Introduction:

  Islam as a religion can be summarized in a simple phrase containing few words: to believe in the Last Day. Even this simple phrase can be summarized in just one word: piety. This entails lengthy explanation; but we refer readers to our previous writings covering the topic of piety. Let us assert briefly here that the real pious ones who believe in the Day of Resurrection (i.e., that all human beings will stand before Almighty God to be judged by Him, in the way detailed in the Quran) will adhere to righteous acts and deeds and never commit any types of injustices all their lifetimes. The really pious ones know that this material world is transient and they are not immortal within this earthly existence. The really pious ones bear in mind all the time that death is inevitable and so is the Last Judgment in the Hereafter, which will result in either Hell or Paradise, with no third option or way out possible. In sum, there are those who think only of material gains of this transient world, dedicating their whole time to it while forgetting to prepare for their real future in the Afterlife. In contrast, there are those who follow the straight path of their Lord, in piety in the fear of God, performing good deeds and avoiding evil, seeking to meet the Lord and thinking all the time about the Last Day. Both groups of people will never be the same after death: "Is he who walks bent on his own design better guided, or he who walks upright on a straight path?" (67:22). Accordingly, there are those who manipulated and used all possible means and tools – including religion and ascribing lies and falsehoods to God and to Muhammad – in order to reach and/or monopolize power and wealth as superior on earth. In contrast, there are those who seek only to please and gratify their Lord, worshipping and fearing only Him in piety and not any mortals at all, perceiving lifetimes as a chance to perform as many good deeds as possible to be among the winners on the Last Day, when they will stand before their Almighty God to be judged. This last group included some noble scholars and learned ones who were never keen to join the unjust sphere of the unjust tyrants and despots, and they refused stubbornly to work under them, paying the price of their refusal. The first of such noble ones was the imam Abou Hanifa Al-Nu'man, whose historical era and the subsequent eras never witnessed another man in his stature of greatness and nobility.         

 

Abou Hanifa Al-Nu'man:

  Abou Hanifa, the most famous imam/scholar of his time, lived part of his life during the Umayyad Era and the other part during the early Abbasid Era, mostly in Iraq, and people admired him very much for his knowledge and piety. When Ibn Hubayra, the Umayyad governor in Iraq, wanted to appoint Abou Hanifa as the judge of the city of Kufa, Iraq, Abou Hanifa adamantly refused and insisted on his refusal when the governor tried to convince him many times. The infuriated governor commanded that Abou Hanifa must be flogged 110 times, 10 times for 11 days. Abou Hanifa preferred to be flogged instead of being coerced to assume the post of a judge within the tyrannical Umayyad rule that contradicted the Quranic teachings. In addition, Abou Hanifa participated in the revolts against the Umayyads, and to escape being persecuted by them, he travelled to Mecca and lived there for a while incognito. When the Abbasid caliphate was established after the collapse of the Umayyad rule, Abou Hanifa and other cultural elite members and learned religious scholars hoped the new caliphate will uphold justice. The Abbasid dynasty members honored Abou Hanifa and welcomed him back to Iraq, but months later, soon enough, Abou Hanifa realized that the new rulers were following the footsteps of their unjust tyrannical predecessors, the Umayyads, and the second ordeal of Abou Hanifa came during his old age and ended up in his being poisoned in his prison cell at the age of 70, and the reasons of his being imprisoned, tortured, and murdered included his adamant refusal to be appointed as a judge when the Abbasid caliph, Abou Jaffer Al-Mansour, commanded him to assume this post. At his palace court before his retinue members, this caliph tried at first to coax and convince Abou Hanifa to accept the post, reasoned with him calmly at first, and then, he threatened to punish him in case he refused a royal decree, and when he swore by the name of God that he must assume the post, Abou Hanifa stubbornly retorted back at once by swearing by the name of God that he would never do that and nothing will entice his to accept the post of a judge, as per what Ibn Al-Jawzy tells us (Al-Muntazim, 8/144 deaths of 150 A.H.). Among the traditionalists of religious scholars, sheikhs, clergymen, theologians, and narrators/fabricators of hadiths, the most arch-enemies, denigrators, and intellectual foes of Abou Hanifa (after his death, of course) were the followers of the extremist Sunnite Ibn Hanbal doctrine, who dominated the Abbasid scene (esp. in the streets of Baghdad) from the 3rd century A.H. to about the middle of the 7th century A.H. Those hadiths narrators, or rather fabricators, had distorted the history of Abou Hanifa, especially the Ibn Hanbal doctrine follower and historian Ibn Al-Jawzy.

