Hanafi Muslim Movement

The Hanafi Muslim Movement was founded in 1958 by Khalifa Hamaas Abdul Khaalis (ne Ernest Timothy McGee). Khaalis was an African American Muslim who had joined the New York-based Hanafi Madh-Hab Center in 1947. The center was a peaceful institution dedicated to the study and teaching of the Hanafi school of Islamic jurisprudence.

The Hanafi school was founded in eighth-century Baghdad by the noted legal scholar Abu al-Hanafa. It was initially involved in developing court of law procedures and rules of evidence for the rapidly expanding Islamic Abbasid Empire. Considered the least “fundamentalist” of the four major schools of Islamic jurisprudence, the Hanafi legal system and interpretations of Islamic law became the preeminent throughout the Ottoman Empire.