Abdur Rahman ibn Yusuf Mangera – LESSONS FROM THE LIFE OF IMAM ABU HANIFA
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Bismillah R Rahman Rahim Alhamdulillah
Alhamdulillah here on behalf Alameen wa Salatu was Salam ala I
didn't look earthy Ramadan lil I mean, what other early he was sabe
odaka was a limited Sleeman cathedral
Illa Yomi. Dean, a mother
Mother respected brothers and sisters. Now we're under Ma.
This program today it's been convened
to discuss the life of Imam Altham. The greatest Imam.
We don't say this term the greatest Imam just as a rhetoric.
It's not a rhetoric that's actually the title that's been
bestowed upon him by
many of the scholars of the past. And that's what he's been so
famously known by that title, that area in Baghdad today where his
tomb is and where he was buried, it's called out of the media. So
out of the media is actually
attributed to Imam out of home. So have a means the greatest. So this
entire area is now called out of Armenia, which is this area of
Baghdad, just like you have other areas of Baghdad like and other
areas, like in Istanbul, you have the UB area, because about a year
but on Saudi on the Allahu Anhu is buried there. So that's what shows
that when an area can be renamed by a person, then that shows their
greatness and that shows their acceptance to a certain degree as
well.
Now, this man was a very interesting, extremely interesting
individual. And we could probably speak all day about him. Today I
have prepared, I haven't really prepared any kind of systematic
discussion or some kind of academic essay on him, I'm really
going to be speaking at random about things that just stand out
to me and that are very inspirational for me from his
life, and hopefully inshallah we can benefit. We have a very short
amount of time. But in that time, what I want to mention is that
the way he starts off his obviously as a merchant, and not
as a scholar, but while he is a merchant, it appears that he
gained so much knowledge just by discussing with people. He's a
merchant in Kufa
and Kufa is a garrison town that was established by the Muslims.
Kufa and Basra were two towns that were established by the during the
time where a lot of the Allahu Anhu for the Sahaba that had come
over from Madina Munawwara and wanted to settle in Iraq after it
had been after they come under the Islamic Islamic rule. So Kufa was
a bustling place today, it doesn't seem like it's got the same bustle
and hustle. But in that day, that was an extremely cosmopolitan
society and you can imagine a place like London Basara was
probably a bit more like Birmingham. Right? Some people
will understand what I mean. But Kufa was Kufa had its issues Kufa
had its issues as well. In fact, according to some people, they
consider Kufa Hello Shirataki when the fuck right that the people
have disputes, because they there was a problem earlier on when it
Radi Allahu Anhu. In fact, once somebody said that to Abu Hanifa,
that that's the area he comes from, and he was in Madina
Munawwara so he responded when we had in Medina de Mara Diwan, and
he felt that from the people of Medina, there are certain people
who,
you know, who are very strong and hypocrisy. So, the thing about the
Mongol Hanifa is that during this time as a merchant, it seems like
he picked up a lot of knowledge just by discussing with people
because somebody comes to your shop and you're selling cloth in a
cloth is something you show people you discuss with them. And if
you're a person of interest in your person who's interested in
discussion, in conversation, you're going to be speaking to
these people. So he seems to have become a great theologian first,
in the sense that he'd mastered theology, he went to Basra over 20
times to go and debate with the SEC terrariums. Anyway, that's a
long history. I want to move on beyond that. What are the few
things that I find with him is that when he finally turned to
studying the knowledge formally, and he sat at the feet of hammered
and he began to study Fick, that's he excelled in that Imam Abu
Hanifa was a natural genius. That's what I would say. He was an
absolutely natural genius. Whatever he picked up, he excelled
up extremely proficient, extremely proficient. We're just really
happy to have
Come on outside. Let's put it that way. Right. So, what happens is he
studies flipped and he musters it. His teacher eventually passes
away. He takes his place he starts teaching. This young this young
person comes along and begins to study by him. After a few days
that young man disappears.