 

Denigrators of Abou Hanifa, among fabricators of hadiths, ascribe his stance of refusing to be appointed as a judge to themselves:

  The Ibn Hanbal doctrine follower, religious scholar, and historian Ibn Al-Jawzy in his book titled "Al-Muntazim" is the most prominent author who has written historical accounts by linking history of rulers to the one of religious scholars and theologians, especially hadiths narrators. Because he hated Abou Hanifa so much as he denied that hadiths are part of Islam and rejected all of them, Ibn Al-Jawzy denigrates Abou Hanifa and refutes his fiqh views using unconvincing biased arguments, though "Al-Muntazim" is a book of history, not theology or hadiths narration; we mean to say plainly that Ibn Al-Jawzy rejected his objectivity and neutrality as a historian when he wrote very little about Abou Hanifa (by adopting the method known as damning with faint praise) because of rivalry in the field of fiqh schools. Indeed, Ibn Al-Jawzy deliberately overlooked and disregarded the jihad/resistance of Abou Hanifa against the Umayyad tyrannical rule, by mentioning only few lines about it and about the plights, inflictions, persecution, and ordeals suffered by Abou Hanifa because of his stances of courage and siding with what deemed at the time to be the truth. In fact, Ibn Al-Jawzy wrote sheets and sheets in the same book about the ordeals, inflictions, tribulations, and the persecution suffered by Ahmad Ibn Hanbal, especially because of his stance against the notion imposed by some Abbasid caliphs that the Quran is 'created', a topic that had nothing to do with jihad against injustices and defending justice, the supreme value of all celestial messages and divine books revealed by God; see 57:25. Indeed, Ibn Al-Jawzy shamelessly fabricated and concocted some narratives and accounts which seem untruthful to us about some hadith narrators/fabricators who refused to be appointed as judges, so that he would glorify them and make people admire them more than Abou Hanifa. We quote some of such accounts below, along with our comments on them.

   Ibn Al-Jawzy writes in his biographical lines about the hadith-narrator Abdullah Ibn Idris (died in 192 A.H.) that he narrated hadiths conveyed by men such as Shu'bah, Al-Aamash, Ibn Jurayj, Abou Ishaq Al-Shaybany, Malik Ibn Anas, and Sufyan Al-Thawry, and those who narrated hadiths conveyed by him included Ibn Hanbal, Ibn Al-Mubarak, and Yahya Ibn Maaeen. Ibn Al-Jawzy writes, a fictional story in our opinion, that Harun Al-Rasheed heard of the famous Abdullah Ibn Idris and about his being a trusted, righteous, pious, truthful, and knowledgeable scholar, and he brought him from Kufa to Baghdad to suggest to him to assume the job of the judge of Kufa, but he refused and returned to Kufa where he stayed till he died in the same year. Ibn Al-Jawzy writes that Ibn Hanbal praised Abdullah Ibn Idris very much as one of a kind, and how Al-Rasheed did not get angry and allowed him to return to Kufa in peace. This story is fictitious and Ibn Al-Jawzy fabricated and authored it, because it contradicts the known historical accounts of how people feared the redoubtable formidable figure of Al-Rasheed who was known for his bad temper and moodiness as well as putting people to death for trivial reasons, especially by commanding their beheading by his executioner Masrour, thus terrorizing all religious scholars of his era. In addition, there is no similar stories at all of any Umayyad or Abbasid caliphs (who were tyrants and despots) that would send or someone in his city to be brought to the capital to be asked to assume the post of a judge; typically, governors of cities and regions would be sent a decree by the caliph to appoint so-and-so as judges, the same way Ibn Hubayra, the Umayyad governor of Kufa, commanded Abou Hanifa to be the judge of the city and he refused to oblige the governor. Within that account, the Umayyad caliph never sent for Abou Hanifa to go to Damascus, the capital of the Umayyads, to suggest to him to accept the post. Governors used to appoint judges at that era; as for the Abbasid era during the reign of Al-Rasheed, the missions of the supreme judge of Baghdad included appointing judges in all cities of the Abbasid Empire. Hence, we personally cast doubt on the veracity story of Abdullah Ibn Idris mentioned by Ibn Al-Jawzy. We tend to think that Ibn Al-Jawzy fabricated that story to glorify Abdullah Ibn Idris who was the sheikh/teacher of Ibn Hanbal.

