Abū Ḥanīfa al-Nuʿmān ‎known as Abū Ḥanīfa for short, or reverently as Imam Abū Ḥanīfa by Sunni Muslims, was an 8th-century Sunni Muslim theologian and jurist of Persian origin, who became the eponymous founder of the Hanafi school of orthodox Sunni jurisprudence, which has remained the most widely practiced law school in the Sunni tradition. He is often alluded to by the reverential epithets al-Imām al-aʿẓam ("The Great Imam") and Sirāj al-aʾimma ("The Lamp of the Imams") in Sunni Islam.