me studied Hadith studies under Ibn Hanbal, he was later barred from study due to a dispute regarding the nature of the Qur’an; al-Zahiri stated that the Qur’an was “muhdath,” or recently occurring, a stance of which Ibn Hanbal strongly disapproved. Even before that time, Ibn Hanbal had actually cut off contact with anyone who would study with or consult Zahiri regarding religious matters, a habit Ibn Hanbal started after witnessing Zahiri’s defense of al-Shafi’i against Rahwayh.
The rumor regarding Zahiri’s statement about the Qur’an only added more fuel to the fire. Syrian historian Ibn Taymiyyah said that the dispute was semantic in nature, arising from a confusion of al-Zahiri’s intended meaning – that God is existent without peers – and the intended meaning of the Jahmites and Mu’tazila – that the Qur’an was created.
Thus al-Zahiri, Ibn Hanbal, al-Shafi’i, Ibn Rahwayh, al-Tabari, Malik ibn Anas, Sufyan al-Thawri, Abd al-Rahman al-Awza’i, Abū Ḥanīfa, Ibn Khuzaymah, Abdullah ibn Mubarak, Al-Darimi and Muhammad al-Bukhari – described by Ibn Taymiyyah as the leading figures of Islam at the time – all agreed that the Qur’an was uncreated, but a semantic misunderstanding arose when al-Zahiri, al-Bukhari, Muslim bin al-Hajjaj and others used the phrase “recently occurring” to establish that God and the Qur’an, believed by Muslims to be the literal speech of God, are not the same thing, but rather than God’s speech is an attribute.
Modern-day scholarship has suggested, in light of the weakness in the chains of narration connecting the phrase “the Qur’an is recently occurring” to al-Zahiri that al-Zahiri may have never made such a statement or held such a belief at all.
Due to al-Zahiri’s denial of analogical reasoning and blind following – cornerstones in the other main Sunni schools of thought – the students of those schools may have forged the statement and attributed it to al-Zahiri as a means of pushing the common people away from him and his school of thought. Abu Ubaida further supported his point by noting that 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 a