Hanbali Legal School
The Hanbali Legal School (madhhab) began in
baghdad during the ninth century. It was the
last of the four major Sunni legal schools to
appear and was distinguished by its preference
for making law based on literal interpretations
of the qUran and hadith. The school was named
after ahmad ibn hanbal (d. 855), the famed Iraqi
hadith scholar and theologian. It grew from his
circle of students, which included two of his sons,
in reaction to rationalist methods and doctrines
being advocated by the hanaFi legal school
and the mUtazili school. Hanbalis believed that
they were defenders of the faith and of God’s law,
the sharia. In addition to narrow readings of the
Quran and hadith, Hanbali law was also derived
from the rulings (FatWas) of the companions oF
the prophet that conformed to the Quran and
sUnna and analogical reasoning (qiyas), but only
when absolutely necessary.
Abu Bakr al-Khallal (d. 923) played a major
role in creating the Hanbali School. He traveled
throughout the Middle East, collecting the legal
teachings and rulings of Ibn Hanbal’s followers.
He was also credited with writing books on theo-
logical topics and an early history of the Hanbali
School. Other leading Hanbali scholars were Ibn
Aqil (d. ca. 1120) and Ibn al-Jawzi (d. 1200),
both of whom wrote on literary and theological
topics as well as religious law. The most famous
Hanbali scholar was ibn taymiyya (d. 1328), who
wrote copiously on all major areas of medieval
Islamic learning and attempted to revive Islam by
calling on Muslims to restore the original religion
of mUhammad and his companions. The stringent
Sunni outlook of Ibn Taymiyya and other Han-
balis was reflected in their attacks on shiism and
aspects of sUFism, especially saint worship. Nev-
ertheless, many Hanbalis were initiated into Sufi
brotherhoods, and one, abd al-qadir al-Jilani
(d. 1166), was even credited with founding a Sufi
brotherhood, the Qadiri Sufi Order.
The Hanbali School flourished in Baghdad
from the 11th to the 13th century, when it contrib-
uted to the strengthening of sUnnism and defend-
ing the legitimacy of the abbasid caliphate against
its rivals. During this time, the Hanbalis also
established branches in iran and aFghanistan,
but their most important new base was in Syria,
which replaced Baghdad as the center of Hanbali
activity after it was destroyed by the Mongols in- By the 16th century, there were 10 Hanbali
religious colleges (madrasas) in Damascus alone.
The Hanbali tradition continued under Ottoman
rule (16th to 20th century), even though the
Ottomans favored the Hanafis. It enjoyed a major
revival when the Wahhabi movement formed an
alliance with the Al Saud of Arabia in the 18th cen-
tury. Today the Hanbali School is the official form
of Islamic law in saUdi arabia and Qatar. Saudi
funding and the annual gathering of pilgrims in
mecca for the haJJ have helped make it very influ-
ential among conservative Islamic reneWal and
reForm movements in egypt, Syria, indonesia, and
parts of South Asia. Modified forms of Hanbali law
and doctrine have also been embraced by radical
Islamic movements in many parts of the world.
See also bidaa; fiqh; islamism; ottoman
dynasty.
Further reading: Wael B. Hallaq, The Origins and Evolu-
tion of Islamic Law (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2005), 150—177; Nimrod Hurvitz, The Forma-
tion of Hanbalism: Piety into Power (London: Routledge
Curzon, 2002); George Makdisi, “The Hanbali School
and Sufism,” Huminora Islamica 2 (1974): 61–72.haqiqa (Arabic: truth, reality)
The term haqiqa is used in many contexts in Islam
with a variety of significations. It is related to
the word haqq (the true, the real), which is one
of the names by which God is known. Haqiqa is
thus often used in a more abstract way than haqq.
Unlike haqq, which is mentioned many times in
the qUran, haqiqa does not appear in Islam’s holy
book. Nevertheless, it has developed as an impor-
tant concept in Islamic philosophy and mysticism.K 288 Hanbali Legal School