He disappears. Imam Abu Hanifa Rahim Allah had seen a spark of
interest in this young individual. He goes and inquires about him,
Where is he gone? Apparently, this young individual was somebody from
a very poor background, it fought his father had pulled him out of
the mother's out of the studies after some days or whatever,
because he needed to earn a living for him. So he put him to work
young, young person. So in Abu Hanifa, discovered this, so he
said, you know, he went to his father, he said, I'll pay for
whatever he is going to earn in a day, I'll pay you that much. You
just let him study with me in Abu Hanifa did not close his business
when he carried on when he when he turned to formal study, he did not
close his business, he had somebody else look after it, he
had somebody else take care of it, you know, he had employees to look
after the business. So he continued that he was extremely
generous of nature, you can understand from this, that because
he wanted this particular student who'd he'd seen a, you know, a
genius in, he wanted him to study this was none other than Imam Abu
use of the second great Imam that we have among our founding Imams.
He actually paid for his study. He paid for his study to study with
him. So he took him away from his father. They said he will study
with me, I'll pay you Subhanallah and I wouldn't mind you know, if
somebody did that for me, you know, gone study and they'll pay
my father will pay me I don't mind Bismillah SubhanAllah. Anyway,
today today to actually do that post PhD. Post, would you call it
a post doctoral research, they pay you to sit and read and right?
Unfortunately, Muslims don't do that. Unfortunately, we don't have
that heritage anymore. Right where we can take our students and spend
money to develop them further. You know, subhanAllah the universities
do that today. May Allah subhanaw taala give us that trophy. So now
he because he is teaching fifth he spends huge amounts of money on
the profits he makes from his business he spends it on earlier
mark, Sophia and authority sorry Sophia Marina used to be his
contemporary once one of the students that remarkable Hanifa
met Sophia Lebanon Marina and Sophia Marina Rahim Allah he says
to him, that what's wrong with your Imam, he gives us so many
senses, so many gifts, that we're embarrassed to take it. It's like
an embarrassment in the sense that you know, one is you go and give
somebody a pen as a gift. You know, better still you go and buy
somebody, you know, Galaxy Note, right? I don't like iPhones. So,
you know, you give somebody a Galaxy Note or something like
that. Another one is that you know, you go and buy him a car.
That's a bigger gift. But one is that you give him so much that
they even embarrassed to take it. Like man, you're giving me so
much. How can you do that? It's just too much. So so if you're in
an arena went and said that to one of the students who Abu Hanifa
Imam Abu Hanifa Rahim Allah, the students said to him, you're lucky
you only get damages others will get even more than you. So he was
extremely generous, extremely generous. And what I actually
wanted to do today, which I don't think we have the time to do is
actually wanted to go through his letter his Wuxia, his special
advices and his a pistol that he had written to one of his star
students of manual but to us from bizarro, we don't have the time to
go through him but one of them is that he tells him You need to
spend on people, you need to feed people you need to give them gifts
you need to you need to look after them. That's really beneficial for
an algorithm to to build a build a connection with the people and he
says that no person who has miserliness can ever be a leader.
Leadership quality is that generosity goes with it. So
anybody wants to be a leader or assume any kind of leadership role
generosity has to be part of your trait. Otherwise you can't and you
might want even showed us that in practice himself.
Now, the other thing randomly that I just want to mention in that
regard is when Imam Abu Hanifa he used to go often to the Haramain
he used to go to the holy centuries often and on one of
those occasions he met with Imam Malik Rahim Allah Imam Malik was
this contemporary Imam Shafi was interestingly born in the year
that Imam Abu Hanifa passed away under in 50 Hijiri. That's when
you are well Hanifa passed away that's the year Imam Shafi was
born right one great Imam replacing another SRG but Imam
Malik Rahim Allah was his contemporary. So on one occasion
they went he went to visit him and after he left somebody asked him
Amharic, that what do you think of this email? What do you think of
EMO Hanifa he says Wallah here are eight origin and lo que la Mojave
Surya de the Herban la cama be her Jetty he says that I've seen such
a man that if he said this pillar is made of gold, he'd probably be
able to, to establish evidence and prove that it is. That's how quick
of mind that's how shrewd he was. That's how how his Intel
It was so profound, he was an absolute genius. There's no doubt
about him. One of the points I want to make in that regard is
that this whole discussion about the Hanafi is being far from
Hadith. This is not the time to go into it in detail, but just some
of the points that I've picked up because recently I taught a course
on HANA fees and Hadith, how the HANA fees and Hadith scholarship
will suit will Hadith theory, you know, Hadith theory that's what I
that's what I thought what I understood from there is that
let's take a few examples. You have Imam Mohammed a che Bernie
Imam Muhammad a che Bernie has been considered to be one of the
youngest and brightest people that studied with him Abu Hanifa he was
very young when he studied with him, you probably studied with him
in his teams in his late teens before him Abu Hanifa passed away
he had actually come to us a masala he had had a * the
night before. And he came to ask an issue that does he have to pray
isha prayer or not if he had a wet dream, and then when he got the
response, he went to the site and he prayed. He went and he prayed
as he prayed is called our prayer. Then he came in, he sat in the
machinists, and then he became a student of Hanifa. And he is the
one who is now responsible for transmitting the Hanafi school the
authentic narrations of the Hanafi school called the Dahiru rewire
the six famous books and then beyond that, the newer that etc.
