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YaʿḲūb b. Ibrāhīm al-Anṣārī al-Kūfī , a prominent religious lawyer, one of the founders of the Ḥanafī [q.v.] school of law. Abū Yūsuf was of pure Arab extraction; his ancestor, Saʿd b. Ḥabta, was a youth in Medina in the time of the Prophet. (For details of his genealogy, see al-Ḵh̲aṭīb al-Bag̲h̲dādī, xiv, 243.) His date of birth, reckoned backwards from the date of his death, is rather arbitrarily given as 113. According to an anecdote, the several versions of which are mutually contradictory, he was a poor boy, was helped by his teacher Abū Ḥanīfa [q.v.] who recognized his worth, and achieved success beyond every expectation. All we know is that he studied religious law and traditions in Kūfa and in Medina, under Abū Ḥanīfa, Mālik b. Anas, al-Layt̲h̲ b. Saʿd and others (a reasonably complete and authentic list of his teachers is given by al-Ḵh̲aṭīb al-Bag̲h̲dādī, xiv, 242), and lived in Kūfa until he was appointed ḳāḍī in Bag̲h̲dād; he held this office until his death in 182/798. He is reported to have visited Baṣra in 176 and in 180. It is not certain whether he was appointed by al-Mahdī, al-Hādī, or Hārūn al-Ras̲h̲īd. According to a story which al-Tanūk̲h̲ī (d. 384) heard from his father ( Nis̲h̲wār al-Muḥāḍara , 123 ff.), Abū Yūsuf was able to assure on a point of religious law an officer who rewarded him generously and later had occasion to recommend him to the caliph Hārūn. As he succeeded in giving a satisfactory opinion to the caliph too, the caliph drew him near to his person and finally appointed him ḳāḍī. This version has a certain inner probability, but cannot for that reason alone be regarded as authentic. It is certain, however, that by his practical sense he soon became friendly with, and even made himself indispensable to, Hārūn al-Ras̲h̲īd. By exaggerating this achievement, both his friends and his detractors made him into the prototype of the unprincipled lawyer who would find an easy way out of any legal difficulty for his clients and for himself. The existence of his Kitāb al-Ḥiyal and the misunderstandings of the serious legal purpose underlying it, could not fail to reinforce that misconception. (Cf. Schacht, in Isl ., 1926, 217.) Al-Ras̲h̲īd conferred upon him the title of Grand Cadi or ḳāḍi ’l-ḳuḍāt for the first time in Islam. This was then merely an honorific title given to the ḳāḍī of the capital, but the caliph not only consulted Abū Yūsuf on the administration of Muhammadan justice, on financial policy, and on similar questions, but on the appointment of other ḳāḍīs in the empire.
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Search for other papers by J. Schacht in
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(1,545 words)