This chapter considers the implications of this study for the broader history of medieval Sunnism and comparative work on heresy and orthodoxy in the field of religious studies and history. It concludes that proto-Sunni orthodoxy was an evolving process. Not only did it undergo a number of iterations, but it was characterised by internal contradictions and divisions. The failures of proto-Sunnism were as relevant to the formation of medieval Sunnism as were its successes. Medieval Sunnism was a product of constant tensions. These required negotiations. In order to appreciate the historical achievement of classical Sunnism, examining its most contentious times is integral to making sense of its most agreeable times. In this sense, to study the formation of orthodoxy and heresy in medieval Islam is to come to terms with a truism that ‘traditions, when vital, embody continuities of conflict’.

This chapter documents Stage One in the mnemohistory of discourses of heresy concerning Abu Hanifa based on sources composed in the first half of the ninth century (800-850). During this phase, hostility towards Abu Hanifa was limited and confined to disagreements in the realm of law and hadith. It demonstrates that a discourse of heresy among proto-Sunni traditionalists cannot be discerned in the sources ⎯ a dramatic change, however, was to occur during phases two and three (850-950).

This chapter distils a massive reservoir of discourses of heresy against Abu Hanifa to document the capaciousness of the proto-Sunni traditionalist effort to marginalise him and his followers. It identifies the multifarious nature of criticisms against him: proto-Sunni traditionalists assailing him on account of his jurisprudence, expertise in hadith, theology, and piety. This chapter closes with a discussion of the social regulation of heresy and orthodoxy in the eighth to tenth centuries.

This chapter assesses three tenth-eleventh century attempts to define Sunnism in the wake of Abu Hanifa’s complete integration into medieval Sunni orthodoxy. I explore the role of the state, Sunni traditionalist scholars, and an emboldened Hanafi community in Khurasan and Transoxiana.

This chapter posits that the explosion of Manāqib works praising and defending Abu Hanifa was paramount to the full integration of Abu Hanifa and his followers within the broader coalition of Sunnism in the tenth-eleventh centuries. It provides the first comprehensive history of the Manāqib genre and analyses in extensive detail a new tenth-century Manāqib source. I contend that the dismissal (and neglect) of Manāqib works as pious hagiography is unwarranted and has resulted in a misreading of important developments in the formation of medieval Sunnism.

This chapter argues that Masānīd works, defending Abu Hanifa’s expertise as a scholar of hadith, constitute the second major form of writing that was integral to the rehabilitation of Abu Hanifa among the broader Sunni community. It provides for the first time a detailed account of this genre, examining unpublished manuscript sources, to show that members of other schools of law, as well as Hanafis, began to compose works defending Abu Hanifa’s orthodoxy.

This chapter makes the case that Abu Hanifa’s relationship to politics and rulers was a key catalyst for the rise of discourses of heresy against him and, perhaps, the most consequential. Abu Hanifa’s alleged involvement with three rebellions flew in the face of a basic tenet of proto-Sunni traditionalist orthodoxy, namely, political quietism. It shows that politics and the state were implicated in evolving conceptions of orthodoxy and heresy, and how the growth of proto-Sunni traditionalism was in some ways fostered by political elites and representatives of the state.

This chapter proposes a new framework for the study of the categories of heresy and orthodoxy in medieval Islam. It engages with scholarship on these categories in the discipline of Islamic Studies and Religious Studies more broadly, arguing that orthodoxy and heresy should not be viewed solely through the prism of theology, which emphasises belief (doxa) and practice (praxis). Instead, it highlights the discursive formation of conceptions of orthodoxy and heresy. Heresy and orthodoxy are defined as shifting categories of denunciation and approval, which provides insights into the formation of orthodoxy as a contested process. This approach allows for a more detailed and complex typology of proto-Sunni movements in the eighth to eleventh centuries, admitting more variation than previous scholarship has allowed for.

This chapter provides a comprehensive examination of how hostility towards Abu Hanifa evolved over three centuries among the proto-Sunni traditionalist network. It argues that the construction of heresy and orthodoxy depended on the circulation of discourses of heresy among textual communities. Transregional proto-Sunni traditionalists developed informal ways to regulate, discipline, and shape conceptions of orthodoxy and heresy. The chapter brings into sharp focus the key agents of proto-Sunni traditionalist orthodoxy: its texts, scholars, and figures who articulated and promulgated discourses of heresy. We can now discern a mature and virulent discourse of heresy among an influential network of proto-Sunni traditionalists seeking to malign, exclude, and marginalise Abu Hanifa and his followers from the proto-Sunni traditionalist conception of orthodoxy. In the tenth century, however, we can observe some attempts by proto-Sunni traditionalists to depart from the network’s emerging consensus and adopt a more accommodating tone towards Abu Hanifa and his followers, which marks the beginning of a broader conception of Sunni orthodoxy.

This chapter demonstrates how proto-Sunni traditionalists deployed forms of ethno-racial reasoning in constructing discourses of heresy and orthodoxy. It explores five interrelated themes embedded within such discourses: the confessional ambiguity of Abu Hanifa’s ancestors; conflicting accounts of Abu Hanifa’s genealogy; attempts to establish Abu Hanifa’s servile social status; a wider semantic field of foreignness to label Abu Hanifa; and criticisms of his views on Persian as a liturgical language. In this way, the relationship between orthodoxy, heresy, and society comes into sharp relief.