Allah's attributes

Allah’s attributes can be split up into three categories: personal attributes, negative attributes and affirmative attributes (see more from image below). It is important that before we explore the rulings of Fiqh we are fully conscious of Allah and His oneness. We must fully understand his attributes to gain conformity in His existence.

Allah’s negative attributes. A lot of us will be confused by this category as the word negative has denotations of bad, gloomy, anti and more. We must understand that ‘negative attributes’ means those attributes that cannot be found in Allah (SWT) because they are below His Honour and Majesty. The first attribute associated in negative is ‘Beginninglessness’ this is referring to Allah (SWT) as the first (Awwal) and the last, the word ‘Awwal’ is one of the 99 names of Allah and it is mentioned 60 times in the Holy Qur’an and it means to be Alone, Apart, Unique. In Surah Hadid: 3, Allah the Almighty says: “Allah is the first and the last”. This tells us that nothing came before Him nor will any being like Him come after. In another verse of the Qur’an Allah the Exalted says: “And do not say Allah is 3, Allah is One and free from any children.” (Surah Nisa: 102) This verse is directed towards the Christians and it is more evidence that Allah is free from any partners. He is One.

The second attribute is ‘endlessness’, this attribute shows us that Allah (SWT) has no ending, His existence is infinite and there is no one above his rank of Majesty.

The third attribute is ‘oneness’, the oneness of Allah is also known as Tawhid. So why is it negative attribute? Because Allah is One and just thinking about a partner associated with Allah is below His Majesty (Jalal), this links with the first attribute however it just adds emphasis to the fact that Allah is alone and independent.

The forth attribute is ‘self-subsistence’. What this means is someone who does not rely on anyone-independent of all needs. The whole of Surah Ikhlas is about Allah’s self-subsistence.
“Say He is Allah, the One. He is self-subsistence. He does not have any children nor will He have any children. Nor is there anyone to Him equivalent.” (Surah 112:1-4)

The fifth and final negative attribute of Allah is His ‘Absolute dissimilarity to created things’. This means Allah (SWT) is unique in every aspect and cannot be compared to anyone or anything. A person’s mind cannot comprehend and think of a specific word or object to compare to Allah, because Allah himself is the creator of all objects. Thus, a creator cannot be similar to its creation.

And Allah Knows best.

The Characteristics of Imam Abu Hanifa

Imam Abu Hanifa was imprisoned twice by the khalifs at his time. The empire at his time was the Umayyad and the leader of this party’s name was Yazid. As Imam Abu Hanifa was a master in jurisprudence, Yazid offered Imam Abu Hanifa the chance to become a judge and Imam Abu Hanifa refused. Why did he refuse? Judges play a dirty game; they can be bias in their decisions with behind the scene discussions. Imam Abu Hanifa saw it as more of a burden than a job.

Yazid became angry and tried to force Imam Abu Hanifa to become a governor, Abu Hanifa continued to refuse the job which resulted with him being imprisoned for months. Due to his popularity as a scholar, his fame and knowledge saw him released from prison.

After the Umayyad Empire collapsed a new empire rose called the Abbasid Empire. The Abbasid Empire also offered Imam Abu Hanifa a job as a judge but once again Imam Abu Hanifa refused and therefore was imprisoned. He was tortured and poisoned which resulted in his death. He was buried in Baghdad and his funeral was done 6 different times with over 50 thousand attendants. (80 A.H -150 A.H)

Imam Abu Hanifa was a very rich and honest man. He had no love for the dunya or wealth. He was a very humble man and he paid his students to learn from him. Imam Abu Hanfia had very high Taqwa and was always conscious of Allah (SWT). Imam Abu Hanifa used to cry when reading the Qur’an. He gave charity regularly and his main student was Imam Abu Yusuf.

A lot of people do not approve of the teachings of Imam Abu Hanifa despite his knowledge as there isn’t much information about him studying Hadiths. They say he was an expert in analogy and opinion and that’s why people say he lacked in Hadith studies. In fact Imam Abu Hanifa made a book on Hadith called ‘Kitabul-Athar’ and Imam Abu Hanifa’s main teacher; Hammad Ibn Sulieman taught Hadith as well as Fiqh to Imam Abu Hanifa. Imam Abu Hanifa’s student named Makki Ibn Ibrahim narrates some Hadiths which are mentioned in Sahih Bukhari, this shows us that Imam Abu Hanifa also learnt and taught Hadiths.  

And Allah knows best.

Who was Imam Abu Hanifa?

