How hanafism came to originate in Kufa and traditionalism in Medina

Abstract

The anaf and Malik personal schools of law are said to have derived from the earlier Kufan and Medinese regional schools. The regional stage of developing Malik¬ jurisprudence is plain in works such as the Mudawwana, but early ºanaf¬ works are already focused on Ab‚ ºan¬fa and his disciples, so that a regional stage is hard to make out. The biographical dictionaries of Khal¬fa ibn Khayyafl and Ibn SaÆd show that there were active traditionists in Kufa equally with the Hijaz. Moreover, the fiabaqat of Ibn SaÆd shows that he considered the ºanaf¬ school Baghdadi, not Kufan. Kitab al-MaÆrifa wa-al-tar¬kh of Fasaw¬ shows that the Kufan background to ºanaf¬ jurisprudence, together more generally with the identification of Kufa with raæy and Medina with Ωad¬th, emerged only later in the ninth century.