BRIEF BIOGRAPHY:
Birth Name: Numan bin Thaabit bin Zuta bin Mah
Born in: Kufa in Iraq in 80 A.H
In depth:
[Caliph Umar bin Abdul Aziz was extremely pious and disdainful of worldly luxuries. He preferred simplicity instead of the extravagance that had become a hallmark of the Umayyad lifestyle, depositing all luxury meant for the himself into the public treasury. He abandoned the caliphal palace to the family of Suleiman and instead preferred to live in modest dwellings. He wore rough linens instead of royal robes, and often went unrecognized.
According to a Muslim tradition, a female visitor once came to Umar's house seeking charity and saw a raggedly-dressed man patching holes in the building's walls. Assuming that the man was a servant of the caliph, she asked Umar's wife, "Don't you fear God? Why don't you veil in the presence of this man?" The woman was shocked to learn that the "servant" was in fact the caliph himself.
Though he had the people's overwhelming support, he publicly encouraged them to elect someone else if they were not satisfied with him (an offer no one ever took him up on).
Umar confiscated the estates seized by Ummayad officials and redistributed them to the people, while making it a personal goal to attend to the needs of every person in his empire. Fearful of being tempted into bribery, he rarely accepted gifts, and when he did he promptly deposited them in the public treasury. He even pressured his own wife, who had been daughter, sister and wife to three caliphs in their turn, to donate her jewellery to the public treasury.]
In such a dark atmosphere was born a light known by the world as the great Imam-e-Azam Abu Hanifa, who braved the persecution by the ruling class and never budged from the right path.
Imam Abu Hanifa had the great priviledge of meeting a number of Sahaba e Kiram, and so he himself was a Taabi'in. In his youth, he met great Sahaba like Hazrat Anas bin Malik (, may Allah be pleased with him), Hazrat Sahl bin Saad (, may Allah be pleased with him) and Hazrat Abul Tufail Amir bin Wathilah (, may Allah be pleased with him).
One day, the ruler of Rome at that time sent an envoy to Baghdad with three challenges for the Muslims. When the messenger reached the city, he informed the Khalifah that he had three questions which he challenged the Muslims to answer. The Khalifah gathered together all the scholars of the city and the Roman messenger climbed upon a high platform and said:
"I have come with three questions. If you answer them, then I will leave with you a great amount of wealth which I have brought from the king of Rome.” The questions were: "What was there before Allah?", "In which direction does Allah face?" and "What is Allah engaged in at this moment?".
The great assembly of people were silent; neither scholar nor student had answers for any of these questions.
In the midst of these brilliant scholars and students of Islam, there was a man looking on with his young son. “O my dear father! I will answer him and silence him!” said the young boy. He sought the permission of the Khalifah to give the answers and he was given the permission to do so.
The Roman addressed the young Muslim and repeated his first question, “What was there before Allah?”
The boy asked, “Do you know how to count?”
“Yes,” said the man.
“Then count down from ten!” So the Roman counted down, “ten, nine, eight, …” until he reached “one” and he stopped counting.
“But what comes before ‘one’?” asked the boy.
“There is nothing before one - that is it!” said the man.
“Well then, if there obviously is nothing before the arithmetic "one", then how do you expect that there should be anything before the "One" who is the Absolute truth, Eternal, Everlasting, the First, the Last, the Manifest, the Hidden?”
Now the man was surprised by this direct answer which he could not dispute.
So he poceeded to ask his second question,
“Then tell me, in which direction is Allah facing?”
“Bring a candle and light it,” said the boy, “and tell me in which direction the flame is facing.”
“But the flame is just light - it spreads in each of the four directions; North, South, East and West. It does not face any one direction only,” said the man in wonderment.
The boy replied, “Then if this physical light spreads in all four directions such that you cannot tell me which way it faces, then what do you expect of the Nur-us-Samawati-wal-’Ard: Allah - the Light of the Heavens and the Earth!? Light upon Light, Allah faces all directions at all times.”
The Roman was stupefied and astounded that here was a young child answering his challenges in such a way that he could not argue against the proofs.
So, desperately he went on to ask his final question.
But before doing so, the boy said, “Wait! You are the one who is asking the questions and I am the one who is giving the answers to these challenges. It is only fair that you should come down to where I am standing and that I should go up where you are right now, in order that the answers may be heard as clearly as the questions.”
This seemed reasonable to the Roman, so he came down from where he was standing and the boy ascended the platform.
Then the man repeated his final challenge,
“Tell me, what is Allah doing at this moment?”
