Hanafi - Some Distinctive Opinions of The School

Some Distinctive Opinions of The School

• It is prohibited or frowned upon to eat some forms of non-fish seafood based on the hadith of Muhammad : "Two types of dead meat and two types of blood have been made lawful for your consumption : fish and locust, liver and spleen".
• Except for at Hajj, every salah (each of the five daily prayers) needs to be made in its regular time. (Some non-Hanafi scholars allow a person who is travelling to adjust certain prayer times for convenience).
• Women may serve as qadis, i.e. judges of Islamic law.
• The beginning of the time for asr prayer (and the end of the time for zuhr prayer) is later than in the other schools (roughly when shadows are twice the length of their objects).
• The hands are not raised while going to ruku and after it, whereas this is practised in the Shafi'i and Hanbali schools
• A sixth daily prayer called witr is wajib/required (but not at the same level of obligation as the five daily prayers).
• Abū Ḥanīfa, taking a literal view (harfiyyah), held that "wine" (خمر/Khamr in Quranic/classical Arabic), i.e. the fermented juice of dates or grapes, was absolutely prohibited but it was permissible to drink small non-intoxicating amounts of other alcoholic beverages (e.g. made from honey or grains). Later Hanafi scholars tend to rule that all alcoholic beverages are prohibited regardless of source.
• Bleeding can break one's wudu
• Merely touching a member of the opposite sex does not break one's wudu.
• A Muslim is allowed to work in Church construction and building thereof, whose wages considered lawful by Hanafis.
• It is possible to get married without the permission or consultation of a wali.