The death of Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal

The imam of Ahl al-Sunnah, Ahmad ibn Hanbal — author of the Musnad and hero of the ordeal over the "createdness of the Qur'an," who stood firm when others wavered — died in Baghdad, and was accompanied by a funeral procession the like of which Baghdad had never seen.

Imam Ahmad was born in 164 AH and grew up an orphan in Baghdad. He sought hadith until he travelled to the lands and compiled the "Musnad" of some thirty thousand hadiths. al-Shafiʿi said of him: "I left Baghdad and did not leave behind anyone more learned in jurisprudence or more scrupulous than Ahmad ibn Hanbal."

He was tested in the ordeal of the doctrine that the Qur'an was created, in the days of al-Maʾmun, al-Muʿtasim and al-Wathiq. He was imprisoned and flogged until he fainted, yet held firm to his position: the Qur'an is the speech of Allah, uncreated. Through him Allah preserved the creed of the Ummah, and the people named him the imam of Ahl al-Sunnah.

He died in the forenoon of Friday 12 Rabiʿ al-Awwal 241 AH; Baghdad shut its markets, and his funeral was reckoned at hundreds of thousands, unlike anything known before, until it was said: Say to the people of innovation — between us and you is the day of funerals.