Ahmad ibn Hanbal

Imam Ahmad authored no book of fiqh; the most he wrote on it was a letter on prayer, written to an imam who prayed behind him and erred in his prayer ¹. He disliked writing down books containing branching questions and opinion, holding that engaging with transmitted reports came first ². His companions wrote down more than thirty volumes of his words and fatwas ¹.

The book mentions that the Musnad contains thirty thousand hadiths ³. It transmits from his son Abdullah a report saying his father gathered it from more than seven hundred thousand hadiths, and that whatever the Muslims differed on of the Messenger of God ﷺ's hadith is referred back to it ³. The book's margin discusses the attribution of this report to him ³.

In its first division the book presents the creeds transmitted from Imam Ahmad ⁴.

Sheikh Omar Abdelkafy recounts that Ahmad ibn Hanbal prayed for al-Shafi'i after every prayer (needs_source: a report the sheikh gives) ⁵. He recounts that critics faulted al-Shafi'i for visiting Ahmad often, and that al-Shafi'i answered that the favour lies in both visits ⁶.

He recounts that when Ahmad fell ill, al-Shafi'i feared for Ahmad's life and for the knowledge that would be lost with him; al-Shafi'i himself fell ill from that fear, and then Ahmad forced himself to go and visit him (needs_source) ⁷.

Sheikh Omar Abdelkafy holds, as his own opinion, that the community should study its own history, and he names Ahmad ibn Hanbal's ordeal among the matters to be studied; the word is unclear in the automatic transcript (needs_source) ⁸.