ḥanafites

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Ḥanafites. The followers of a religious school named after the jurist Abū Ḥanīfa, which grew out of the old Kufan and Basran law schools. Two of Abū Ḥanīfa's pupils, Abū Yūsuf Yaʿkub (d. 795 (AH 182)) and Muḥammad b. al-Ḥasan al-Shaybānī (d. 805 (AH 189)) were more responsible for the authoritative development of the law school than Abū Ḥanīfa himself. The Ḥanafites are distinguished from the other law schools by recognizing that Qurʾān and ḥadīth are not sufficient for all issues, so that qiyās and raʾy (personal opinion) are legitimate.

Nowadays this school prevails in Iraq, Syria, Turkey, USSR (Turkistan, Bukhara, and Samarkand), China, Afghanistan, India, and Pakistan.