at al-Zahiri and his students were actually severer in their opposition to the Mu’tazila and their belief that the Qur’an was created than Ibn Hanbal was, using harsh language in their written responses to such beliefs.
al-Zahiri held the view than in in-kind exchanges of goods, the forbidden type of usury applies to only six commodities specified by the prophet Muhammad: gold, silver, wheat, barley, dates and salt. Because al-Zahiri rejected the use of analogical reasoning in jurisprudence, he disagreed with the majority view that the prohibition on excess gain in in-kind exchanges of all commodities, and did not consider such gains to be a form of interest.
Had the prophet Muhammad intended to include commodities other than the above six, he could have done so; because he specified that usury was only prohibited in these six commodities and that Muslims were free to deal in other commodities as they liked, al-Zahiri saw no basis for making an analogy to any other commodities.
According to al-Shawkani, al-Zahiri regarded the Muslim face veil to be recommended rather than obligatory, seeing that a woman’s face could be uncovered in public but that all other body parts must be covered. This was the position of Ibn Hanbal as well.
If a Muslim begins traveling while fasting during the month of Ramadan, al-Zahiri saw that the individual should break their fast on the day which they started their journey, a view which Ibn Hanbal and Ibn Rahwayh agreed. This was due to the Qur’anic verse allowing the traveler to skip the Ramadan fast and make it up when they complete their journey. If a Muslim did fast while traveling, they would still have to make up the days the skipped according to al-Zahiri’s view, as the verse wasn’t merely an allowance for breaking the fast, but a command.
Most Muslims shorten the length of their prayers while traveling as well. This “traveling” by which the Muslim shortens his prayers and breaks the fast is a topic of discussion among jurists as to its distance and duration. al-Zahiri saw that any form of traveling, regardless of distance or duration, allowed the individual to shorten their prayers.
al-Zahiri was known as being a prolific author, and Persian historian Ibn al-Nadim was able to personally record the names of at least 157 of al-Zahiri’s written works, the majority on topics within Islamic studies. He was also considered to be the first person to have written a biography of his former teacher, al-Shafi’i. Melchert cites Ibn al-Nadim and Ibn ‘Abd al-Barr for his claim that Zahiri’s biography of Shafi’i was the not just the first biography about Shafi’i but the first major biography of any Muslim jurist ever written. None of these works have survived to the modern era in their entirety.
Ibn al-Nadim also mentions that after al-Shafi’i's al-Risala, Ibn Hanbal and al-Zahiri were the next major Sunni figures to author works on the principles of Islamic jurisprudence, with al-Zahiri producing a number of works on topics including his rejection of blindly following clergymen, the difference between general and specific verses of the Qur’an, the difference between succinct and detailed commands in the religion, and his views on and experiences with his former teacher, al-Shafi’i.
Modern scholarship has pieced together chapter headings for al-Zahiri’s work on juristic principles from other early works in the following order: binding consensus, invalidity of blindly following clergy, invalidity of analogical reason, traditions transmitted by single authorities, traditions which provide certainty, incontrovertible proof, particular vs. general scriptural texts and specified vs. unspecified texts.
The chapters – and perhaps even the information contained therein – have primarily been preserved by the work of Fatimid writer Qadi al-Nu’man, in addition to passages in Al-Muhalla of Sunni jurist Ibn Hazm, an adherent of al-Zahiri’s legal school.
Although al-Zahiri’s religious views were and are considered controversial, his character and religious piety carry universal acclaim. Al-Khatib al-Baghdadi, Al-Su