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Ahmad was born at Bagdad in 780 of parents from Merv but of Arab stock. Ahmad ibn Hanbal's family was originally from Basra, Iraq, and belonged to the Arab Banu Shayban tribe. His father was an officer in the Abbasid army in Khurasan and later settled with his family in Baghdad, where Ahmad was born.
When Ibn Ḥanbal was 15 he began to study the Traditions (Ḥadīth) of the Prophet Muḥammad. He studied the Koran and its traditions there and on a student journey through Mesopotamia, Arabia and Syria. Ahmad Ibn Hanbal studied extensively in Baghdad, and later traveled to further his education. He started learning jurisprudence (Fiqh) under the celebrated Hanafi judge, Abu Yusuf, the renowned student and companion of Imam Abu Hanifah. After finishing his studies with Abu Yusuf, ibn Hanbal began traveling through Iraq, Syria, and Arabia to collect hadiths, or traditions of the Prophet Muhammad. Ibn al-Jawzi states that Imam Ahmad had 414 Hadith masters whom he narrated from. With this knowledge, he became a leading authority on the hadith, leaving an immense encyclopedia of hadith, the al-Musnad. After several years of travel, he returned to Baghdad to study Islamic law under Al-Shafi'i.
The central fact of Ibn Ḥanbal’s life is the suffering to which he was subjected during the inquisition, known as al-miḥnah, ordered by the caliph al-Maʾmūn. But for this great trial, and the unflagging courage he displayed in the face of his persecutors, Ibn Ḥanbal would most likely have been remembered solely for his work on the Traditions. As it is, he remains to this day, in addition to his recognized stature as an expert on Traditions, one of the most venerated fathers of Islām, a staunch upholder of Muslim orthodoxy.
The inquisition was inaugurated in 833, when the Caliph made obligatory upon all Muslims the belief that the Qurʾān was created, a doctrine of the Muʿtazilites, a rationalist Islāmic school that claimed that reason was equal to revelation as a means to religious truth. The Caliph had already made public profession of this belief in 827. Heretofore, the sacred book had been regarded as the uncreated, eternal word of God. The inquisition was conducted in Baghdad, seat of the ʿAbbāsid caliphate, as well as in the provinces. It lasted from 833 to 848, a period involving the reign of four caliphs, ending during the caliphate of al-Mutawakkil, who returned to the traditionalist view.
At the risk of his life, Ibn Ḥanbal refused to subscribe to the Muʿtazilī doctrine. He was put in chains, beaten, and imprisoned for about two years. After his release he did not resume his lectures until the inquisition was publicly proclaimed at an end. Some orthodox theologians, to survive the ordeal, had recanted, and later claimed the privilege of dissimulation, taqīyah, as a justification for their behaviour. This is a dispensation granted in the Qurʾān to those who wish to avail themselves of it when forced to profess a false faith, while denying it in their hearts. Other theologians, following the example of Ibn Ḥanbal, refused to repudiate their beliefs.
In 833 Ibn Ḥanbal and another theologian, Muḥammad ibn Nūḥ, who had also refused to recant, were cited to appear for trial before Caliph al-Maʾmūn, who was in Tarsus (now in modern Turkey) at the time. They were sent off in chains from Baghdad; but shortly after beginning their journey, the Caliph died, and on their trip back to the capital, Ibn Nūḥ died.
Ibn Ḥanbal was ordered to appear before the new caliph, al-Muʿtaṣim. He was on trial for three days, and on the third day, after the learned men disputed with him, there followed a private conference with the Caliph who asked Ibn Ḥanbal to yield at least a little so that he might grant him his freedom. Ibn Ḥanbal made the same reply he had been making from the beginning of the inquisition; he would yield when given some ground for modifying his faith derived from the sources he regarded as authoritative, namely the Qurʾān and the Traditions of Muḥammad. Losing patience, the Caliph ordered that he be taken away and flogged. Throughout the flogging the Caliph persisted in his attempts to obtain a recantation, but to no avail. Ibn Ḥanbal’s unflinching spirit was beginning to have its effect upon the Caliph; but the latter’s advisers warned that if he desisted from punishing him, he would be accused of having opposed the doctrine of his predecessor al-Maʾmūn, and the victory of Ibn Ḥanbal would have dire consequences on the reign of the caliphs. But the Caliph’s treatment of Ibn Ḥanbal had to be suspended, nevertheless, because of the mounting anger of the populace gathering outside the palace and preparing to attack it. Ibn Ḥanbal is reported to have been beaten by 150 floggers, each in turn striking him twice and moving aside. The scars from his wounds remained with him to the end of his life.
He died at Bagdad in 855 and was buried there.
Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal was a Muslim theologian, jurist, and martyr for his faith. He was the compiler of the Traditions of the Prophet Muḥammad (Musnad) and formulator of the Ḥanbalī, the most strictly traditionalist of the four orthodox Islāmic schools of law. His doctrine influenced such noted followers as the 13th–14th-century theologian Ibn Taymīyah, the Wahhābīyah, an 18th-century reform movement, and the Salafīyah, a 19th-century Egyptian movement rooted in tradition.
His position in both theology and law was more narrowly traditional than that of ash-Shafi'I; he rejected all reasoning, whether orthodox or heretical in its conclusions, and stood for acceptance on tradition only from the Fathers.
In consequence, when al-Ma'miin and, after him, al-Mo'tasim and al-Wathiq tried to force upon the people the rationalistic Mo'tazilite doctrine that the Koran was created, Ibn Hanbal, the most prominent and popular theologian who stood for the old view, suffered with others grievous imprisonment and scourging. In 234, under al-Mota- wakkil, the Koran was finally decreed uncreated, and Ibn IJanbal, who had come through this trial better than any of the other theologians, enjoyed an immense popularity with the mass of the people as a saint, confessor and ascetic.
Ibn Hanbal had two wives and several children, including an older son, who later became a judge in Isfahan.
