al-Masa'il allati Halafa Alayha Ahmad ibn Hanbal
- Author died
- 526 AH
- Editions
- Dār al-ʻĀṣimah
al-Masa'il allati Halafa 'Alayha Ahmad ibn Hanbal ("The Issues Regarding Which Ahmad ibn Hanbal Swore an Oath") is a specialized Hanbali treatise compiled by Abu al-Husayn Ibn Abi Ya'la (451–526 AH / 1059–1131 CE) that gathers rulings, statements, and doctrinal positions in which Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal (164–241 AH / 780–855 CE) explicitly took an oath .
Subject Matter and Scope
The work belongs to the masa'il literature of the Hanbali school, focusing specifically on questions and statements where Ahmad emphasized his verdict or stance with a sworn oath . It spans several fields of Islamic learning, including theology, hadith critique, and jurisprudence:
- Theological positions: The text records reports from the Mihna (inquisition), including Ahmad's sworn declaration before the Abbasid caliph al-Mu'tasim concerning his fearlessness and his assertion that the Qur'an is the uncreated speech of God .
- Narrator evaluation ('Ilm al-Rijal): It preserves Ahmad's sworn assessments of hadith transmitters, such as his evaluation equating the reliability of Za'ida ibn Qudama and Zuhayr ibn Mu'awiya .
- Legal and advisory rulings: It brings together legal answers recorded across various transmission chains from Ahmad's students, including Ishaq ibn Mansur al-Kawsaj and others .
The topic had also been treated earlier within the Hanbali school by the judge al-Sharif Abu 'Ali Muhammad ibn Ahmad ibn Abi Musa al-Hashimi (d. 428 AH / 1037 CE), whom Ibn Abi Ya'la cites in the text .
Reception and Influence
Later scholars relied on the collection as an intermediary source for transmissions from Ahmad ibn Hanbal. In I'lam al-Muwaqqi'in, Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya cited various rulings of Ahmad by drawing directly upon the texts and transmissions compiled in Abu al-Husayn Ibn Abi Ya'la's treatise, including quotations from Ahmad's letter to Musaddad .
Manuscripts and Publication
A manuscript of the work is preserved in the Zahiriyya Library in Damascus within a composite volume (majmu'), spanning folios 103b to 116b (14 folios, 18 lines per page), transcribed in naskh script by Salama ibn Ibrahim al-Haddad without a specified date of copying . A photographic copy is held at Umm al-Qura University (no. 219) .
The treatise was edited by Mahmud al-Haddad under the title Juz' al-Masa'il allati Halafa 'Alayha Ahmad and published by Dar al-'Asima in Riyadh in 1407 AH (1987 CE) .
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