Muslims Till Death:
ASSALAMU ALAYKUM WARAHMATULLAH WABARAKAATUHU . LET'S START TONIGHT'S EDUCATION. OUR TOPIC IS 👇. *THE STORY OF IMMAM AHMAD IBN HAMBALI (Episode 1)*___*PAGE 1*___
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Ahmad ibn Hanbal's family was originally from Basra, Iraq, and belonged to the Arab Banu Shayban tribe. His father was an officer in the Abbasid army in Khurasan and later settled with his family in Baghdad, where Ahmad was born in 780 CE. Ibn Hanbal had two wives and several children, including an older son, who later became a judge in Isfahan.
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Imam Ahmed studied extensively in Baghdad, and later traveled to further his education. He started learning jurisprudence (Fiqh) under the celebrated Hanafi judge, Abu Yusuf, the renowned student and companion of Imaam Abu Hanifah. After finishing his studies with Abu Yusuf, ibn Hanbal began traveling through Iraq, Syria, and Arabia to collect hadiths, or traditions of the Prophet Muhammad pbuh. Ibn al-Jawzi states that Imam Ahmad had 414 Hadith masters whom he narrated from.
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With this knowledge, he became a leading authority on the hadith, leaving an immense encyclopedia of hadith, al-Musnad. After several years of travel, he returned to Baghdad to study Islamic law under Al-Shafi'i. Ash-Shaf'i was a student of Malik ibn Anas, who in turn was a student of the Imam Ja'far al-Sadiq (a descendant of the Islamic Nabi (Prophet) Muhammad pbuh), as with Abu Hanifah. Thus all of the four great Imams of Sunni Fiqh are connected to Ja'far from the Bayt (Household) of Muhammad, whether directly or indirectly.
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Ahmad became a mufti in his old age, and founded the Hanbali madhab, or school of Islamic law, which is now most dominant in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates. Unlike the other three schools of Islamic jurisprudence (Hanafi, Maliki, and Shafi), the Hanbali madhab remained largely traditionalist or Athari in theology. In addition to his scholastic enterprises, ibn Hanbal was a soldier on the Islamic frontiers (Ribat) and made Hajj five times in his life, twice on foot. Ibn Hanbal was known to have been called before the Inquisition or Mihna of the Abbasid Caliph Al-Ma'mun.
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Al-Ma'mun wanted to assert the religious authority of the Caliph by pressuring scholars to adopt the Mu'tazila view that the Qur'an was created rather than uncreated. According to Sunni tradition, ibn Hanbal was among the scholars to resist the Caliph's interference and the Mu'tazili doctrine of a created Qur'an—although some Orientalist sources raise a question on whether or not he remained steadfast. Ibn Hanbal's stand against the inquisition by the Mu'tazila (who had been the ruling authority at the time) led to the Hanbali school establishing itself firmly as not only a school of fiqh (legal jurisprudence), but of theology as well.
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Due to his refusal to accept Mu'tazilite authority, ibn Hanbal was imprisoned in Baghdad throughout the reign of al-Ma'mun. In an incident during the rule of al-Ma'mun's successor, al-Mu'tasim, ibn Hanbal was flogged to unconsciousness. However, this caused upheaval in Baghdad and al-Mu'tasim was forced to release ibn Hanbal. After al-Mu’tasim's death, al-Wathiq became caliph and continued his predecessor's policies of Mu'tazilite enforcement and in this pursuit, he banished ibn Hanbal from Baghdad.
It was only after al-Wathiq's death and the ascent of his brother al-Mutawakkil, who was much friendlier to the more traditional Sunni beliefs, that ibn Hanbal was welcomed back to Baghdad.
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Ibn Hanbal's principal doctrine is what later came to be known as "traditionalist thought," which emphasized the acceptance of only the Quran and hadith as the foundations of orthodox belief. He did, however, believe that it was only a select few who were properly authorized to interpret the sacred texts. Ibn Hanbal understood the perfect definition of God to be that given in the Quran, whence he held that proper belief in God constituted believing in the description which God had given of Himself in the Islamic scripture.
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To begin with, Ibn Hanbal asserted that God was both Unique and Absolute and absolutely incomparable to anything in the world of His creatures. As for the various divine attributes, Ibn Hanbal believed that all the regular attributes of God, such as hearing, sight, speech, omnipotence, will, wisdom, etc., were to be affirmed as "realities" (ḥaqq), and all the attributes called "ambiguous" (mutashābih), such as those which spoke of God's hand, throne, omnipresence, and vision by the believers on the day of resurrection, were to be understood in the same manner.
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Furthermore, Ibn Hanbal "rejected the negative theology (taʿṭīl) of the Jahmiyya and their particular allegorizing exegesis (taʾwīl) of the Quran and of tradition, and no less emphatically criticized the anthropomorphism (tashbīh) of the Mushabbiha, amongst whom he included, in the scope of his polemics, the Jahmiyya as unconscious anthropomorphists." Ibn Hanbal was also a critic of overt and unnecessary speculation in matters of theology; he believed that it was fair to worship God "without seeking to know the 'mode' of the theologoumena (bilā kayf)," and felt it was wise to leave to God the understanding of His own mystery.
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One of Ibn Hanbal's most famous contributions to Sunni thought was the considerable role he played in bolstering the orthodox doctrine of the Quran being the "uncreated Word of God" (kalām Allāh ghayr makhlūḳ). By "Quran," Ibn Hanbal understood "not just an abstract idea but the Quran with its letters, words, expressions, and ideas—the Quran in all its living reality, whose nature in itself," according to Ibn Hanbal, eluded human comprehension. It is narrated by Abū Bakr al-Marwazī in his Mansak that Ibn Hanbal preferred one to make tawassul or "intercession" through the Prophet in every supplication, with the⁵ wording:
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O God! I am turning to Thee with Thy Prophet, the Prophet of Mercy. O Muhammad pbuh! I am turning with you to my Lord for the fulfillment of my need." This report is repeated in many later Hanbali works, in the context of personal supplication as an issue of jurisprudence. Ibn Qudamah, for example, recommends it for the obtainment of need in his Wasiyya. In the same way, Ibn Taymiyyah cites the Hanbali fatwa on the desirability of the Prophet's intercession in every personal supplication in his Qāida fil-Tawassul wal-Wasiīla where he attributes it to "Imām Ahmad and a group of the pious ancestors" from the Mansak of al-Marwazī as his source.
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End of Today's Education. Questions, Suggestions and grievances on or to better this program is welcome. *We will continue on this story tomorrow in sha Allah*.May Allah azza wa jalla make us steadfast in faith. May HE accept our ibaadaat and grant us the Good in this World and the Hereafter. May HE guide, forgive and grant us Jannah...AMIN.
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