in Islām, one of the four Sunnī schools of religious law, incorporating the legal opinions of the ancient Iraqi schools of al-Kūfah and Basra. Ḥanafī legal thought (madhhab) developed from the teachings of the theologian Imām Abū Ḥanīfah (c. 700–767) by such disciples as Abū Yūsuf (d. 798) and Muḥammad ash-Shaybānī (749/750–805) and became the official system of Islāmic legal interpretation of the ʿAbbāsids, Seljuqs, and Ottomans. Although the Ḥanafīs acknowledge the Qurʾān and Ḥadīth (narratives concerning the Prophet’s life and sayings) as primary sources of law, they are noted for the acceptance of personal opinion (raʾy) in the absence of precedent. The school currently predominates in Central Asia, India, Pakistan, Turkey, and the countries of the former Ottoman Empire.
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