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Madh'hab: Difference between revisions
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===The Hanafi madh'hab (Sunni)=== | ===The Hanafi madh'hab (Sunni)=== | ||
The Hanafi madh'hab was founded by Imam Abu Hanifah al-Nu'man (d. 767) in Kufa, Iraq. The Hanafi madh'hab is adhered to in the Levant, Central Asia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, the largest part of Egypt, Iraq, Turkey, the Balkans, and by large parts of the Muslim populations of Russia and China. Large religious movements that exist within the Hanafi sphere are the Barelvi and Deobandi movements. Altogether, Hanafis form a plurality of Muslims world wide (roughly 30%). | The Hanafi madh'hab was founded by Imam Abu Hanifah al-Nu'man (d. 767) in Kufa, Iraq. The Hanafi madh'hab is adhered to in the Levant, Central Asia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, the largest part of Egypt, Iraq, Turkey, the Balkans, and by large parts of the Muslim populations of Russia and China. Large religious movements that exist within the Hanafi sphere are the Barelvi and Deobandi movements. Altogether, Hanafis form a plurality of Muslims world wide (roughly 30% of all Muslims). | ||
The Hanafi madh'hab is descended from the ''Ahl al-Rai''' (the so-called "partisans of reason") of Iraq from the early Muslim community, of which Abu Hanifah was a part. As such, the interpretive methodology of the Hanafis can be broadly described as favoring reasoning over an uncritical regurgitation of scripture. In more concrete terms, this means allowing reasoning by analogy (''qiyas'') on legal/moral matters where scriptures are absent (the other madh'habs would come to adopt this concept to some degree, but the Hanafis adopted it first and arguably employ it most liberally). Another manifestation of this general preference for reasoning over, say, resorting to relying on [[Hadith (definition)|weakly authenticated scripture]] (as the Hanbalis generally do), is the legal principle of ''Istihsan'', or juristic preference. ''Istihsan'' is the practice of favoring an epistemologically and methodologically weaker opinion simply for the sake of "public interest" or ''maslaha''. | The Hanafi madh'hab is descended from the ''Ahl al-Rai''' (the so-called "partisans of reason") of Iraq from the early Muslim community, of which Abu Hanifah was a part. As such, the interpretive methodology of the Hanafis can be broadly described as favoring reasoning over an uncritical regurgitation of scripture. In more concrete terms, this means allowing reasoning by analogy (''qiyas'') on legal/moral matters where scriptures are absent (the other madh'habs would come to adopt this concept to some degree, but the Hanafis adopted it first and arguably employ it most liberally). Another manifestation of this general preference for reasoning over, say, resorting to relying on [[Hadith (definition)|weakly authenticated scripture]] (as the Hanbalis generally do), is the legal principle of ''Istihsan'', or juristic preference. ''Istihsan'' is the practice of favoring an epistemologically and methodologically weaker opinion simply for the sake of "public interest" or ''maslaha''. | ||
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===The Maliki madh'hab (Sunni)=== | ===The Maliki madh'hab (Sunni)=== | ||
The Maliki madh'hab was founded by Imam Malik ibn Anas (d. 795) in the city of [[Medina]], located in the Hijaz. | The Maliki madh'hab was founded by Imam Malik ibn Anas (d. 795) in the city of [[Medina]], located in the Hijaz. The Maliki madh'hab is adhered to in North Africa, West Africa, the U.A.E., Kuwait, parts of Saudi Arabia, and parts of Egypt. The Murabitun World Movement is a religious movement existing within the Maliki madh'hab. | ||
Unique to the Maliki madh'hab is its non-exclusive reliance upon Islamic scriptures and some degree of reason. Imam Malik, living in a Medina that had just a few generations ago hosted Muhammad and his companions, thought it was prudent to observe and emulate the religious practices and beliefs of his contemporaries, even if they could not marshal a hadith narration to justify themselves. This was because Imam Malik believed strongly in what some have dubbed the "living" tradition in addition to the "written" or "memorized" scriptural tradition. As a result, the Maliki madh'hab is the only school of Islamic law to rely o on what is known as ''<nowiki/>'Amalu ahl al-Madinah'' (or, "the actions of the people of Medina"). The Maliki madh'hab is also distinguished by its relative cosmopolitanism and leniency compared to competing schools of Islamic law (thus making it particularly popular among Western converts to Islam today, most famously Hamza Yusuf) due to Imam Malik having allegedly received questioners from all over the Islamic empire and this needing to accommodate a wide variety of cultural and social milieus in his legal judgements. | |||
The Maliki madh'hab, internally diverse, prefers the practices of the people of Medina as well as the ''Ijma'' or consensus of Muhammad's [[companions]] over ''qiyas'', or analogy, but allows this as well. The most important book in the development of the formal Maliki madh'hab is Imam Malik's own collection of Hadith, ''<nowiki/>'Amal'', and fiqh commentary called the ''Muwatta''. The other key source in the Maliki tradition is the ''Mudawwana'' which was a compilation, for the most part, of the views of Imam Malik as compiled by his important students Ibn Qasim and Sahnun. In addition to the views of Imam Malik, the two compilers occasionally include their own reasoning (using Imam Malik's principles) on legal matters on which Imam Malik did not himself opine. | |||
===The Shafi'i madh'hab (Sunni)=== | ===The Shafi'i madh'hab (Sunni)=== | ||