The boy proudly answered, “At this moment, when Allah found upon this high platform a liar and mocker of Islam, He caused him to descend and brought him low. And as for the one who believed in the Oneness of Allah, He raised him up and established the Truth. Every day He exercises universal power. (Surah 55 ar-Rahman, Verse 29).”
The Roman had nothing to say except to leave and return back to his country, defeated.
This is just one incident in the life of the great Imam that demonstrates his great wisdom and steadfastness in faith.
Imam-e-Azam Abu Hanifa (, may Allah be pleased with him) was first brought up as a trader as this ran through his family, but soon he started taking deep interest in Islamic learning.
As the years went by, Hazrat Imam Abu Hanifa (, may Allah be pleased with him) began to develop a yearning for religious education.
Oneday, a fortunate coincidence took place which turned his wish into reality.
It happened when one day, Imam Abu Hanifa (, may Allah be pleased with him) was passing by the house of Shabi, a famous Imam of Kufa, and was called in by the Imam who mistook him for a student. "Where are you going, young man?" asked the Imam Shabi. Hazrat Abu Hanifa (, may Allah be pleased with him) named a merchant he was going to visit. "I meant to ask," replied Imam Shabi, "whose classes you attend." Hazrat Imam Abu Hanifa (, may Allah be pleased with him) replied regretfully, "Nobody's". Then Imam Shabi said "I see great signs of intelligence in you. You ought to sit in the company of learned men."
This advice struck a responsive chord in the mind of young Imam Abu Hanifa , who then went forth to pursue his religious education.
He attended the lectures of Hazrat Hammad Basri (, may Allah be pleased with him) in Fiqh and then began to study Hadith. He learnt from various great scholars in Kufa. In Basrah he studied under two great Taabi'i scholars who had learnt Hadith from the Sahaba themselves.
In Makkatul Mukarramah and Madinatul Munawwarah, he learnt from Hazrat Ata bin Abi Rabah and Hazrat Ikramah (, may Allah be pleased with him). In fact, Imam-e-Azam Abu Hanifa (, may Allah be pleased with him) had numerous teachers. Some historians say that he learnt Hadith from about 4,000 scholars.
Some of his famous teachers were: Hazrat Imam Baaqir, Hazrat Imam Jafar Saadiq, Hazrat Ali, Hazrat Abu Hurairah, Hazrat Abdullah ibn Umar, Hazrat Aqabah bin Umar, Hazrat Safwaan, Hazrat Jabir and Hazrat Abu Qatadah (radi allahu anhumul ajma'in).
When his teacher, Hazrat Hammad Basri (, may Allah be pleased with him) passed away, Imam Azam Abu Hanifa (, may Allah be pleased with him) was 40 years old and began teaching. He became very famous and travelled many places.
Students from all over the Muslim world came to him to listen to his lectures, interviews and debates. Imam Maalik (, may Allah be pleased with him) also learnt from him.
When he was 56 years old, Caliph Mansur came to power after the Ummayad dynasty was overthrown by the Abbasids in 132 A.H.
Since Imam Abu Hanifa (, may Allah be pleased with him) opposed the Caliph's ruthless killing of the Ahle Bait, he was arrested. The Caliph offered the Imam the post of a Qaadi (Judge), but he refused. The Caliph Mansur had him beaten 30 strokes with a stick til his feet bled. Then Caliph Mansur repented and offered Imam Azam Abu Hanifa (, may Allah be pleased with him) 30,000 pieces of silver. The great Imam refused once more. He was then imprisoned again and thrashed 10 more strokes every day.
In the Month of Rajab 150 A.H., Imam Azam Abu Hanifa (, may Allah be pleased with him) passed away while in Salah. He had been poisoned by the orders of Caliph Mansur. His Janaza Salah was performed six times and each time 50,000 people took part. People continued to come and pray for him for 20 days after he was buried. He was 70 years old.
In 459 A.H. a Mazar (Tomb) was built for him by the Seljuki ruler Alp Arsalan. He lies buried in a Tomb situated near Baghdad in Iraq.
His grandfather, Zauti, embraced Islam and presented Tabit, his son, to Hazrat Ali, who prayed for the glorification of his family which ultimately took shape in the form of Imam Abu Hanifa. The Imam saw the reign of ten Umayyad Caliphs including that of Umar bin Abdul Aziz who ruled when the Imam was eighteen years of age. He also saw two Abbasid Caliphs Saffah and Mansoor. The notorious tyrant Hajjaj Bin Yusuf, the great persecutor of the Muslims died when Imam Abu Hanifa was 15 years of age.
The two and half years’ rule of Umar bin Abdul Aziz, who strived to revive the traditions of his maternal grandfather Hazrat Umar Farooq-e-Azam, was only a glimmer of light in the vast gloom of evil, which at last prevailed over it.
