Four Schools of Sunni Sharia

Calligraphy name of Abu Hanifa, founder of the Hanifi Sharia school

Numerous schools of legal thinking (fiqh, madhhab) came into being in the formative period of Islam. The four main Sunni schools of sharia (Islamic law) that remain today developed in the first 200 years of Islam in the A.D. 7th and 8th centuries. . They include the Hanafi, Maliki, Shafai and Hanbali — all of which are still active. Saudi Wahhabis belong to the Hanbali school, while the rest of Arabian, Egyptian, and Iranian Sunnis belong Shafai school. Hanafi school is more liberal than other schools. It is active in Turkey, Iran and Afghanistan. The Maliki school is active in Egypt and other North African countries.

With regard to legal matters, the four orthodox schools give different weight in legal opinions to prescriptions in the Quran, to the hadith, to the consensus of legal scholars, to analogy (to similar situations at the time of the Prophet), and to reason or opinion. The four schools are named after and based on the principals of four famous legal scholars in the early Islamic period. Tthe earliest Muslim legal schools were those of Abd Allah Malik ibn Anas (ca. 715-95) and An Numan ibn Thabit Abu Hanifa (ca. 700-67).

The schools are pretty similar and difference are connected with principals of legal reasoning, justifications based on the hadiths and the limits of the law. Each school has its own law books and courts. Local customs in the places where the schools developed have also influenced the legal code of each school.

The Hanafi, Hanbali, Maliki, and Shafi’iʿis) are regarded as valid versions of the religious law of Islam. The common denominator between the schools is more than sufficient to consider the law as a unifying factor in Islam. The law is administered by a judge (qadi), sometimes assisted by a legal specialist authorized to issue legal opinions (fatwa pl. fatawa). [Source: Haïm Z’ew Hirschberg, “Encyclopaedia Judaica”, 2000, Encyclopedia.com]

Arthur Goldschmidt, Jr. wrote in “A Concise History of the Middle East”: “The compilation of the Sharia into authoritative books was, at least for the Sunni majority, completed by the late ninth century. Other Sunni schools used to exist but have died out. The substantive differences among the four schools are minor except in matters of ritual, and each (except at times the Hanbali school) has regarded the others as legitimate.” [Source: Arthur Goldschmidt, Jr., “A Concise History of the Middle East,” Chapter. 8: Islamic Civilization, 1979, Internet Islamic History Sourcebook, sourcebooks.fordham.edu /~]

Websites on Sharia: Four Sunni Schools of Thought masud.co.uk ; Oxford Dictionary of Islam /web.archive.org ; Encyclopædia Britannica britannica.com ; Sharia by Knut S. Vikør, Oxford Encyclopedia of Islam and Politics web.archive.org ; Law by Norman Calder, Oxford Encyclopedia of the Islamic World web.archive.org ; Sharia Law in the International Legal Sphere – Yale University web.archive.org ; 'Recognizing Sharia' in Britain, anthropologist John R. Bowen discusses Britain's sharia courts bostonreview.net ; "The Reward of the Omnipotent" late 19th Arabic manuscript about Sharia wdl.org

Early Islamic Law Schools

During the first centuries of Islam there were hundred schools of Islamic law. Some were influenced by Roman law and Greek-style speculative reasoning, which alarmed conservatives and divided the community and triggered a movement to unify the Muslim community and reduce the number of schools.

Hanbali fiqh books

The problem of dealing with doctrinal disputes was dealt with within the schools through the “Consensus of the Community ( ijma ), based on the principal that the “Community will never agree upon an error." Rulings within each school were unified and consolidated by a particular ijma . Each school recognized the ruling that were acceptable and authoritative with the system of that school.

The problem of dealing with so many schools was a weeding out process and popularity contest influenced by group politics, fashion, trends, ideas and political and religious support and respect and authority that certain schools had at certain times. Over time certain schools fell out of favor and lost adherents while other schools gained favored and won adherents; minor schools were squeezed and large ones grew into orthodox, established institutions.

