232 THE IRAQIANS

reference not to him but to 'Umar.¹ The name of Ibn Mas'ūd is usually an indication of the prevailing doctrine of the school of Kufa; we find it, however, occasionally affixed to Iraqian and even Medinese counter-traditions,² or to mutually contradictory traditions.³

The formal and explicit kind of reference to Ibn Mas'ūd himself, as an authority on law, developed out of an earlier stage which consisted in a more general reference to the Companions (āṣḥab) of Ibn Mas'ūd. This was the name given originally to an anonymous group of Kufians,⁴ some of whom were later identified as relatives of Ibrāhīm Nakha'ī: his uncle 'Alqama b. Qais and his maternal cousins 'Alqama, Aswad and 'Abdalraḥmān the sons of Yāzid.⁵ We shall discuss the position of Ibrāhīm in the Kufian Iraqian tradition of legal doctrine in section E below; these relatives of his formed the family link⁶ by which the doctrine which went under the name of Ibrāhīm Nakha'ī was artificially connected with the very beginnings of Islam in Kufa in the time of Ibn Mas'ūd.⁷

The Companions of Ibn Mas'ūd are often mentioned besides Ibn Mas'ūd, for instance in Āthār A.Y. 49, 94, 105, 369, in the corresponding passages in Āthār Shaib., in Tr. II, 19 (i) and elsewhere. They appear by themselves, without mention of Ibn Mas'ūd, for instance in Āthār A.Y. 110,⁸ 407, in Āthār Shaib. 37, 91, in Muw. Shaib. 72 and elsewhere. Ibn 'Abdalbarr⁹ says correctly that much of Abū Ḥanifa's ra'y and qiyās was anticipated by [or, as we should say, projected back to] Ibrāhīm and the Companions of Ibn Mas'ūd. Sarakhsī (vi. 95) was well aware of their existence.

As the general reference to the Companions of Ibn Mas'ūd gave rise to an explicit reference to Ibn Mas'ūd himself, this last