Discussion of Imam Abu Hanifah.
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The questioner: ....Distributing a brick... buying car goods ... ?
The Shaykh: ... I have not seen a Hanafi who wrote about Abu Hanifah and was fair to history, ... who closes his eyes to all the reports of the Imams who are beyond reproach when they spoke about Abu Hanifah, and who resorts to insinuation and criticism regarding al-Khatib and al-Daraqutni, and this sectarian bias in hadith studies led him to be overly strict, because he knows that these are early Imams, and there is absolutely no room for fault-finding with them, so they do not mention him at all, and they certainly, in their own selves or in the depths of their hearts, do not distinguish between Imam al-Bukhari, or indeed Imam Ahmad, or Abdullah ibn al-Mubarak, or other early scholars who spoke about the Imam, and the later scholars like al-Uqayli and al-Khatib and the like, in that none of their weakening of Abu Hanifah has any value, as long as Abu Hanifah is above everyone, and as we heard tonight, he is the master of all, but they know that the majority of scholars, and even students, do not accept their criticism of these early Imams, and therefore they do not engage in such things.
But the researcher understands that their speech is like the speech of these later scholars who explicitly name them, because Abu Hanifah is above all criticism, and the truth is that the matter is simpler than they imagine, because the criticism of Abu Hanifah regarding the science of narration is only about his memorization, so let him leave... and this pre-Islamic ignorance and sectarian bias, that ... Abu Hanifah is a Hafez, and they mentioned that Imam al-Dhahabi, this completely confirms their misguidance, he mentioned it in al-Tadhkirah, so he is a Hafez.
The questioner: ... he has a research ...
The Shaykh: It was printed
The questioner: I do not know if it is printed ... the brother mentions this about his research, he said: it appears that he went through the hadiths narrated by Abu Hanifah that he came across, and compared them with the narrations of others, and from these comparisons and studies he said this is the method for knowing whether a narrator is trustworthy or weak? By tracking and induction and so on, he said: this method with these statements, does this not indicate that we should focus on this aspect?
The Shaykh: ... meaning that Abu Hanifah does not have known hadiths, no, he certainly has what is attributed to him, but I say there is not for Abu Hanifah ... what can be legislated upon like this research and criticism, meaning where does the person return to for this material, so the athar of Muhammad ibn al-Hasan al-Shaybani and Abu Yusuf ... are these specific books attributed to Muhammad ibn al-Hasan and Abu Yusuf, narrated from them in the way of hadith scholars or in the way of Hanafi jurists, so this is a point that such a researcher must address, if his research is hadith-based ...
The Shaykh: ... I have not seen a Hanafi who wrote about Abu Hanifah and was fair to history, ... who closes his eyes to all the reports of the Imams who are beyond reproach when they spoke about Abu Hanifah, and who resorts to insinuation and criticism regarding al-Khatib and al-Daraqutni, and this sectarian bias in hadith studies led him to be overly strict, because he knows that these are early Imams, and there is absolutely no room for fault-finding with them, so they do not mention him at all, and they certainly, in their own selves or in the depths of their hearts, do not distinguish between Imam al-Bukhari, or indeed Imam Ahmad, or Abdullah ibn al-Mubarak, or other early scholars who spoke about the Imam, and the later scholars like al-Uqayli and al-Khatib and the like, in that none of their weakening of Abu Hanifah has any value, as long as Abu Hanifah is above everyone, and as we heard tonight, he is the master of all, but they know that the majority of scholars, and even students, do not accept their criticism of these early Imams, and therefore they do not engage in such things.
But the researcher understands that their speech is like the speech of these later scholars who explicitly name them, because Abu Hanifah is above all criticism, and the truth is that the matter is simpler than they imagine, because the criticism of Abu Hanifah regarding the science of narration is only about his memorization, so let him leave... and this pre-Islamic ignorance and sectarian bias, that ... Abu Hanifah is a Hafez, and they mentioned that Imam al-Dhahabi, this completely confirms their misguidance, he mentioned it in al-Tadhkirah, so he is a Hafez.
The questioner: ... he has a research ...
The Shaykh: It was printed
The questioner: I do not know if it is printed ... the brother mentions this about his research, he said: it appears that he went through the hadiths narrated by Abu Hanifah that he came across, and compared them with the narrations of others, and from these comparisons and studies he said this is the method for knowing whether a narrator is trustworthy or weak? By tracking and induction and so on, he said: this method with these statements, does this not indicate that we should focus on this aspect?
The Shaykh: ... meaning that Abu Hanifah does not have known hadiths, no, he certainly has what is attributed to him, but I say there is not for Abu Hanifah ... what can be legislated upon like this research and criticism, meaning where does the person return to for this material, so the athar of Muhammad ibn al-Hasan al-Shaybani and Abu Yusuf ... are these specific books attributed to Muhammad ibn al-Hasan and Abu Yusuf, narrated from them in the way of hadith scholars or in the way of Hanafi jurists, so this is a point that such a researcher must address, if his research is hadith-based ...
Source
www.al-albany.com
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