So now, when you when you look at a person like Imam Abu Yusuf,
sorry, Imam, Imam Mohammed a che Bernie, he studies at a very young
age with remarkable Hanifa. Then he goes to after Imam Abu Hanifa
as death, he goes to Madina, Munawwara he studies under none
other than Imam Malik. And he studies within not just for a few
days, he studies with him in a way that he's able to relate them
water. So he has his own recension of the motto from Imam Malik
called the water of Imam Muhammad. You know, it's a bit different
from the why it's much of it is the same, but there's some
difference where he's taken some durations is is omitted others and
so on and so forth. But what's most interesting is he comes back,
and he does not lose his faith in the Hanafi school.
Generally speaking, when you've had one teacher, then you go to
another profound teacher, there's an impact, there's no doubt
there's an impact on that, right of that second teacher on you. But
here you have that he is so faithful to his Imam, that he
actually considers himself the Hanafi and so on. And he continues
to teach that interview school and relate from his teacher. Yes, he's
got the one book for me my Malik Rahim Allah, but the majority of
his fitment is Messiah are related from Abu Hanifa. That goes to show
that he must have seen something quite amazing in Abu Hanifa Rahim
Allah that did that he did not want to leave and abandon. He
found that to be more profound than anything else. Number two,
let's take another example. These are again random examples from
history. Another one is himanta Javi. I mean, you know, he's a man
again of great learning. Great,
great proficiency again, he's a chef he starts with the chef he
his mother's a Shafi scholar, his uncle's a chef is called a
Mussolini, who is an imam Shafi his right hand man, you aren't
sure wasn't he is the one who says that people have not really
understood the the position of Imam Shafi and his real status.
Imam Shafi was very, very young when he passed away, but within
that time, he was able to acquire so much Musa and he said that
people have not really understood the status of Imam Shafi they
could not have because they did not have the level of intellect to
understand the higher level of intellect that Imam Shafi had,
they just knew him to be a great scholar. When you see about 10
scholars you say mashallah, they're all great scholars, but
only the scholars will know who's really a great scholar Subhanallah
because it's only a doctor that will know who's a good doctor for
us. They all doctors, they've got a medical certificate on their
wall. Right, and we'll go to them. So that's Mr. muslin. He said that
now, when you have somebody like him, and then you, you have
Moosonee, you have the mother of Imam, Imam, Imam, the Howey, who's
a Sharpie jurist, but then he himself turns to the Hanafi school
and becomes such a staunch Hanafy what does that tell you? You know,
you hardly see conversions from the Hanafi stew elsewhere, you
hardly see it. It's a possibility and they may have occurred Walla,
Harlem, but generally what you see is so many people converting to
the Hanafi school. Right? There is another example that I'd like to
give a very profound example, one of the first and the founding Zulu
Hadith books of the Hanafi school from which the likes of just sauce
busily Sarasi and all the later all the latest scholars have taken
from the Boosey et cetera have taken from is that is the book of
Isa ignore a burn Rahim Allah isa ignore a ban is a student of is a
student of Imam, Imam Muhammad as well. And Isa if not above, we
first did not want was not interested in the Hanafi school.
