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This article assesses the contribution of Abū Ḥanīfa (d. 150/767) to the development of Islamic law through a study of the ‘legal question’, or masʾala. The first section presents anecdotal accounts to illustrate the nature and reception of Abū Ḥanīfa’s questions. It also studies the spread of Abū Ḥanīfa’s questions through the writings of his students, particularly Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan al-Shaybānī (d. 189/805). The second section presents investigations into the development of legal questions addressing the topic of wiping over khuffs (leather socks) in ritual ablutions, assessing (1) the development of legal questions in the first two-and-a-half centuries of Islam, (2) the nature of questions addressed by key second- and third-century texts of the legal schools, and (3) the questions that constituted core school doctrine in classical-era mukhtaṣars (legal digests) of the schools of law. The article concludes that Abū Ḥanīfa’s questions had the clearest causative effect on the development of structured legal questions addressing the various topics of law, while highlighting that competing juristic circles did not merely mimic Abū Ḥanīfa’s questions, but, rather, developed questions that reflected their own conceptions of the legal project.