Imam Abu Hanifa

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.

Founded in 638 CE as a military garrison, Kufa became one of the most consequential cities of early Islam — capital of Caliph Ali ibn Abi Talib, birthplace of the Iraqi legal tradition, a center of Arabic grammar and hadith, and the city where the Abbasid revolution was launched.