Judge Abu Yusuf
He is the mujtahid imam, the eminent learned scholar of hadith and Chief Judge, Abu Yusuf, Yaqub ibn Ibrahim ibn Habib ibn Habish ibn Sa’d ibn Bujayr ibn Muawiyah al Ansari al Kufi (d. 182 AH). Sa’d ibn Bujayr had Companionship, and he is Sa’d ibn Hubtah, and Hubtah was his mother. He was from the tribe of Bajilah, counted among the allies of the Ansar, and he was present at al Khandaq and other battles. Abu Yusuf was born in the year 113 AH.
He narrated from Hisham ibn Urwah (d. 146 AH), Yahya ibn Sa’id al Ansari (d. 143 AH), Ata ibn al Saib (d. 136 AH), Yazid ibn Abi Ziyad (d. 136 AH), Abu Ishaq al Shaybani (d. 130 AH), Ubaydullah ibn Umar (d. 147 AH), al A’mash, Sulayman ibn Mihran (d. 148 AH), Hajjaj ibn Arta’ah (d. 145 AH), and Abu Hanifah, al Nu’man ibn Thabit (d. 150 AH).
He kept to Abu Hanifah and studied fiqh with him, and he was the most outstanding of his students and the most knowledgeable among them. Great imams graduated under him, such as Muhammad ibn al Hasan al Shaybani (d. 189 AH), Mualla ibn Mansur (d. 211 AH), Hilal al Rai (d. 245 AH), Ibn Sama’ah, al Hasan ibn Muhammad ibn Sama’ah (d. 263 AH), and many others.
Among those who narrated from him were Yahya ibn Ma’in (d. 233 AH), Ahmad ibn Hanbal (d. 241 AH), Ali ibn al Ja’d (d. 230 AH), Asad ibn al Furat (d. 213 AH), Ahmad ibn Mani’ (d. 244 AH), Ali ibn Muslim al Tusi, Amr ibn Abi Amr al Harrani, Amr al Naqid, Amr ibn Ali al Fallas (d. 249 AH), and many others. His father was poor and owned a weak little shop, and Abu Hanifah used to take care of Abu Yusuf, sending him dirhams, a hundred after a hundred.
Ali ibn Harmalah al Taymi narrated from him that he said: I used to seek knowledge while I had very little, so my father came and said, “My son, do not stretch your leg in the circle of Abu Hanifah. You are in need.” So I chose to obey my father. Abu Hanifah gave me one hundred dirhams and said, “Keep to the study circle. When this is finished, let me know.” Then after some days he gave me another hundred. It is also said that he was raised as an orphan, and that his mother put him to work with a washer.
Muhammad ibn al Hasan (d. 189 AH) said: Abu Yusuf fell ill, so Abu Hanifah visited him. When he came out he said, “If this young man dies, there is no one on earth more knowledgeable than him.” Ahmad ibn Hanbal (d. 241 AH) said: When I first began to write hadith, I used to attend the gatherings of Abu Yusuf.
He was more inclined towards the people of hadith than Abu Hanifah and Muhammad. Ibrahim ibn Abi Dawud al Burlusi said: I heard Ibn Ma’in (d. 233 AH) say, “I have not seen among the people of ra’y anyone more firm in hadith, more memorising, and more sound in narration than Abu Yusuf.”
Abbas, meaning al Abbas ibn Muhammad al Duri, narrated from Ibn Ma’in (d. 233 AH) that he said: “Abu Yusuf is a man of hadith, a man of Sunnah.”
Yahya al Barmaki said: Abu Yusuf came to us, and the least of what was with him was fiqh, while he had filled the two horizons with his fiqh. Ahmad (d. 241 AH) said: Abu Yusuf was fair in dealing with hadith.
Abu Yusuf said: I accompanied Abu Hanifah for seventeen years. Hilal al Rai (d. 245 AH) said: Abu Yusuf had memorised tafsir, and he had memorised the accounts of battles and the days of the Arabs; fiqh was just one of his sciences.
Ibn Sama’ah (d. 263 AH) said: The daily regular worship of Abu Yusuf was two hundred rakahs each day.
Ibn al Madini, Ali ibn al Madini (d. 234 AH), said: Nothing is held against Abu Yusuf except his hadith about al Hajar, and he was truthful.
Yahya ibn Yahya al Tamimi (d. 226 AH) said: I heard Abu Yusuf at the time of his death saying, “Everything I have ever given a fatwa on, I have now gone back on, except what agrees with the Book of Allah and the Sunnah,” and in another wording, “except what is in the Qur’an and what the Muslims are agreed upon.”
Bishr ibn al Walid al Kindi (d. 238 AH) said: I heard Abu Yusuf say, “Whoever seeks wealth through alchemy will end up bankrupt. Whoever seeks the religion through kalam will become a heretic. Whoever chases after strange isolated narrations will end up lying.” Ibn Adi, Abdullah ibn Adi al Jurjani (d. 365 AH), said: There is no harm in him. Al Nasa’i, Ahmad ibn Shu’ayb (d. 303 AH), mentioned him in his book on the ranks of the Hanafi jurists and said: “Abu Yusuf is trustworthy.” Abu Hatim al Razi, Muhammad ibn Idris (d. 277 AH), said: “His hadith is to be written.”
Bakkar ibn Qutaybah (d. 270 AH) said: I heard Abu al Walid say: When Abu Yusuf came to Basra with al Rashid, the jurists and the hadith scholars gathered at his door. He looked out at them and said, “I belong to both groups together, and I do not give one group precedence over the other.” He was the judge of the provinces, the minister of al Rashid, and his companion in Hajj.
Muhammad ibn Shuja’, Muhammad ibn Shuja’ al Thalji (d. 266 AH), said: Al Hasan ibn Abi Malik (d. 204 AH) narrated to us that he said: I heard Abu Yusuf say, “We do not pray behind anyone who says that the Qur’an is created, and the one who finds pleasure in any part of kalam will never prosper.”
The compiler said: Abu Yusuf reached in leadership of knowledge a rank beyond which there is no further rank. Al Rashid used to show him great honour.
Muhammad ibn Sa’dan said: Abu Sulayman al Jawzajani said: I heard Abu Yusuf say, “I entered in to see al Rashid while there were two pearls in his hand which he was turning over. He said, ‘Have you ever seen anything more beautiful than these two?’ I said, ‘Yes, O Commander of the Believers.’ He said, ‘And what is that?’ I said, ‘The container that holds them.’ So he threw them both to me and said, ‘They are yours to do with as you wish.’”
Bishr ibn al Walid al Kindi (d. 238 AH) said: Abu Yusuf died on Thursday, the fifth of Rabi al Awwal, in the year 182 AH.
Others said: He died on the first of Rabi al Akhir, and he lived for sixty nine years. I have written a separate booklet just for his biography.
How noble is his saying which a group narrated from Bishr ibn al Walid al Kindi (d. 238 AH). He said: I heard Abu Yusuf say, “Knowledge of disputation and argumentation is ignorance. Ignorance of disputation and argumentation is knowledge.”
The compiler said: Its example is doubts and problematic questions which are the fruits of the thoughts of ahl al kalam. They are raised in argument about the verses and narrations of the attributes, so one person declares another a disbeliever, and from this come the ways of the Mu’tazilah, the Jahmiyyah, mujassimah, and every tribulation. We ask Allah for safety.
Siyar A’lām al-Nubalā By Imam Al-Dhahabi (8/535–539)
