The Āl-I Māza (Burhān) Family And The Consolidation Of The Ḥanafī School In Bukhara In The Eleventh And Twelfth Centuries

Abstract

This article examines the historical process through which the Ḥanafī school of law became the dominant legal and intellectual tradition of Bukhara, with particular attention to the role of the Āl-i Māza, a family of jurists known in the sources as the Āl-i Burhān or Banū Māza. Drawing on classical biographical dictionaries (ṭabaqāt), chronicles and bibliographical works, the study first outlines the conditions that allowed the Ḥanafī school to take root in Transoxiana, including the early foundation of madrasas, the patronage of rulers and the scholarly exchange between Bukhara and Baghdad. It then reviews the leading Bukharan jurists of the fifth/eleventh century who prepared the ground for the Māza family, and reconstructs the genealogy and scholarly output of the family itself from ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz b. ʿUmar b. Māza to the Ṣadr-i Jahān of the early seventh/thirteenth century. The article argues that the Āl-i Māza combined hereditary religious leadership (riyāsa), judicial office and systematic legal authorship, and that this combination turned Bukhara into one of the principal centres of Ḥanafī jurisprudence in the eastern Islamic world. The findings also show that the family’s authority survived changes of political masters, from the Qarakhanids and Seljuks to the Qara Khitai, which confirms that their standing rested primarily on scholarly prestige rather than on political appointment alone.