He used to think that they go against the Hadith. It's a common
common thing they go against Hadith so
On one occasion Mohamed El Nino summer. Muhammad Musa Omar was a
was another student of Imam Abu Hanifa. He wants took him to sit
in the dark and he would constantly refuse to go but one
day he sat with Imam Muhammad. And after after the dose was over a
Muhammad Yunus Allah says that this is our friend who reckons
that, you know, we go against Hadith. So he says, okay, ask you
a question, what what question do you have? So he came with a number
of questions. And the response he got was so sufficient for him,
that from that day, he left everything else and went and
started to study with, with the Imam that was just quite amazing.
Now what you understand is somebody who's opposing him, he's
he's come with his come with this understanding with this
preconceived baggage that there's a problem here they don't
understand. They don't really follow Hadith, they just follow
their opinion, their PRs and analogy is too far fetched. It
doesn't really relate to the Hadith and so on. Yet when he
listens to the responses, he is convinced, you have another
another simple example, which many of you may have heard of aqmesh
was the Hadith Sulaiman lavish. He was the he was a teacher of Abu
Hanifa Rahim Allah in terms of transmission of Hadith. But then
when it came to fic, he studied under him Abu Hanifa, because on
one occasion, what happened is he came to him Abu Hanifa. And he
said to him, he asked him a particular issue in Abu Hanifa
gave him a response. He says, Where did you get that response
from? Where did you infer that ruling from How did you
extrapolate that ruling? That judgment? Where did you get it
from? So that immobile Hanifa very casually, he says, I relate from
aqmesh, who relates from so and so from so and so from so and so from
Rasulullah sallallahu wasallam, that he said this, that's when it
clicked to mush, that the Hadith that he had related to Imam Abu
Hanifa was the response and was the basis for the ruling that he
was looking for. That's when he made that famous statement, where
he said that that we the Hadith scholars, the Hadith transmitters,
are merely like pharmacists who collect medicine, who stock
medicine, who dispense it based on the recommendations of a doctor,
whereas the jurists, the fuqaha, they are like the physicians, the
doctors that are able to understand the issue, and to
extrapolate and to infer a ruling and provide that ruling. That's
when he realized that's when he realized that and he studied under
him Abu Hanifa, like that. So what makes it that these people become
convinced after after being opposed, they become convinced
that's that's the amazing part. So after reading all of that, I
really, really thought about this for a while. And what I realized,
what I realized was that the reason why you had the opposition
in the beginning, and then the conversion afterwards had to be
for one reason. Now listen to this carefully. The mindset of the
founding Imams, the way Imam Abu Hanifa through his great
intellectual acumen, and what he had developed within Imams who use
of Imam Mohammed, Imam Zuko and all the other Yeah, he's not a
visa either. And all the other great scholars that he had around
him was this penetrating insights on taking a hadith and actualizing
it on operationalizing it on applying it to the situation, that
has been always the context of the Hanafi school. That's always been
the drive of the Hanafi school, that what they do is they take the
Hadith and it's not just about preservation of the Hadith. That's
the difference. If you look at the books of also like for example, if
you look at the whatever is retained of the sola, sola hadith
of, of Isa ESA, if not a ban Rahim Allah that's been retained
retained in the books of Imam just sauce Arrazi. And Buster, we in
surrogacy, what you will notice is that all of the Kosovo Hadith
rules, they all based on trying to operationalize the Hadith. How do
we take this narration, this hadith and apply it to this
situation? They're not bothered about just preservation. They want
to preserve it through action. That's the difference. So it's a
very practical school, the Hanafi school has been considered to be
the most practical schools. That's why it's been it's been the
mothers of the Abbasids. They prefer the copies of the different
areas to be Hanafis. Whenever a call the would come up a certain
mother. That's how the mother would then that's when the mother
would then spread in the area. Let me just die. Let me let me just
digress. Let me just digress slightly, it when are we talking
about Basara during the time of remarkable Hanifa, the teachings
of the Abu Hanifa had not reached Basara. Yes, he'd gone there to
debate on a theological level. But when you talk about jurisprudence,
the bathrooms, they had other Imams that they follow, they had
other jurisprudence that they followed. When this birth manual,
Betty finished studying with him Abu Hanifa and he wanted to go
back to busser his hometown in Abu Hanifa told him Let me give you a