Development of Authoritative Sharia Schools

Charles F. Gallagher wrote in “International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences”: The Qur’an and the expurgated tradition, however, for all their infallibility, did not supply a definitive body of legal precepts for general use. The jurists of the so-called ancient schools in Iraq, Syria, and Medina devoted themselves to finding a way to generalize the specificity of the original sources, and in so doing they established the foundations of the four great legal schools of orthodox Islam and, more importantly, laid down the framework of Islamic law for all time. [Source: Charles F. Gallagher, “International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences”, 1960s, Encyclopedia.com]

The concept of opinion, or common sense, had been applied for some time but was thought to contain the dangers of human irresponsibility. It was favored by the school of Iraq, however, while Medinan jurists, among them Malik Ibn Anas (d. 795), developed the doctrine of the “suitability” of one decision to a fixed point of reference and that of the “association” of one with an anterior case. The problem was resolved by al-Shafi’i‘i (d. 820), who completed the system by extending the use of the Prophetic tradition, as opposed to the narrower Medinan tradition, and introduced the more precise concept of analogical reasoning (qiyas), by which the principles that had governed decisions in previous cases could be applied to new situations. The actual difference between the schools was not overly great, but the reasoning of al-Shafi’i‘i established his work as the third source of Muslim holy law.

Hanafi School

The Hanafi school is the largest of the four. It grew up in Iraq under Abbasid patronage and made considerable use of consensus and judicial reasoning (in addition, of course, to the Quran and hadiths) as sources. Today, the Hanafi school is regarded as the most liberal school and predominates in Muslim India, Bangladesh and Pakistan and in most of the lands formerly part of the Ottoman Empire, including Turkey, and Afghanistan and Central Asia);

The Hanafi school stresses individual opinion in making legal decisions. It originated in the Iraqi city of Kufa and was the dominant school in the Abbasid empire, in the Ottoman empire, in the Moghul empire in India and in Central Asia.

The Hanafi School was the first of the great schools of Islamic law. It was founded by Iraqi theologian Abu Hanifa (ca. 700-767), a pioneer in Islamic law. Born in Kufa, Iraq, he was one of the first to use the Qur’an and the hadiths to sort out legal questions and develop a legal code. His code emphasized judgments made through reasoning. The Hanifah school is the one most open to new ideas.

The Hanafi school is followed by approximately 30 percent of Sunni Muslims worldwide. It is the main school of jurisprudence in the Balkans, Turkey, Lebanon, Egypt, the Levant, Central Asia and South Asia, in addition to parts of Russia and China.

Maliki School

The Maliki school was centered in Medina and is regarded as the second oldest of the four major sharia schools after the Hanafi school. It was founded by Malik ibn Anas (715- 795), who emphasized reasoning and the concerns of the community. The lawbook of Malik ibn Anas is the earliest surviving Muslim legal text, containing a systematic consensus of Medina legal opinions.

The Maliki, or reformed, school is based on the practices of the people of Medina during Muhammad's lifetime. The Maliki school was predominant in Muslim Spain, and still is strong in Upper Egypt, North and West Africa.

Al Shafi‘i Fiqh

The Maliki school made heavy use of the Prophetic hadiths that circulated there. It relies on the Quran and hadiths as primary sources. Unlike other Islamic schools, the Malikis also considers the consensus of the people of Medina to be a valid source of Islamic law.

The Maliki school's sources for Sharia are hierarchically prioritized as follows: 1) Quran, 2) then trustworthy Hadiths, 3) then `Amal (customs and practices of the people of Medina), 4) consensus of the Sahabah (the companions of Muhammad), 5) individual opinion from the Sahabah, Qiyas (analogy), Istislah (interest and welfare of Islam and Muslims), and 6) Urf (custom of people throughout the Muslim world if it did not contradict the hierarchically higher sources of Sharia).

Shafi’i'i School

The Shafi’i'i school grew up in ninth-century Egypt as a synthesis of the Hanafi and Maliki systems, but with greater stress on analogy. It was strong in Egypt and Syria at the time of Salah al-Din; it now prevails in the Muslim lands around the Indian Ocean, East Africa and Indonesia. It is deeply rooted in Egypt and has many adherents in Syria and the Fertile Crescent. Most Muslim Turks follow the Hanafi school, whereas most Sunni Kurds follow the Shafi’i school.

The Shafi’i school was founded by the Meccan jurist Muhammad ash Shafi’i (767-820). He saw the law as something based on the Qur’an and God's Will. Every law, he argued, should be based on a direct commandment or a general principal that could be directly traced back to the Prophet either through the Qur’an or the hadiths. He also developed the idea that once the Islamic community made a final decision on a matter that decision was infallible and permanent.

