The Hanbali school or Hanbalism is one of the four major schools of Islamic jurisprudence within Sunni Islam. It is named after and based on the teachings of the 9th-century scholar, jurist and traditionist, Ahmad ibn Hanbal, and later institutionalized by his students. It is the smallest and most strictly traditionalist of the four major Sunni schools, the others being the Hanafi, Maliki and Shafi'i schools.
Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad ibn Ismāʿīl ibn Ibrāhīm al-Juʿfī al-Bukhārī was a 9th-century Muslim muhaddith who is widely regarded as the most important hadith scholar in the history of Sunni Islam. Al-Bukhari's extant works include the hadith collection Sahih al-Bukhari, al-Tarikh al-Kabir, and al-Adab al-Mufrad.
Abū Jaʿfar Muḥammad ibn Jarīr ibn Yazīd al-Ṭabarī, commonly known as al-Ṭabarī, was a Sunni Muslim scholar, polymath, traditionalist, historian, exegete, jurist, and theologian from Amol, Tabaristan, present-day Iran. Among the most prominent figures of the Islamic Golden Age, al-Tabari is widely known for his historical works and expertise in Quranic exegesis, and has been described as "an impressively prolific polymath". He authored works on a diverse range of subjects, including world history, poetry, lexicography, grammar, ethics, mathematics, and medicine. Among his most famous and influential works are his Quranic commentary, Tafsir al-Tabari, and historical chronicle, Tarikh al-Tabari.
Ahmad ibn Hanbal was a Sunni Muslim scholar, jurist, theologian, traditionist, ascetic and eponym of the Hanbali school of Islamic jurisprudence—one of the four major orthodox legal schools of Sunni Islam. The most highly influential and active scholar during his lifetime, Ibn Hanbal went on to become "one of the most venerated" intellectual figures in Islamic history, who has had a "profound influence affecting almost every area" of the traditionalist perspective within Sunni Islam. One of the foremost classical proponents of relying on scriptural sources as the basis for Sunni Islamic law and way of life, Ibn Hanbal compiled one of the most significant Sunni hadith collections, al-Musnad, which has continued to exercise considerable influence on the field of hadith studies up to the present time.
Abū Dāwūd (Dā’ūd) Sulaymān ibn al-Ash‘ath ibn Isḥāq al-Azdī al-Sijistānī, commonly known as Abū Dāwūd al-Sijistānī, was a scholar of prophetic hadith who compiled the third of the six "canonical" hadith collections recognized by Sunni Muslims, the Sunan Abu Dāwūd.
Ahl al-Hadith is an Islamic school of Sunni Islam that emerged during the 2nd and 3rd Islamic centuries of the Islamic era as a movement of hadith scholars who considered the Quran and authentic hadith to be the only authority in matters of law and creed. They were known as "Athari" for championing traditionalist theological doctrines which rejected rationalist approaches and advocated a strictly literalist reading of Scriptures. Its adherents have also been referred to as traditionalists and sometimes traditionists. The traditionalists constituted the most authoritative and dominant bloc of Sunni orthodoxy prior to the emergence of mad'habs during the fourth Islamic century.
Abū al-Ḥasan ʻAlī ibn ʻAbdillāh ibn Jaʻfar al-Madīnī was a ninth-century Sunni Islamic scholar who was influential in the science of hadith. Alongside Ahmad ibn Hanbal, Ibn Abi Shaybah and Yahya ibn Ma'in, Ibn al-Madini has been considered by many Muslim specialists in hadith to be one of the four most significant authors in the field.
Yahya ibn Ma'in was a classical Islamic scholar in the field of hadith. He was a close friend of Ahmad ibn Hanbal for much of his life. Ibn Ma'in is known to have spent all of his inheritance on seeking hadith to the extent he became extremely needy.
Al-Ḥasan ibn ʻAlī al-Barbahārī was a Muslim theologian and populist religious leader from Iraq. He was a scholar and jurist who is famous for his role in suppressing S̲h̲īʿa missionaries and Mu'tazilism in the Abbasid Caliphate during his lifetime. His books include creedal and methodological refutations against certain sects including the Shias, Qadaris, and the Mu'tazilites.