Birth Name: Numan bin Thaabit bin Zuta bin Mah
Born in: Kufa in Iraq in 80 A.H
In depth:
[Caliph Umar bin Abdul Aziz was extremely pious and disdainful of worldly luxuries. He preferred simplicity instead of the extravagance that had become a hallmark of the Umayyad lifestyle, depositing all luxury meant for the himself into the public treasury. He abandoned the caliphal palace to the family of Suleiman and instead preferred to live in modest dwellings. He wore rough linens instead of royal robes, and often went unrecognized.
According to a Muslim tradition, a female visitor once came to Umar's house seeking charity and saw a raggedly-dressed man patching holes in the building's walls. Assuming that the man was a servant of the caliph, she asked Umar's wife, "Don't you fear God? Why don't you veil in the presence of this man?" The woman was shocked to learn that the "servant" was in fact the caliph himself.
Though he had the people's overwhelming support, he publicly encouraged them to elect someone else if they were not satisfied with him (an offer no one ever took him up on).
Umar confiscated the estates seized by Ummayad officials and redistributed them to the people, while making it a personal goal to attend to the needs of every person in his empire. Fearful of being tempted into bribery, he rarely accepted gifts, and when he did he promptly deposited them in the public treasury. He even pressured his own wife, who had been daughter, sister and wife to three caliphs in their turn, to donate her jewellery to the public treasury.]
In such a dark atmosphere was born a light known by the world as the great Imam-e-Azam Abu Hanifa, who braved the persecution by the ruling class and never budged from the right path.
Imam Abu Hanifa had the great priviledge of meeting a number of Sahaba e Kiram, and so he himself was a Taabi'in. In his youth, he met great Sahaba like Hazrat Anas bin Malik (, may Allah be pleased with him), Hazrat Sahl bin Saad (, may Allah be pleased with him) and Hazrat Abul Tufail Amir bin Wathilah (, may Allah be pleased with him).
One day, the ruler of Rome at that time sent an envoy to Baghdad with three challenges for the Muslims. When the messenger reached the city, he informed the Khalifah that he had three questions which he challenged the Muslims to answer. The Khalifah gathered together all the scholars of the city and the Roman messenger climbed upon a high platform and said:
"I have come with three questions. If you answer them, then I will leave with you a great amount of wealth which I have brought from the king of Rome.” The questions were: "What was there before Allah?", "In which direction does Allah face?" and "What is Allah engaged in at this moment?".
The great assembly of people were silent; neither scholar nor student had answers for any of these questions.
In the midst of these brilliant scholars and students of Islam, there was a man looking on with his young son. “O my dear father! I will answer him and silence him!” said the young boy. He sought the permission of the Khalifah to give the answers and he was given the permission to do so.
The Roman addressed the young Muslim and repeated his first question, “What was there before Allah?”
The boy asked, “Do you know how to count?”
“Yes,” said the man.
“Then count down from ten!” So the Roman counted down, “ten, nine, eight, …” until he reached “one” and he stopped counting.
“But what comes before ‘one’?” asked the boy.
“There is nothing before one - that is it!” said the man.
“Well then, if there obviously is nothing before the arithmetic "one", then how do you expect that there should be anything before the "One" who is the Absolute truth, Eternal, Everlasting, the First, the Last, the Manifest, the Hidden?”
Now the man was surprised by this direct answer which he could not dispute.
So he poceeded to ask his second question,
“Then tell me, in which direction is Allah facing?”
“Bring a candle and light it,” said the boy, “and tell me in which direction the flame is facing.”
“But the flame is just light - it spreads in each of the four directions; North, South, East and West. It does not face any one direction only,” said the man in wonderment.
The boy replied, “Then if this physical light spreads in all four directions such that you cannot tell me which way it faces, then what do you expect of the Nur-us-Samawati-wal-’Ard: Allah - the Light of the Heavens and the Earth!? Light upon Light, Allah faces all directions at all times.”
The Roman was stupefied and astounded that here was a young child answering his challenges in such a way that he could not argue against the proofs.
So, desperately he went on to ask his final question.
But before doing so, the boy said, “Wait! You are the one who is asking the questions and I am the one who is giving the answers to these challenges. It is only fair that you should come down to where I am standing and that I should go up where you are right now, in order that the answers may be heard as clearly as the questions.”
This seemed reasonable to the Roman, so he came down from where he was standing and the boy ascended the platform.
Then the man repeated his final challenge,
“Tell me, what is Allah doing at this moment?”
The boy proudly answered, “At this moment, when Allah found upon this high platform a liar and mocker of Islam, He caused him to descend and brought him low. And as for the one who believed in the Oneness of Allah, He raised him up and established the Truth. Every day He exercises universal power. (Surah 55 ar-Rahman, Verse 29).”
