Öz
Fiqh emerged as a separate and independent discipline at the end of the 1st century of Islam and continued and matured through the 2nd/8th and 3rd/9th centuries. There is still little research on the early history of the formation of Islamic disciplines in general and law in particular, especially the formation of the chapters and their contents. Abu Hanifa’s Kufan Academy of fiqh, as coined by late MuHammâd Hamidullah, is believed to have played a major role in the formation of the discipline of fiqh, a fact that was unanimously agreed by both his allies and rivals. The records of the debates and discussions of this Academy was preserved thanks to the efforts of MuHammâd b. Hasan al-Shaybani who recorded the legacies of Abu Hanifa and Abu Yusuf. This paper gives a brief account of the fierce criticism directed towards Abu Hanifa. Although many attempted to explain the reasons behind this often unfounded opposition to Abu Hanifa none of the explanations seem to be satisfying. Thus this paper argues that the real source of the opposition against him was his unprecedented methodology. His achievement in this regard was so appealing that the traditional circles were in trouble in developing a response against it. The paper therefore aims to put forward in the second part the main features of his method of theorizing the living tradition of Islam. In order to show in a case study the paper tries to make an analysis of the Chapter of Fasting from Kitab al-Asl of al-Shaybani.