Islamic Schools of Thought

The phrase “Islamic schools of Thought” in “The World Forum for Proximity of Islamic Schools of Thought” is meant those jurisprudential schools that have solid disciplines, based on the Qur'anic teachings and the Prophet's traditions. They are known as madhhabs and differ in the methodology they use to derive their rulings from the Quran and hadith.

The Islamic Schools of Thought

From the viewpoint of jurisprudence, the major Islamic Schools of Thought are as follows:

Sunni schools

In terms of religious jurisprudence (fiqh), Sunnism contains several schools of thought (madhhab) such as: • the Hanafi school, founded by Abu Hanifa an-Nu'man. • the Maliki school, founded by Malik ibn Anas. • the Shafi'i school, founded by Muhammad ibn Idris ash-Shafi'i. • the Hanbali school, founded by Ahmad ibn Hanbal. • the Ẓāhirī school or al-Ẓāhirīyyah, founded by Dawud al-Zahiri. Some consider it as a fifth madhhab, but some do not. The Salafi movement, is a reform branch or revivalist movement in Sunni Islam that does not believe in strictly following one particular madhhab. They include the Wahhabi movement, an Islamic doctrine and religious movement founded by Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab and the Ahle Hadith movement whose followers call themselves Ahl al-Hadith while others consider them to be a branch of the Salafi or Wahhabi movement.

Shia schools

The major Shia school of jurisprudence is the Ja'fari or Imāmī school. [1] It is further divided into two branches, the Usuli school, which favors the exercise of ijtihad, [2] and the Akhbari school, which holds the traditions (aḵbār) of the Imams to be the main source of religious knowledge. [3] Minor schools include the Ismāʿīlī school (Mustaʿlī-Fāṭimid Ṭayyibi Ismāʿīlīyah), and the Zaydī school, which have closer affinity to Sunni jurisprudence. [4] [5]

Ibadi

The fiqh or jurisprudence of Ibadis is relatively simple. Absolute authority is given to the Qur'an and hadith; new innovations accepted on the basis of qiyas (analogical reasoning) were rejected as bid'ah (heresy) by the Ibadis. That differs from the majority of Sunnis [6] but agrees with most Shi'ites [7] and the Zahiri and early Hanbali schools of Sunnism. [8]

Notes

  1. Abdulaziz Sachedina (2009). "Law: Shīʿī Schools of Law". The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Islamic World. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  2. John L. Esposito, ed. (2014). "Usulis". The Oxford Dictionary of Islam. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  3. E. Kohlberg. "AḴBĀRĪYA". Encyclopædia Iranica.
  4. Abdulaziz Sachedina (2009). "Law: Shīʿī Schools of Law". The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Islamic World. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  5. Iza Hussin; Robert Gleave; Bernard Haykel (2014). "Schools of Jurisprudence". The Oxford Encyclopedia of Islam and Politics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  6. Uzi Rabi, The Emergence of States, p. 21.
  7. Mansoor Moaddel, Islamic Modernism, Nationalism, and Fundamentalism: Episode and Discourse, p. 32. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005.
  8. Christopher Melchert, The Formation of the Sunni Schools of Law: 9th–10th Centuries C.E., p. 185. Leiden: Brill Publishers, 1997.