THE IRAQIANS 239

what Ḥammād put under the aegis of Ibrāhīm by saying: ‘When he [Ḥammād] decided according to his own opinion (ra’y), he was generally right, but when he related traditions on the authority of others than Ibrāhīm, he made mistakes.’ We find indeed opinions of Ḥammād quoted without a reference to Ibrāhīm.¹ But it is not generally possible to distinguish between the common doctrine of the Kūfans in the time of Ḥammād and Ḥammād’s individual opinions.

Besides the Kūfan Iraqi doctrine which he put under the aegis of Ibrāhīm and which he found to some extent projected back to Ibn Masʿūd and his Companions, Ḥammād transmitted traditions which had recently come into circulation, from the Prophet and from various Companions of the Prophet.² These outside traditions, which did not belong to the ‘living tradition’ of the school and often contradicted it and Ḥammād’s own doctrine, were the result of the rising pressure of the traditionists on the ancient schools of law. We should be less critical than Ibn Saʿd if we were to suppose that Ḥammād received these traditions by oral transmission from the Successors who appear as his immediate authorities in the isnāds.

With Ḥammād’s disciple Abū Ḥanīfa, whose opinions were collected and preserved in writing by his companions and disciples Abū Yūsuf and Shaibānī, the legal tradition in Kūfa entered the literary period. The activity of Abū Yūsuf and Shaibānī transformed the school of Kūfa into the school of the Ḥanafīs.³

Tr. I is concerned with the differences between Abū Ḥanīfa and his contemporary Ibn Abī Lailā, a judge of Kūfa, regarding technical details of legal doctrine. These questions were worked out and discussed in the period between Ḥammād on one side and Abū Ḥanīfa and Ibn Abī Lailā on the other.⁴ Although there is little occasion here for references to earlier authorities, it is obvious that Ibn Abī Lailā shares the ‘living tradition’ of the school of Kūfa as symbolized by the name of Ibrāhīm Nakhaʿī (and by that of Ibn Masʿūd). Generally speaking, Ibn Abī Lailā represents an older stage of doctrine than his contem-