by the fact that, when Abu Hanifah—may Allah have mercy on him—was asked by one of the hadith scholars why he did not raise his hands, he replied: “Because no authentic hadith from the Messenger of Allah has reached us on that matter.” Our scholars have recorded this report in their works. Can it be imagined that a scholar of Abu Hanifah’s stature would give such an answer about a practice transmitted through multiple independent chains, related by twenty Companions, and observed by them? Certainly not. His excuse is simply that those reports had not reached him; he was unaware of them, so he was entitled to say, “Nothing sound has reached me,” and consequently was entitled to omit the practice. Yet if this was permissible for Abu Hanifah and other early authorities, it is absolutely impermissible for later adherents who have seen these numerous authentic ahadith, know their soundness, and know that no contrary report can withstand them. Should they still abandon the practice out of partisanship for Abu Hanifah and blind imitation of him, then—in addition to opposing the established sunnah of the Prophet—they are also opposing their own imam. For Abu Hanifah himself addressed people of this sort with his famous statements: “When a hadith is sound, that is my madhhab,” and, “It is not lawful for anyone to issue a fatwa on our opinion unless he knows the basis on which we said it.” If he would not allow anyone to give a ruling on his view of an issue without knowing its proof, how can a follower give a ruling on it after learning the weakness of the evidence it rests on in comparison with other sound proofs—as in the present question and in other past and future cases? We therefore praise Allah for having enabled us to follow the sunnah of His Prophet, and we ask Him to reward Imam Abu Hanifah and the other imams who, through such precious maxims, have pointed us along this fine path toward the sunnah. It is thus clear that whoever abandons an established sunnah for the statement of an imam is actually opposing that imam and displeasing him. For this reason more than one of Abu Hanifah’s own followers, both early and late, disagreed with him on this issue; the earliest