The Fuqahaa have a unique way of reconciling apparently contradictory texts within the Quran and Sunnah. It’s a very rigorous filtering process to try their best at arriving at the truth. Each of the four schools has their own methodology and there is some overlap in some cases. The following is a brief description that …
How the Hanbali School Deals with Contradictory Evidence Read More »
As I delve deeper into Usool al-Fiqh and Fiqh studies, I can see why it is so important for a jurist to learn Usool. A student who studies Fiqh without Usool al-Fiqh is like a person who learns answers to questions without understanding how the solutions came to be. The jurists lay out their legal …
These are my notes from the lectures of Sh. ‘Amir Bahjat, a Hanbali scholar based in Saudi Arabia, explaining the classical text on Usool al-Fiqh entitled al-Waraqat by the Shafi’ scholar Imam al-Haramayn, the teacher of the famous Imam al-Ghazali. The book gives an excellent bird’s eye view of the field of Usool al-Fiqh. It …
Notes on al-Waraqat: Introduction to Usool al-Fiqh Read More »
These are my complete notes on the book as taught to us by Ust. Ahmad Zayn al-‘Abidin in Arabic, which is now available on YouTube. Sh. Ibn ‘Uthyameen’s work is a very useful book to get an introduction to Hanbali usool. There are not enough good books in the English language on Hanbali fiqh and …
The following are my notes from a lecture explaining one of the chapters in Shaykh al-Uthyameen’s book al-Usool min ‘ilm al-Usool. It is a basic level book on Hanbali usool. Definition of knowledge: Knowledge is a definitive realization of something based on its true reality Not having any realization or understanding of something is referred …
Notes from Abu Zahra’s ‘The Four Imams: Their Lives, Works, and Their Schools of Thought’ Overview of Imam Ahmad’s Life Imam Ahmad did not write a book on fiqh (jurisprudence) In the beginning of his career, he refused anything to be recorded from him on the subject of fiqh. He didn’t consider it proper He …
Most Famous of Ahmad’s Teachers Abu Yusuf Al-Qadhi Hasheem ibn Basheer Al-Shafi’ Some said they were more like peers who benefited from each another Ismail ibn ‘Aliyah Wakee’ Sufyan ibn ‘Uyaynah Abu Dawud al-Tiyalisi Na’eem ibn Hammad And many others Most Famous of Ahmad’s Students Salih ibn Ahmad ibn Hanbal Abdullah ibn Ahmad ibn Hanbal …