   Ibn Al-Jawzy is known for his historical accounts and narratives as well as his books of fiqh and hadiths, and people used to gather in his mosque to hear his sermons and listen to his narratives and hadiths. Hence, it was easy for him, in our opinion, to fabricate many untrue narratives and stories (in history and other fields) and then to write it in his books as if it were parts of real history of certain events or figures. To prove our opinion further, we comment on how Ibn Al-Jawzy (died in 587 A.H.) narrates the story about Abdullah Ibn Idris, providing a series of narrators to it while mentioning the first man in the series of narrators as his contemporary Abdul-Rahman Ibn Muhammad, who lived in the 6th century A.H. like Ibn Al-Jawzy, while Ibn Al-Jawzy ascribed to him narration of a story of Ibn Idris and Al-Rasheed that supposedly took place in the 2nd century A.H. Moreover, this series of narrators authored and concocted by Ibn Al-Jawzy ends in no names at all, not even any man who lived during the era of Al-Rasheed! This is because the last narrator if this series of narrators is mentioned by Ibn Al-Jawzy as ''a sheikh who learned it from grand sheikhs/narrators of hadiths", and Ibn Al-Jawzy does NOT mention the names of such sheikh or such narrators who taught him such a story! Hence, apart from logic, this story is unverified, unauthenticated, and contradictory even as per rules of sorting Sunnite hadiths, and yet, the fame and stature of Ibn Al-Jawzy typically made his contemporaries believe that all his narratives as true history! Ibn Al-Jawzy used to be believed by the gullible masses also because he was a gifted and master storyteller who knew how to captivate hearts and minds of his listeners/readers with dramatic elements and suspense, like most imams of Sunna and hadiths who usually added catchphrases to their narratives and knew how to appeal to their audience and readers of their era. Hence, when Ibn Al-Jawzy adds phrases like "no one asked me about this before" uttered by an unnamed sheikh/imam of hadiths to the unknown narrator who was his disciple, this would attract the full attention of readers/audience to know about a unique story, especially linked to Ibn Idris, who was among their favorite imams linked to the life of Ibn Hanbal, and all readers/audience would be eager to know any accounts related to Al-Rasheed, who was, and remains to be, the most famous of all Abbasid caliphs. When Ibn Al-Jawzy makes sure the full attention of reader/audience is obtained, he would narrate the fabricated story with elements of suspense and involving many figures in it (clergymen, imams, statesmen, etc.). Ibn Al-Jawzy lied in such a narrative because he claims that Al-Rasheed told Ibn Idris that people of Kufa chose him to be the judge of their city because of his honesty and integrity, but Ibn Idris apologized by saying that he reached his age of senility, with weak legs, and poor eyesight, and Al-Rasheed let him go, and another man present in the palace court, accepted the job as the judge of Kufa. One might wonder why the executioner Masrour was not mentioned in this narrative. The reaction of Al-Rasheed was not typically expected from him; those who refuse him anything usually lost their lives as a result. The rest of the narrative authored by Ibn Al-Jawzy is nothing but praises of narrators of hadiths and sheikhs of Sunna in general, and how Al-Rasheed gave them regularly gifts of money and respected and honored them deeply, and even hired people among them to tutor his two sons, and how Ibn Idris went to the public bath, and when he went out of it, he knew that another scholar accepted to be the judge of Kufa, and he went to him to rebuke him and to tell him that he will never speak to him for good, and then Ibn Idris wept bitterly as life was filled with injustices and corrupt people. at the end of this story, Ibn Al-Jawzy tells readers that Ibn Idris never spoke to this judge ever again until he died in the same year (Al-Muntazim, 9/202 deaths of 192 A.H.). It is noteworthy that Ibn Idris followed the school of fiqh led by Al-Aamash, whose all disciples were never foes of the Abbasid caliphs who gave them money gifts to narrate hadiths as per Abbasid dynasty members' whims, and no bribed disciples of such school of fiqh would lose the chance to be a prestigious judge, a lucrative job at the time and a huge step up the social ladder. Thus, we think that this story is fake and pure fiction; yet, authoring such lies reflects the dominant habit and tradition at the time about ascetic scholars of fiqh (known as "the group of the weepers", tackled in one of our earlier articles) who refused to be appointed as judges and spent hours daily to cry and weep in public (solo and in groups) to lament injustices of life under Abbasid rule as well as affairs and hardships of life and corruption of most people. Hence, we infer that narrators/fabricators of hadiths desired to imitate stories of "the weepers" to gain more respect as the ascetic weepers were respected by most people in certain eras because they boycotted anything related to the Abbasids and renounced the transient world. Of course, greedy Sunnite fiqh imams served obsequiously the Abbasid rule in return for heaps of money and would never have wept for injustices or tyranny; besides, greedy scholars of any Sunnite doctrine would leap on the chance of being appointed as judges to gain more prestige (as 'learned' and 'erudite' judges) and money by bribes and to become highly connected with the affluent people.