Tabaqat is a genre of Islamic biographical literature that is organized according to the century in which the notable individuals lived. Each century or generation is known as a ṭabaqah, the plural of which is ṭabaqāt. The ṭabaqāt writings depict the past of a particular tradition of religious affiliation or scholarship and follows a chronological parameter that stretch from an authoritative starting-point to the generation (ṭabaqah) immediately preceding the assumed author.
Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Abd Allah ibn al-Mubarak was an 8th-century traditionalist Sunni Muslim scholar and Hanafi jurist. Known by the title Amir al-Mu'minin fi al-Hadith, he is considered a pious Muslim known for his memory and zeal for knowledge who was a muhaddith and was remembered for his asceticism.
Dāwūd ibn ʿAlī ibn Khalaf al-Ẓāhirī was a Sunni Muslim scholar, jurist, and theologian during the Islamic Golden Age, specialized in the study of Islamic law (sharīʿa) and the fields of hermeneutics, biographical evaluation, and historiography of early Islam. He is widely regarded as the founder of the Ẓāhirī school of thought (madhhab), the fifth school of thought in Sunnī Islam, characterized by its strict adherence to literalism and reliance on the outward (ẓāhir) meaning of expressions in the Quran and ḥadīth literature; the consensus (ijmāʿ) of the first generation of Muhammad's closest companions (ṣaḥāba), for sources of Islamic law (sharīʿa); and rejection of analogical deduction (qiyās) and societal custom or knowledge (urf), used by other schools of Islamic jurisprudence. He was a celebrated, if not controversial, figure during his time, being referred to in Islamic historiographical texts as "the scholar of the era."
Atharism is a school of theology in Sunni Islam which developed from circles of the Ahl al-Hadith, a group that rejected rationalistic theology in favor of strict textualism in interpretation the Quran and the hadith.
ʾAḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn Hārūn ibn Yazīd al Baghdādī better known as Abū Bakr al Khalāl, was a Medieval Muslim jurist.
Qutb ud-Din Ahmad ibn ʿAbd-ur-Rahim al-ʿUmari ad-Dehlawi, commonly known as Shah Waliullah Dehlawi, was an Islamic Sunni scholar and Sufi of the Naqshbandi order, who is seen by his followers as a renewer. He emphasized the importance of following Sharia and believed in the unification of Hanafi and Shafi'i schools of law, aiming to reduce legal differences.
Abu Muhammad Yahya ibn Aktham was a ninth century Arab Islamic jurist. He twice served as the chief judge of the Abbasid Caliphate, from ca. 825 to 833 and 851 to 854.
The Ẓāhirī school or Zahirism is a Sunnī school of Islamic jurisprudence founded in the 9th century by Dāwūd al-Ẓāhirī, a Muslim scholar, jurist, and theologian of the Islamic Golden Age. It is characterized by strict adherence to literalism and reliance on the outward (ẓāhir) meaning of expressions in the Quran and ḥadīth literature; the consensus (ijmāʿ) of the first generation of Muhammad's closest companions (ṣaḥāba), for sources of Islamic law (sharīʿa); and rejection of analogical deduction (qiyās) and societal custom or knowledge (urf), used by other schools of Islamic jurisprudence.
Abū Sufyān Wakīʿ ibn al-Jarrāḥ ibn Malīḥ al-Ruʾāsī al-Kilābī al-Kufī (745/47–812) was a prominent hadith scholar based in Kufa. He was one of the principal teachers of the major Sunni Muslim jurist Ahmad ibn Hanbal.
Ibn Kullab was an early Sunni theologian (mutakallim) in Basra and Baghdad in the first half of the 9th century during the time of the Mihna and belonged, according to Ibn al-Nadim, to the traditionalist group of the Nawabit. His movement, also called Kullabiyya, merged and developed into Ash'arism, which, along with Maturidism and Atharism, forms the theological basis of Sunni Islam.
