ʾAḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn Hārūn ibn Yazīd al-Baghdādī () better known as Abū Bakr al-Khalāl, was a Medieval Muslim jurist."Khallal, Abu Bakr Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn Harun al-" at The Oxford International Encyclopedia of Legal History. Ed. Stanley Nider Katz. Web Version. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012. .

Al-Khallal was a student of five of Ahmad ibn Hanbal's direct students, including Ibn Hanbal's son Abdullah.H. Laoust, al-K̲h̲allāl. Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition. Brill Online, 2013. Reference. Accessed 1 July 2013. His documentation on Ibn Hanbal's views eventually reached twenty volumes and ultimately led to the preservation of the Hanbali school of Islamic law.Abu Zayd Bakr bin Abdullah, Madkhal al-Mufassal ila Fiqh al-Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal wa-Takhrijat al-Ashab. Riyadh: Dar al 'Aminah, 2007. He was considered the principal Hanbalite scholar of his time.Muhammad ibn Jarir al-Tabari, History of the Prophets and Kings, Vol. 1: From the Creation to the Flood, pg. 72. Trns. Franz Rosenthal. New York: SUNY Press, 1989. .

Life Al-Khallal's exact date of birth is not known. He died in 923, which means that he would have been born during Ahmad ibn Hanbal's twilight years.Ziauddin Ahmad, ABŪ BAKR AL-ḴH̱ALLĀL—THE COMPILER OF THE TEACHINGS OF IMĀM AḤMAD b. ḤANBAL. Islamic Studies, Vol. 9, #3, pp. 245-254. Islamabad: International Islamic University, Islamabad, September 1970. The Oxford International Encyclopaedia of Legal History estimates al-Khallal's year of birth as 848.

Aside from his legal efforts, virtually nothing is known of al-Khallal's life. During his efforts to compile the views of Ahmad ibn Hanbal, al-Khallal ended up spending periods of time living in Fars province, Syria and Mesopotamia.Christopher Melchert, The Formation of the Sunni Schools of Law: 9th-10th Centuries C.E., p. 143. Issue 4 of Studies in Islamic Law and Society, V. 4. Leiden: Brill Publishers, 1997. . According to Muslim historian al-Dhahabi, there was no such thing as an independent Hanbalite school of law prior to al-Khallal's efforts at compiling Ibn Hanbal's views. Al-Khallal's status within the school was not universally accepted, and he and his students were often in conflict with fellow Hanbalite Al-Hasan ibn 'Ali al-Barbahari and his students.Christopher Melchert, Formation, p. 150.

Reception The historian al-Dhahabi stated that, "Before him (al-Khallal) there were no independent school of the Imam's; not until he followed up Ahmad's texts, wrote them down and checked their proofs after 300."

The 20th century Hanbali jurisprudent Ibn Badran called al-Khallal's collection "the very root of the Hanbali school, from which sprang all later books of Hanbali jurisprudence."

Citations

External links Bibliography at Alibris