Hanafi School

A Syrian Hanafi scholar and editor whose critical editions of works of law and hadith brought many neglected texts into print. He introduced modern South Asian hadith scholarship to Arab readers and held one of the widest networks of hadith transmission of his generation.

Abdullah ibn Mas'ud (c. 594–653 CE) was among the earliest converts to Islam, a close companion of the Prophet, and the scholar who carried the Quranic and legal tradition to Kufa. His teaching circle became the intellectual ancestor of the Hanafi school of law.

Abu Hanifa al-Nu'man ibn Thabit (699–767 CE) founded the Hanafi school of jurisprudence, the most widely followed legal tradition in the Muslim world. A silk merchant turned scholar, he developed a method balancing scripture with reason, and died in Abbasid imprisonment.

The madhabs, the schools of Islamic law that developed methods for deriving rulings from the Qur'an and the Sunnah. Four Sunni schools and the Shi'a traditions have guided Muslim practice for over a millennium; they are schools of method, not sects.

An Indian Hanafi jurist widely titled Mufti-e-Azam, or Grand Mufti of India. He led Madrasa Aminia in Delhi, presided over the Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind from 1921 to 1940, helped found Jamia Millia Islamia, and left a large body of legal rulings.

A Hanafi jurist who served as head mufti of Darul Uloom Deoband and founded Darul Uloom Karachi in 1951. His Urdu commentary Ma'arif al-Qur'an, which began as a radio programme, became one of the most widely read Qur'anic commentaries in South Asia.

A Pakistani Hanafi jurist who led Darul Uloom Karachi as its president from 1986 until his death in 2022. Titled Grand Mufti, he served on Pakistan's Council of Islamic Ideology and wrote on zakat, on Hanafi law, and on the hadith commentary Fath al-Mulhim.

A Pakistani Hanafi jurist and writer on Islamic law, trained at Darul Uloom Karachi and in economics and law at Karachi and Punjab. He served on Pakistan's higher courts, completed the hadith commentary Fath al-Mulhim, and shaped the standards of modern Islamic finance.

A Bangladeshi scholar of hadith who led the seminary at Hathazari in Chittagong for more than three decades and chaired the country's Qawmi madrasa education board. Trained at Hathazari and Darul Uloom Deoband, he wrote a commentary on Sahih al-Bukhari.