Al-ʿAqīdah al-Ṭaḥāwiyyah

Written as a concise statement of Sunni creed according to the Hanafi school, al-Tahawi's text covers beliefs about Allah's attributes, prophethood, the Quran as the speech of Allah, predestination, and the intercession of the Prophet in precisely worded affirmations. Arguably the most cross-madhhab accepted creedal text in Sunni Islam, endorsed by scholars of all four schools.

Abu Jafar Ahmad ibn Muhammad al-Tahawi (c. 843-935 CE) was an Egyptian Hanafi jurist and hadith scholar from the village of Taha in Upper Egypt. Trained initially in the Shafii school under his maternal uncle the great jurist al-Muzani he later transferred to the Hanafi school after becoming convinced of its superior legal rigor. A prolific scholar who lived into his nineties, he composed important works in hadith and fiqh, but is remembered above all for this creedal statement written near the end of his life as a summation of the Hanafi understanding of Sunni doctrine.

• 113 carefully worded creedal affirmations of mainstream Sunni Hanafi doctrine
• Allah's transcendence: He is not bounded by time, space, direction, or human categories
• Allah's attributes affirmed: knowledge, power, will, hearing, sight, and speech
• The Quran as the uncreated speech (kalam) of Allah
• Belief in all the Prophets and the truthfulness of their missions
• The Night Journey (Isra) and Ascension (Miraj) of the Prophet
• The nature of Prophethood and the finality of Muhammad's message
• Predestination (qadar): all good and evil occurs by Allah's will, knowledge, and decree
• The intercession of the Prophet on the Day of Judgment
• The reality of the grave: questioning, punishment, and bliss
• The Day of Judgment: the Scale, the Bridge (Sirat), the Pond (Hawd), Paradise and Hell