Lemaḏhabḥanafite d’Ifrīqiya (IIe–IVe/VIIIe–Xesiècle) : Asad b. al-Furāt (m. 213/828) et la transmission duKitāb al-aṣld’al-Šaybānī (m. 189/805)

Abstract

AbstractThe Qayrawānī scholar Asad b. al-Furāt (d. 213/828) is regarded as an authentic Mālikī jurist at the origin of one of the first compilations of the teachings of the Egyptian disciples of Mālik b. Anas (d. 179/705):al-Asadiyya. Rather, the manuscripts in the Kairouan-Raqqāda collection mentioning his name suggest that he served as a cornerstone of the ḥanafī networks in Ifrīqiya. We show in this article that Asad b. al-Furāt played a key role in the transmission in Kairouan of theKitāb al-aṣlof Muḥammad b. al-Ḥasan al-Šaybānī (d. 189/805), one of the main disciples of Abū Ḥanīfa (d. 150/767). Through an analysis combining a palaeographic approach and the study of texts and paratexts preserved in the Qayrawānī manuscripts of theKitāb al-aṣl, we emphasise that: 1. the establishment of the written form of ḥanafī teachings was undertaken in Kairouan in the 3rd/9th century and continued until the 4th/10th century; 2. persistent ḥanafī circles were formed around the transmission of these texts in Ifrīqiya; 3. theKitāb al-aṣlwas already in the first part of the 3rd/9th a fixed text, taught in Kairouan, and which influenced the construction of Mālikī and Ismāʿīliī legal doctrines.