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Monday, September 19, 2011

Imam e Azam Name, birth and ancestry

Abu Hanifa was born in Kufa, Iraq during the reign of the powerful Umayyad caliph Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan. Acclaimed as Al-Imam al-A'zam, or Al-A'dham (the Great Imam), Nu’man bin Thabit bin Zuta bin Mah was better known by his kunya Abu Hanifa. It was not a true kunya, as he did not have a son called Hanifa, but an epithetical one meaning pure in monotheistic belief. His father, Thabit bin Zuta, a trader from Kabul, part of Khorasan in Persia (today in modern Afghanistan), was 40 years old at the time of Abu Hanifa's birth. Some called Abu Hanifa, al-Taymi. The origin of this name is that Abu Hanifa's grandfather Zuta was a slave and a member of the tribe of Taym purchased his freedom. His ancestry is generally accepted as being of non-Arab origin as suggested by the etymology of the names of his grandfather (Zuta) and great-grandfather (Mah). The historian, Al-Khatib al-Baghdadi, records a statement from Abu Hanifa's grandson, Ismail bin Hammad, who gave Abu Hanifa's lineage as Thabit bin Numan bin Marzban and claiming to be of Persian origin. The discrepancy in the names, as given by Ismail of Abu Hanifa's grandfather and great-grandfather are thought to be due to Zuta's adoption of the Arabic name (Numan) upon his acceptance of Islam and that Mah and Marzban were titles or official designations in Persia, with the later meaning a margrave refers to the noble ancestry of Abu Hanifa's family as the Sasanian margraves of Kabul. Those stories maintain for his ancestors having been slaves purchased by some Arab benefactor are, therefore, untenable and seemingly fabricated. The widely accepted opinion, however, is that he was of Persian ancestry

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