphs al-Mu tasim and his son al-Wathiq on the Qur'an’s createdness and was imprisoned and flogged as a consequence. Later on, he was offered — and declined — the governorship of Yemen. Some scholars, such as Ibn Jarir al-Tabari, al-Tahawi, al-Dusi, al-Nasafi, Abu Hamid al-Ghazali, Ibn Qutayba, al-Maqdisi, and Ibn 'Abd al-Barr dispute his authority in hadith. In the Fihrist, Ibn al-Nadim dedicated less attention to this schol­ar’s authority in law than he did to those of Malik, Abu Hanifa, Dawud, and their affiliates on the grounds that Ibn Hanbal was more involved in scholarship on hadith than in legal scholarship. His Musnad contains 30,000 hadith, none of which are repetitions, filtered out of 750,000 reports. Al-Qadi 'Iyad states that Ibn Hanbal is a leading hadith authority and no one should oppose his status.

Ibn Hanbal’s legal rulings were based on five principles. The first category (a) was that of explicit textual rulings of the Qur'an and Sunnah — if they existed, they would stand, in his view, even if they were opposed by other views. The second category (b) was that of the Companions’ legal opinions. Any fatwa from a Companion that has no known opposition should be considered. The third category (c) was that of selection from the variety of views adopted by the Companions. If there was disagreement among them regarding a legal ruling, one should select the most suitable view from the perspective of the Qur'an and the Sunnah and not go beyond the spectrum of their opinions. If one cannot arrive at a single preferred opinion, the issue of legal dissent (ikhtilaf) should be addressed by discarding the opinions of all others besides the Companions. The fourth category consisted of (d) the acceptance of hadith reports that were either mursal (discontinued or disconnected, especially at the level of a Companion) or da'Tf (weak), as long as there was no need to trace them back to the original source. If there is a lack of consensus on a disputed issue, a weak hadith report should be given priority over an analogical argument. The fifth category was that of legal analogy (qiyds); Ibn Hanbal admitted the use of analogy if necessary.

Sometimes Ibn Hanbal refrained from issuing a legal responsum when a conflict of evi­dence arose, the Companions had different interpretations, or a saying of a Companion or a Successor could not be found.

Ibn Hanbal’s views were deeply anchored in the transmitted opinions associated with historical and surviving legal schools, especially regarding the Companions’ deeds and prec­edents. Because most of Ibn Hanbal’s followers were from Baghdad, his legal school man­aged to survive and spread. In addition to his Musnad, his Kitab 'Hal al-Hadith illustrated his ability to classify the relative authority and biographies of hadith transmitters and the hadiths they reported. His Kitab al-Masa'il consists of his answers to his disciples on matters of subsidiary and fundamental legal cases. His disciple Abu Bakr al-Khallal (d. 311/923) compiled this work for inclusion in his al-Jami' li- 'Ulum al-lmam Ahmad. He also authored Kitab al-Tafsir, Kitab al-Nasikh wa-l-Mansukh, Kitab al-Zuhd, Kitab al-Fada'il, Kitab al-Fara'id, Kitab al-Manasik, Kitab al-lman, Kitab al-Radd 'ala al-Jahmiyya, Kitab al-Ashriba, and Kitab Ta 'at Rasul Allah.⁵³