few advices among that advices that what I don't want you
Want to do is I don't want you to go there and start teaching and
saying called Abu Hanifa Ganga called Abu Hanifa. Gather that,
you know, Abu Hanifa said this and I don't want you to go and start
spreading my mother like that people will will take you out of
the Masjid. They'll chase you out. But when ISA is not about actually
went to Bassam, he did not listen to this advice. He had a lot of
zeal, he wanted to teach what he had learned. So immediately, he
started teaching St. Cod, Abu Hanifa haka, called Abu Hanifa
together, and so on. And they chased him out of domestic because
he was coming with something kind of foreign to them. Remember,
that's the time of the development of the schools, development of
juristic learning. So they had their own Imams they were they
were great scholars in, in Barcelona as well, however, very
different to that. Imam Zoofari, Abu Hussain, who is much older,
and he was also shooting Abu Hanifa, from Barcelona. He was
also one of the Greek families of buzzer when he finished studying
and he went to Basava. What he first did was, he went and sat in
the other groups of, of jurisprudence, the other muscle
groups that the other scholars are teaching you, it's there, and he
would listen. And then when it was time for discussion in those days,
it wasn't just like one person teaching and everybody listening,
he used to be discussion. That was the method even in mo Hanif has
mentioned this as well. So when he when the time came to discussion,
he would acknowledge their opinion. In fact, that's exactly
what he mobile Hanifa told with mono bhakti that you go and
listen, if they ask you a question, you should give them a
response they used to first then tell them oh, there's another
opinion. And this is the Deal of that opinion. Right? And this
works very well. When I first moved to America, I was in a
community where there were no Indians, no Pakistanis, and maybe
one or two Bangladeshis. So hardly any Hanafis It was mostly Arabs
from different communities, some of unease and a lot of converts.
Now initially, I'm there I just come out of, you know, studying
the Torah to Hadith. I actually had retained a lot of the, you
know, a lot of what had been taught there about Imam Shafi his
opinion, Imam, Imam Malik's opinion. And I used to give all of
that because I wanted people to be able to relate. But later, what I
discovered discovered is that that confused people. So what I would
do is if I would see that there's somebody from North Africa there,
I would I was asked a question, I would give a Maliki response
without saying it's Maliki. I would say certain scholars say
this, but then there's another opinion, and then I would give the
Hanafi opinion, and I'd say, and the reason for it is this. And you
see, because when somebody's been following something all their
life, that's what they've been following. And you come with a
totally new opinion, like some of these people do, and they want to
change you, right? And they want no other way, but the highway,
right? The you're gonna really confuse them, you will make them
oppose to you. So this way they can, you've acknowledged that you
understand their opinion that they've been following as the
Medicare in North African opinion or whatever. But then you've shown
them another opinion, and you've provided evidence for it. And this
is what I learned from Abu Hanifa. In practice, this is what I
learned. So Imams, before he went, he sat in the majorities, but he
used to just sit and then he used to mention that, Oh, there's
another opinion on this issue. He never mentioned the name of whose
opinion it is used to mention, oh, this is. So there's another
opinion, it is like this, and this is the deal for it. After a few
days, a few months, or whatever it was, they became really curious,
where is this person getting all of these amazing opinions from,
you know, these amazing extrapolations and inferences?
Where's he getting them from? So when they asked him whose opinion
is this, then he told him this is the opinion of Abu Hanifa by this
time, because people had respect had grown for those opinions. Now
they were able to accept this opinion. That's how the eventually
in busser, the Hanafi school spreads through busta Subhanallah
so this is all about wisdom you Abu Hanifa one thing if you look
at his advices he gave all his practical advices because he dealt
with people he was really really practical. On one occasion
somebody came to him and he said to him, he was scruffy is the Imam
Abu Hanifa said to him that you know after the Darcy says you know
there's some money under this rug here go and Ursula cannot go in
such a situation go and get some nice clothes and so on. He says
I've got money is this and why do you dress like this for why do you
dress like this for so then you Mambo Khalifa advised him he says
that there's no point dressing like somebody in a way that makes
people sorry for you, it makes your friends feel like you know,
sorry for you that you know, they need to help you out. So these are
very practical advices that he would give.