Idris ash Shafi’i, a member of the tribe of Quraysh and a distant relative of the Prophet, was born and brought up in Mecca. He studied under Malik ibn Anas in Medina and later taught in both Baghdad and Cairo and followed a somewhat eclectic legal path, laying down the rules for analogy that were later adopted by other legal schools. The other two legal schools in Islam, the Maliki and the Hanbali, lack a significant number of adherents in Iraq. [Source: Helen Chapin Metz, Library of Congress, 1988]

Shafi’i is regarded as a conservative school that emphasizes the opinions of the companions of the Prophet Muhammad. The development of Sharia law clearly had some political aspects. Malik ibn Anas and al-Shafi’i participated in Shia uprisings and opposed what they perceived as corruption in the ruling caliphate. Many efforts to modernize Sharia law have been thwarted by Islamists. People that have tried to reform or modify Muslim law have been accused as “apostates” and “sinful innovators."

Hanbali School

Hanbali Fiqh Musnad

The Hanbali School was the last of the four major Sunni legal schools. It was centered in Baghdad and by the the great jurist and theologian Ahmad ibn Hanbal (780- 855), who rejected analogy, consensus, and judicial opinion as sources. He argued that the only truths worth knowing were in the Qur’an and applying human thought processes are not applicable.

Because of its strictness, the Hanbali school has tended to have a smaller following, though its adherents have included the thinkers who inspired the modern reform movement within Islam. It gave great emphasis to the hadith as a source of Muslim law but rejected innovations and rationalistic explanations of the Quran and the traditions.*

Traditionally linked with the puritanical Wahhabi sect, the Hanbali School is the smallest and strictest of the four major Sunni schools. It has traditionally rejected the use of analogy and wide extension of ijma (juristic consensus). The Hanbali School is the official legal system in present-day Saudi Arabia. It is prominent in Arabia as a result of Wahhabism, whose founder was influenced by Hanbalis. The Hanbali school is also strong in northern Nigeria and has numerous adherents elsewhere.

In contrast to the Hanafis and the Malikis, with the absence of a 'Ijma , the opinion of a Sahabi (companion of Muhammad) is given priority over Qiyas (analogical reasoning, which early Hanbalis rejected) or al-'urf (customs of a land) which is completely rejected by Hanbalis. While Hanbalis require a unanimous consensus, Hanafis tend to follow the consensus of Kufa and Malikis that of al-Madina. [Source: Wikipedia]

Development of Sharia Schools in the Umayyad Period (661-750)

Joseph Schacht wrote in the “Cambridge Encyclopaedia of Islam”: ““As the groups of pious specialists grew in numbers and in cohesion, they developed, in the first decades of the second/eighth century, into what may be called the ancient schools of law, a term which implies neither any definite organization, nor a strict uniformity of doctrine within each school, nor any formal teaching, nor even the existence of a body of law in the usual meaning of the term. Their members continued to be private individuals, singled out from the great mass of the Muslims by their special interest, the resultant reverence of the people, and the recognition as kindred spirits which they themselves accorded to one another. It can be said that the division of the Muslims into two classes, the elite and the vulgar, dates from the emergence of the ancient schools of law. The more important ancient schools of which we have knowledge are those of Kufa and of Basra in 'Iraq, of Medina and of Mecca in the Hijaz, and of Syria. The differences between them were caused, in the first place, by geographical factors, such as local variations in social conditions, customary law, and practice, but they were not based on any noticeable disagreement on principles and methods. On principle, the ancient schools were inclined to disturb the practice as little as possible; because of the nature of our documentation, this can be particularly clearly observed in the case of the Medinese and of the Syrians. [Source: Joseph Schacht, “Law and Justice”, from the “Cambridge Encyclopaedia of Islam”, vol. II, pt. VIII/Chapter 4, beginning with pg. 539, Internet Islamic History Sourcebook, sourcebooks.fordham.edu =^=]

“The doctrines of the several schools enable us to discern the contrast between the social realities in that ancient Arab land that was the Hijaz and the newly conquered territory of old civilization that was 'Iraq, as well as the various reactions of the ancient lawyers of Islam to them. The legal integration of the wife into the family of the husband had begun with the Qur'an, when the wife was guaranteed a share in the inheritance, and the ancient lawyers followed the same tendency by giving the right to inherit to certain female relatives who did not possess it originally. But the school of Kufa alone went so far as to extend the right to inherit, after the agnates, to a group roughly corresponding to the cognates.

