Nu'man ibn Thabit, known as Abu Hanifah, was born in the year 80 AH in Kufa, Iraq. He was a cloth merchant, and his honesty in trade became proverbial.
As a young man he turned to learning and studied jurisprudence for many years with his teacher Hammad ibn Abi Sulayman. His method was to discuss each question with his students and search out its evidence. Through his students Abu Yusuf and Muhammad ibn al-Hasan this school of thought spread as the Hanafi madhhab — followed today by many Muslims around the world, including in Bangladesh.
The Abbasid caliph al-Mansur wanted to make him chief judge. He refused. The histories record that he was imprisoned for it, and that he died in Baghdad in the year 150 AH.
ⓘ This account is from al-Khatib al-Baghdadi's Tarikh Baghdad and adh-Dhahabi's Siyar A'lam al-Nubala. Reports differ on the details of his imprisonment.