Now, Imam Abu Hanifa was not just the raw jurist, not just a pure
academic. And you know, in fact, he was he was so great in his
worship, right and in his generosity and in his, in his
wallet and in his Taqwa that there's a number of stories that
are related to that which we don't have time to go into. I'll just
mention one story. As you as you know, he was a cloth merchant. He
was a cloth merchant. On one occasion, he told his, one of his
workers that look, we need to go and deliver this particular ream
of cloth to such and such a person. There's a defect on this
cloth, you know, used to be hand woven, so there's a defect in day
was in the middle somewhere. Generally when a person takes it
from there, not necessarily check every single part of it. Once the
deal is done, it's done. So he says, I want you to make sure that
you inform them that there is a problem here. Now the worker he
went on
He was probably in a hurry or whatever he forgot. He just
delivered the cloth took the money and came back when he Manuel
Hanifa inquired afterwards, did you? Did you tell him? He says,
no, I forgot. So then when they tried to go and look for that
person again, they couldn't find him again. He was maybe some
travel or something. So now what did you Abu Hanifa doing? We would
say, well, that's I tried my best colors, finish, let's use the
money. But he donated that entire amount. Not even like the amount
of the defect hidden, donated the entire amount. Right? There's
numerous stories of this type. There's numerous stories of this
type, I will suggest that you know, you go and read some books
on it, you'll understand who this great Imam is you'll you know, you
really understand who this who this person is. So going back to
the point, what I my theory is, and I think I have some backing in
this regard, is that the level of proficiency and insight that the
Hanafi Imams had in Hadith, and how they could extrapolate rulings
that others could not see. This is what initially led people to say,
accused them of going just according to opinion, and not
according to Hadith, but when the when the issue was laid clear,
there is another example Jaffa sodic. Same thing he says, How can
you dispute the hadith of my grandfather, you know, from my
grandfather, he says how so? He says, Well, you say this, he says
no, this is what I do. If if that was the case, then I would never
have I would never have said that you make muscle on the top of your
feet I would have said you make it at the bottom because on the
bottom of your socks because leather socks because that's what
gets dirty not the top part but I go with the narration in this and
there are so many cases like that. So when people recognize the depth
of knowledge and the depth of inference and profound insight,
then they recognize okay, but when they don't do that just
superficially because they can't see it. They claim that they they
allege that these people are against the Hadith. So when it
comes to his piety as well. He has been mentioned for example by
Allah Maha Rani in his in his taba Katana Olia in Sabah Katanga
earlier, he's mentioned him in there as well. To finish off, what
I want to mention is that you need to understand this month. It's a
very practical method. I know there's one issue that we suffer
from, right and I'll be very honest about it is that Jamal Bina
Salatin, the combining the press, that's the toughest issue in the
Hanafi school, right the other Imams, they it's very easy for the
followers or you Gemma, you know you, you combine the Quran acid
when you're on a travel on a journey, when you're traveling or
Maghrib and Isha and 100 views, we can't do that, according to the
superior opinion within the mother. That's the difficult part.
But in everything else, we look at value and everything else. It's
had the greatest exposure, it's had exposure in India, it's had
exposure in the Ottomans for 700 years, it had it's had exposure to
the Abbasids the majority of our history has been filled with
dominated with the Hanafi school. And today, at least half of the
Muslims around the world are Hanafis at least, and they seem to
be the most closest to their school in general wherever they
go, because it's such a practical school. May Allah subhana wa Tada
fill the grave of the great Imam and of all the founding Imams and
all the mache of all the great fuqaha of the past until our day
may Allah subhanho wa Taala fill their graves in newer May Allah
reward them abundantly on our behalf for this great
extrapolation they've done And subhanAllah one last thing you
know, Abu Hanifa was asked after his death in a dream. He was asked
that you know what, what what is it that helped you all your faith,
etc? He says no, what helped me was everybody's criticism, and all
this or everything, all the extension of their tongue and the
bad things that they said about me. That is what really helped me
because that gives me what we can do Heba about people when you
slander people and so on and so forth. Well, he read Darwin annual
hamdu Lillahi Rabbil Alameen