The school of Medina rejected this absolutely. On the other hand, the tendency expressed by the school of Kufa found its consummation only in the doctrine of the Twelver Shi'is who unite the agnates and the cognates in one single group. The Twelver Shi'is lay emphasis also on the narrowly defined family, consisting of father, mother and their children and grandchildren, against the broader concept of family, merging into the old Arabian tribal system, which forms the background of the Sunni law of inheritance. 'Iraq was indeed the intellectual centre of early Shi'ism, and Shi'i law (and, for that matter, Kharijite law) has occasionally preserved early 'Iraqi doctrines which were later abandoned by the orthodox. The legal position of the unmarried girl and of the wife within the family, and their legal capacity,were decidedly more favourable in 'Iraq than in the Hijaz. On the other hand, the marriage bond was more rigid there, in so far as in 'Iraq the wife was inadequately protected even against grave derelictions of duty by the husband, such as failure to provide maintenance, or grave maltreatment; the school of Medina gave her the possibility of suing for divorce in these two cases, a rule which continued, it seems, a practice of Arab customary law which allowed the abandoned or maltreated wife to recover her freedom.

Sharia fiqhs (schools): Sunni: 1) Hanafi (light olive green); 2) Hanbali (dark green); 3) Malaki (light blue); Shafi’i (dark blue); Shia: 1) Ismaili (yellow); 2) Jafari (light brown); 3) Zaidi (dark brown); 4) Other (red). Other: 1) Ibadi (purple)

How the Hanafi School Became Dominant — Under the Abbasids, Mughals and Ottoman Turks

The Hanafi School was the dominant Islamic legal school during the Abbasid Period (A.D. 750 to 1258). Under the patronage of the Abbasids, the Hanafi school flourished in Iraq and spread throughout the Islamic world, firmly establishing itself in Muslim Spain, Central Asia by the 9th century, where it acquired the support of rulers including Delhi Sultanate, Kazakh Sultanate and the local Persians Samanid rulers. Turkic expansion introduced the school to the Indian subcontinent and Anatolia, and it was adopted as the chief legal school of the Ottoman and Mughal Empire. In the modern Republic of Turkey, the Hanafi jurisprudence is enshrined in Diyanet, the directorate for religious affairs, through the constitution (art. 136).

The Hanafi School was embraced by the Abbasid Caliphate in part because it was more flexible than the traditionalist Medina-based schools, which favored correlating all laws to Quran and Hadiths and disfavored Islamic law based on discretion of jurists. The Abbasids patronized the Hanafi school as did the Seljuk Turkish which followed them.

The Turkic expansion spread Hanafi Fiqh through Central Asia and into Indian subcontinent, with the establishment of Seljuk Empire, Timurid dynasty, several Khanates, Delhi Sultanate, Bengal Sultanate and Mughal Empire. Throughout the reign of 77th Caliph and 10th Ottoman Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent and 6th Mughal emperor Aurangzeb Alamgir, the Hanafi-based Al-Qanun and Fatawa-e-Alamgiri served as the legal, juridical, political, and financial code of most of South Asia.[17][18]

How the Different School Approach a Particular Issue — Anal Intercourse

Jessica Marglin wrote: Take, for instance, Muslim jurists’ approach to anal intercourse between two men. The Quran offers only a general condemnation, with no specific legal consequences. There are some sources in the Hadith — the vast corpus of sayings and actions attributed to the Prophet Muhammad and collected centuries after his death — that are more specific, including condemning those convicted of anal intercourse to death. [Source: Jessica Marglin, Associate Professor of Religion, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, The Conversation, May 8, 2019]

Some schools of Islamic law – such as the Shafii school, which is predominant in Brunei – classify sodomy as a type of fornication, which requires the death penalty. But others, such as the Hanafi school, which was the official school of the Ottoman Empire, prescribe far lighter penalties for this act.

And even in those schools of Islamic law that prescribe the death penalty for anal intercourse, jurists have made the standard of proof so high as to be nearly impossible to meet. To condemn someone for sodomy requires four male, Muslim witnesses to have had such an intimate view of the act that they could see the genitals of the offenders. All schools of law require this type of evidence to condemn someone for fornication. Needless to say, such proof was exceedingly hard to come by.

another map of sharia fiqhs (schools) with Sunni and Shia areas

Image Sources: Wikimedia Commons

Text Sources: Internet Islamic History Sourcebook: sourcebooks.fordham.edu ; Arab News, Jeddah; “Islam, a Short History” by Karen Armstrong; “A History of the Arab Peoples” by Albert Hourani (Faber and Faber, 1991); “World Religions” edited by Geoffrey Parrinder (Facts on File Publications, New York); “Encyclopedia of the World’s Religions” edited by R.C. Zaehner (Barnes & Noble Books, 1959); Metropolitan Museum of Art, Encyclopedia.com, National Geographic, BBC, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Smithsonian magazine, The Guardian, Al Jazeera, The New Yorker, Time, Newsweek, Reuters, Associated Press, AFP, Library of Congress and various books and other publications.

Last updated April 2024