Imam Abu Hanifa was the founder of the Hanafi School of Thought, but to follow his research we must first know what kind of a man he was, otherwise we would be blindly following a man we know nothing about whose work may be unauthentic. Even if you don’t follow the Hanafi school of thought all four imams had massive respect for each other so we should learn about them. In sha Allah at the end of this lesson we should have gained love and trust for Imam Abu Hanifa. Imam Abu Hanifa (Rahmatullahi-Alai) was born in Kufa, in Iraq. Abu Hanifa was his nickname (Kuniyya) his actual name was Nu’man Ibn Thabit; his ancestors were originally from Persia until his Grandfather named Zuta migrated to Kufa in Iraq where Abu Hanifa was born. Why did they migrate to Kufa? In that time everyone had an empire, after the death of the Prophet (SAW) the next three rulers (Caliph) Abu Bakr (RA), ‘Umar Ibn Khattab (RA) & Uthmaan (RA) were based in Saudi Arabia. When ‘Ali (RA) became Caliph he transferred their base to Kufa because a lot of his followers persuaded him and invited him to Kufa. So you can image ‘Ali (RA) with thousands of companions following him to Kufa. Abu Haifa’s father was a rich business man. Abu Hanifa was born (80 After Hijri) [approximately 60 years after the Prophet (SAW) passed away. So you can image Abu Hanifa growing up in an Islamic environment, surrounded by Sahaba (companions of the Prophet Muhammad (SAW)). He was in the first sight of knowledge.

There are 3 specific places for seeking knowledge. To learn about Hajj you travel to Makkah, to learn the meaning of the Qur’an you travel to Madina, to learn the topic of Fiqh you travel to Kufa. So Imam Abu Hanifa grew up in an environment of Fiqh. Out of all the four imams, Imam Abu Hanifa was born first and had the honour to see the Sahaba, he was a Taba’iee (Someone who sees the Sahaba and dies a Muslim). The last companion to pass away was Abu Tufayl who died in 102 A.H; Abu Hanifa was 22 years old when Abu Tufayl died. So now we know that Abu Hanfia was the closest to the Prophet (SAW) out of the four imams in terms of years.

Imam Abu Hanifa memorised Qur’an at a very young age. As time went by he stopped learning Hadith and Fiqh and started helping his father with his business until an incident happened which would change him form a worker to a student. Once Abu Hanifa was walking by and he passed by a man called Sha’abee, Sha’abee was a very learned man at this time. He gave talks to groups outside the mosque. When Sha’abee saw Abu Hanifa walking by he said, “Who do you learn by.” Abu Hanifa replied, “I’m not learning for anyone, I’m on my way to work.” Sha’abee then responded with a response that would change Abu Hanfia’s life. He replied by saying, “Lean knowledge and sit in the company of learned men. I see the sign of intelligence and energy in you.” Later that day Abu Hanifa would go home and reflect upon what Sha’abe said to him and then changed himself from a worker to a student.
There are two qualities that a person must have in order to be a good student. These are intelligence and energy. Without these two traits the person will not go far. After the incident, Imam Abu Hanifa stopped working and instead he went to study. He devoted his whole time to study knowledge aged 22. As his father was finically stable he wasn’t under the stress of fees.
Imam Abu Hanifa’s teacher, Hammad Ibn Sulieman who was also a Taba’iee learned from the companions and was a master of Fiqh in Kufa. Hammad Ibn Sulieman dies in 122 AH which shows that Imam Abu Hanifa studied under the same teacher for 18 years.

And Allah knows best.

Thank you for reading, more to come on the four imams In Sha Allah. 

Introduction to Fiqh

What is Fiqh? We can translate the word Fiqh into many things. One translation of Fiqh would be to have a deep understanding of something. For example, I study law to I’m going to go into depth to understand everything about law. Another translation would be to learn the Islamic Laws according Qur’an and Sunnah. All these translations are correct but the word Fiqh literally means Jurisprudence. Jurisprudence is the theory or philosophy of law. So now we ask ourselves the question, why do we need to learn Fiqh? Imam Abu Hanifa (rahmatullahi alayhi) describes Fiqh as, “A person’s knowledge of his rights and duties.” This means, whatever rights that we have towards Allah, we are leaning them.

Fiqh has many different topics, just like maths. Maths contains a variety of topics such as algebra, fractions, trigonometry and much more. Similarly Fiqh contains different topics such as Salah, Fasting, Hajj, Jummah and much more. In other words, ‘Ibaadat which means worship; this is the most essential part of Fiqh, learning about worship, Uqubaat which is punishments, Muamlaat which is interactions between human and human, in other words, social relationships and finally Munakhaat which is marriage affairs, this includes the rules of engagement and divorce. So Fiqh covers everything. In many Islamic countries whenever it comes to a court case, the judge makes his decision upon Fiqh.

Who made all these rules? In Islam we have four main imams with four different “school of thoughts”. We know they are authentic as the four imams came shortly after the death of the Prophet Muhammad (SAW) and all the information was passed down to these four imams who compiled books of their Madhab (School of Thoughts), sort of like a golden chain. The four imams are: - Imam Abu Hanifa (rahmatullahi alayhi), Imam Shafi (rahmatullahi alayhi), Imam Malik (rahmatullahi alayhi) and Imam Ahmed Ibn Hanbal (rahmatullahi alayhi). Despite their difference in opinions, the four Imams had the upmost respect for each other.

And Allah knows best.

Thank you for reading this short introduction to Fiqh. More to come In sha Allah.