ABA (or rather ABAD) HANIFAH or HANFA, furnished Al-Nooma, was the son of Thabet, and born at Cousah in the 80th year of the Hegira. This is the most celebrated doctor of the orthodox Mussulmans, and his sect is held in greatest esteem among the four which they indifferently follow. Notwithstanding this, he was not very well esteemed during his life; inasmuch that the caliph Almanfor caused him to be imprisoned at Bagdad, for having refused to subscribe to the opinion of absolute predestination, which the Mussulmans call Cadha. But afterwards Abou Joseph, who was the sovereign judge or chancellor of the empire under the caliph Hadi, brought his doctrine into such credit, that it became a prevailing opinion, that to be a good Mussulman was to be a Hanifite. He died in the 150th year of the Hegira, in the prison of Bagdad: and it was not till 335 years after his death, that Melick Schah, a sultan of the Selgiucidan race, erected to his memory a magnificent monument in the same city, and a college for his followers, in the 485th year of the Hegira, and Anno Christi 1092. The most
eminent successors of this doctor were Ahmed Benali, Al Giaffas, and Al Razi who was the master of Nasfari; and there is a mosque particularly appropriated to them in the temple of Mecca.