Umayyad and Early Abbasid Caliphate

Imam Abu Hanifa

Abu Hanifa al-Nu'man ibn Thabit (699-767 CE) was the founder of the Hanafi school of Islamic jurisprudence, the most widely followed legal tradition in the Muslim world. A silk merchant turned scholar, he developed a systematic legal methodology that balanced scriptural authority with rational analysis, and died in Abbasid imprisonment rather than compromise his scholarly independence.