Aḥmad b. Muḥammad b. Ḥanbal Abū ʿAbdallāh al-Shaybānī al-Marwazī (164-241/780-855), also known as Imām Aḥmad or simply as Aḥmad, is the eponym of the Ḥanbalī school (madhhab) of law and theology and the most significant exponent of the traditionalist approach in Sunnī Islam. Numerous traditions that he transmitted to his disciples were compiled by his son ʿAbdallāh b. Aḥmad into one of the major ḥadīth collections, al-Musnad . Aḥmad's unique personality and everyday conduct endowed him with the nimbus of a renunciant (zāhid) , who