Abū ʿAbdullāh Aḥmad Ibn Muḥammad Ibn Ḥanbal Ash-Shaybānī 0 (Arabic: أبو عبد الله أحمد بن محمد بن حنبل الشيباني; 780–855 CE/164–241 AH), often referred to as Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal or Ibn Ḥanbal for short, was an Arab Muslim jurist, theologian, ascetic, hadith traditionist, and founder of the Hanbali school of Sunni jurisprudence — one of the four major orthodox legal schools of Sunni Islam.
A highly influential and active scholar during his lifetime,Ibn Hanbal went on to become “one of the most venerated” intellectual figures in Islamic history, who has had a”
profound influence affecting almost every area of” the traditionalist (literalism-oriented) perspective within Sunni Islam.One of the foremost classical proponents of relying on scriptural,
sources as the basis for Islamic law and way of life, Ibn Hanbal compiled one of the most important Sunni hadith collections, the Musnad,which has continued to exercise considerable influence in the field of hadith studies up to the present time.