Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal, Abū ʿAbd Allāh Aḥmad b. Muḥammad b. Ḥanbal b. Hilāl al-Shaybānī al-Marwazī (Rabīʿ I or Rabīʿ II 164–12 Rabīʿ I 241/November or December 780–31 January 855), founder of the Ḥanbalī madhhab of Sunni Islam, one of the leaders of the aṣḥāb al-ḥadīth (‘people of traditions’ or traditionalists) and a renowned muḥaddith (traditionist) who acquired great fame because of his opposition to the doctrine of the createdness of the Qurʾān (khalq al-Qurʾān) during the period of the miḥna (literally, ‘ordeal’…