Khurāsānخراسان

Historical Khurasan extended beyond the boundaries of today’s Iranian province. Nishapur, Balkh, Marw and Herat formed connected but distinct centres of learning. Scholars travelled between these cities and Iraq, carrying legal teaching alongside hadith and other disciplines.

Hanafi learning here developed within a religiously diverse scholarly landscape, rather than replacing every other school. Teaching circles, judicial appointments and political patronage all mattered. Reading Khurasan separately from Transoxiana helps distinguish neighbouring traditions that were closely connected but were not the same region.

This region’s catalogue begins with Abu Yahya al-Nisaburi’s Manaqib Abi Hanifa and includes works called Fada’il, al-Khisal al-Hamida and al-Mawahib al-Sharifa. These titles show several ways of presenting the imam’s virtues and reputation; they are not all copies of one book.

Survival changes what can be studied directly. Ibn Funduq’s al-Mawahib al-Sharifa is recorded here with a lost Arabic original and a surviving Persian translation. Compare language, date and manuscript status before treating an available text as the author’s original Arabic wording.