The following text shows us how encyclopedic the knowledge of our Imām was, the Imām Ahl al-Sunnah, Ahmad b. Hanbal, and it will also show what some of his students and companions used to specialise and take interest in; you will find him encapsulating the (knowledge left behind) by the Mujtahid Imāms before him. It is also well known that Imām Ahmad accompanied al-Shāfi’ī and took from him. He was very well acquainted with the different schools – may Allāh have mercy on the Imāms.
This was stated by the ingenious, Sh. al-Islām, Ahmad b. Taymiyyah (r):
❝1. Hanbal (b. Ishāq) and Ahmad b. al-Faraj and others used to ask him about the opinions of Mālik and the school of Madīnah,
2. just as Ishāq b. Mansūr used to ask him about the opinions of Sufyān al-Thawrī and others,
3. just as Maymūnī used to ask him about the opinions of al-Awzā’ī,
4. just as Ismā’īl b. Sa’īd al-Shālanjī (one of narrators of the Imām’s Rasāil) used to ask him about the opinions of Abū Hanīfah and his companions, as he (Ismā’īl) used to be upon the Madhhab of Abū Hanīfah after which he practised Ijtihād in many of the issues where he favoured the Madhhab of Ahl al-Hadīth, and for those issues he referred back to Ahmad and others, whilst they were explained by Ibrāhīm b. Ya’qūb al-Jūzajānī, the Imām of Damascus (and a student of Imām Ahmad).
5. As for those who would ask him about everything, like al-Athram, ‘Abd Allāh, Sālih, and others, then there were many.❞
[al-Mustadrak ‘ala Majmū’ al-Fatāwā]Taken from Sh. Ahmad al-Gharīb (h) with edits.
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