The Roman had nothing to say except to leave and return back to his country, defeated.
This is just one incident in the life of the great Imam that demonstrates his great wisdom and steadfastness in faith.
Imam-e-Azam Abu Hanifa (, may Allah be pleased with him) was first brought up as a trader as this ran through his family, but soon he started taking deep interest in Islamic learning.
As the years went by, Hazrat Imam Abu Hanifa (, may Allah be pleased with him) began to develop a yearning for religious education.
Oneday, a fortunate coincidence took place which turned his wish into reality.
It happened when one day, Imam Abu Hanifa (, may Allah be pleased with him) was passing by the house of Shabi, a famous Imam of Kufa, and was called in by the Imam who mistook him for a student. "Where are you going, young man?" asked the Imam Shabi. Hazrat Abu Hanifa (, may Allah be pleased with him) named a merchant he was going to visit. "I meant to ask," replied Imam Shabi, "whose classes you attend." Hazrat Imam Abu Hanifa (, may Allah be pleased with him) replied regretfully, "Nobody's". Then Imam Shabi said "I see great signs of intelligence in you. You ought to sit in the company of learned men."
This advice struck a responsive chord in the mind of young Imam Abu Hanifa , who then went forth to pursue his religious education.
He attended the lectures of Hazrat Hammad Basri (, may Allah be pleased with him) in Fiqh and then began to study Hadith. He learnt from various great scholars in Kufa. In Basrah he studied under two great Taabi'i scholars who had learnt Hadith from the Sahaba themselves.
In Makkatul Mukarramah and Madinatul Munawwarah, he learnt from Hazrat Ata bin Abi Rabah and Hazrat Ikramah (, may Allah be pleased with him). In fact, Imam-e-Azam Abu Hanifa (, may Allah be pleased with him) had numerous teachers. Some historians say that he learnt Hadith from about 4,000 scholars.
Some of his famous teachers were: Hazrat Imam Baaqir, Hazrat Imam Jafar Saadiq, Hazrat Ali, Hazrat Abu Hurairah, Hazrat Abdullah ibn Umar, Hazrat Aqabah bin Umar, Hazrat Safwaan, Hazrat Jabir and Hazrat Abu Qatadah (radi allahu anhumul ajma'in).
When his teacher, Hazrat Hammad Basri (, may Allah be pleased with him) passed away, Imam Azam Abu Hanifa (, may Allah be pleased with him) was 40 years old and began teaching. He became very famous and travelled many places.
Students from all over the Muslim world came to him to listen to his lectures, interviews and debates. Imam Maalik (, may Allah be pleased with him) also learnt from him.
When he was 56 years old, Caliph Mansur came to power after the Ummayad dynasty was overthrown by the Abbasids in 132 A.H.
Since Imam Abu Hanifa (, may Allah be pleased with him) opposed the Caliph's ruthless killing of the Ahle Bait, he was arrested. The Caliph offered the Imam the post of a Qaadi (Judge), but he refused. The Caliph Mansur had him beaten 30 strokes with a stick til his feet bled. Then Caliph Mansur repented and offered Imam Azam Abu Hanifa (, may Allah be pleased with him) 30,000 pieces of silver. The great Imam refused once more. He was then imprisoned again and thrashed 10 more strokes every day.
In the Month of Rajab 150 A.H., Imam Azam Abu Hanifa (, may Allah be pleased with him) passed away while in Salah. He had been poisoned by the orders of Caliph Mansur. His Janaza Salah was performed six times and each time 50,000 people took part. People continued to come and pray for him for 20 days after he was buried. He was 70 years old.
In 459 A.H. a Mazar (Tomb) was built for him by the Seljuki ruler Alp Arsalan. He lies buried in a Tomb situated near Baghdad in Iraq.
His grandfather, Zauti, embraced Islam and presented Tabit, his son, to Hazrat Ali, who prayed for the glorification of his family which ultimately took shape in the form of Imam Abu Hanifa. The Imam saw the reign of ten Umayyad Caliphs including that of Umar bin Abdul Aziz who ruled when the Imam was eighteen years of age. He also saw two Abbasid Caliphs Saffah and Mansoor. The notorious tyrant Hajjaj Bin Yusuf, the great persecutor of the Muslims died when Imam Abu Hanifa was 15 years of age.
The two and half years’ rule of Umar bin Abdul Aziz, who strived to revive the traditions of his maternal grandfather Hazrat Umar Farooq-e-Azam, was only a glimmer of light in the vast gloom of evil, which at last prevailed over it.
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