Abstract:

Many reasons have been stated for writing Tabakat (biography) works in the literature. The life stories of the fuqaha of the sect, their works, and their relationship with the sect are usually revealed in the works dealing with the biographies of the fuqaha. Although many biographies have been written for the imams of four sects, individual biographical works have been written for prominent people in the sect, including the founding imams of the Hanafi sect, Abu Hanifa (d. 150/767), Imam Zufar (d. 158/775), Abu Yusuf (d. 182/798), Imam Muhammad (d. 189/805) and Hasan b. Ziyâd (d. 204/819). Ibn Kutluboğa (d. 879/1474) is one of the prominent tabakat authors in the Hanafi sect. Ibn Kutluboğa's works, es-Sikât and Tâcü't-terâcim, are sufficient to manifest his authority in the field. In this article, the text named Menâkıbu Ebî Hanîfe, which is attributed to Ibn Kutluboğa, is discussed, and it is tried to prove that this text does not belong to Ibn Kutluboğa. Although the work mentioned above has been attributed to Ibn Kutluboğa in some recent studies, it has not been mentioned by either Ibn Kutluboğa's student, Sehâvî (d. 902/1497), or the later tabakât authors. The library records given as belonging to Ibn Kutluboğa are based on the information on the first page of the manuscripts, which are generally created by the copyists and described as “zahriyya”. The authenticity of Menâkıbu Ebî Hanîfe's belonging to İbn Kutluboğa and why the author dealt with such a text constituted the main subject of the study. The main motives in the production of such texts have been emphasized, and the work has been examined with the criticism phases created for apocryphal texts. Sectarian factors, means of gain, falsification of sources, construction of a new history, and many other reasons can be the copyright purpose of such texts. In this respect, it is possible to say that the apocryphal texts and the reasons for fabricating hadith are similar in many respects. The mentioned work has been examined from different perspectives by subjecting it to the stages of internal and external criticism. Firstly, the external criticism phases were applied to the text, and then the internal criticism process was operated over the text. Historians also applied the created criticism phases for the texts thought to be apocryphal. Especially historical data is of great importance in such texts because the data reveal the consistency and robustness of the text in several aspects. In the work named as Menâkıbu Ebî Hanîfe, no information is revaled about the record of the end (ferâğ) or copying, resulting in many problems. Based on the available data in the mentioned work, general inferences have been made about the writing date of the work, the geography in which it was written, and the purpose of writing. While trying to prove that the work does not belong to Ibn Kutluboğa, the information in Menâkıbu Ebî Hanîfe has been examined by comparing it with other works of the author and with different sources. With the created analysis phases, the method that can be applied for that text and similar texts was pointed out, and the information in the work was classified categorically. Historical inaccuracies about three imams of the Hanafi school were pointed out. In addition, the problem of the authenticity of the information in Imam Zufar's biography wew emphasized in particular. The transfers were made on the other books of Ibn Kutluboğa and the accepted works in the field. The work contains many historical mistakes, problems in transmissions, information that is not included in other sources, adaptation of the information transferred for different madhhab imams for Hanafi sect imams, and many other mistakes. It does not seem likely that a scholar like Ibn Kutluboğa, who is one of the prominent figures in the sect and who stands out with his meticulousness in his works, will make mistakes that can be called very simple. By revealing that the work named Menâkıbu Ebî Hanîfe will not be written by a scholar like Ibn Kutluboğa, one of the wise and powerful scholars of the Hanafi sect, in a sense, that work with grave mistakes will be proved not to belong to him. 

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