Sheikh Ahmed Bermejo’s Complete Introductory Seminar to Fiqh

INTRODUCTION TO FIQH SEMINAR

• Introduction to Fiqh
• Importance of fiqh
• The Schools of Fiqh and Their Imams
• To follow a school or to establish a common one?
• The methodology of fiqh

Introduction to Fiqh What is Fiqh?
Why talk about Fiqh?
How important is Fiqh?
Why are we dedicating this entire seminar to talking about Fiqh?
And in fact, we are not going to talk about Fiqh, but what we are going to do is going to be an introduction to Fiqh, so that we understand the importance they have; and someone may ask at this time: But is Fiqh really that important?
The answer is yes, because Fiqh is the science that Islam studies.
We all know that our Deen, that Islam is divided into three parts, and these three parts are taken from the famous hadith of Jibreel, the hadith in which the Messenger of Allah was with his companions, a man came, sat before him and asked him about Islam, the Imam and the Ishan, so that from that hadith, It has been taken that our DIN is divided into these three parts; the first is Islam, the second the Imam and the third Ihsan; each of these parts has a whole science that studies it, so the science that Islam studies is the Fiqh, the science that the Imam studies, is the aquida and the science that studies the Ihsan, is the tasawwuf.
Therefore we have that the science that studies Islam is Fiqh, in other words, much clearer, if there is no Fiqh, there is no Islam, why?
Because Fiqh is what tells us, for example, that the duhur salat is four raka’ats, which are recited in a low voice, in the first two rakats fatiha and sura, and in the last two only the fatiha, in between an atahiyatu is made, and it ends with another just before the salaam.
All this is part of Fiqh, so if we do not know this, we will not be doing salat correctly, and it is true that if you do something wrong without knowledge, nothing happens, since Allah looks at your intention and if it is sincere Allah accepts it; what happens is that this phrase of, no, no, is that I did not know how to do it, or that ignorance is happiness, we have to be aware that it is valid only to a certain extent, since above it, there is another one that is: “seek the knowledge of that which Allah has commanded you”; i.e., Allah has commanded you to do salat, so seek the knowledge of salat, strive to learn how to do salat correctly, know all the rules concerning salat.
There is always in our deen an exhortation to seek and learn about what we have to do.
But Fiqh itself goes much further; and there are many people who despise Fiqh, consider it a minor science, and give preeminence to other sciences such as aquida or tasawuf, that if the heart has a good opinion the rest does not matter… To act in this way is a tremendous mistake; one science is not more important than the other, they are all equally important, I would even dare to say that if one has more importance it is precisely Fiqh, because Fiqh enters into all aspects, both in acts of worship and in mu’amalat, relationships and transactions with human beings.
We should know that all our actions are divided into two categories, they are well ibadat, what we translate as acts of worship, which are those aspects that have to do with your relationship with Allah; and on the other hand we have the mu’amalath, which are the acts in your relationship with the rest of the creatures, and Fiqh enters into both aspects, both in the ‘ibatad and in the mu’amalat ones. Fiqh has answers to all the situations we go through in our lives, for example, a man separates from his wife, and they have children, the whole issue of maintenance, who has the power, who they have to stay with, all of that, are issues that Fiqh deals with.
For example, I have evidence that so-and-so is going to go on a trip to Turkey and bring some merchandise to sell here; I tell him ah okay, so since you’re going, take this money and buy me this and that.
If during the trip you lose the money, who has to replace it?
Is there a difference if you have already purchased and have the goods in your hands?
Whose responsibility is it if there is a defect in the goods?
Etc, etc, etc.
Inheritances, business, transactions, rents, compensations, contracts, Jihad, are all topics that the science of Fiqh encompasses and studies.
Therefore, Fiqh is not only knowing how many rakats the Maghrib salat has, and this is what many people do not understand when talking about Fiqh, those who say, ah, if I already know how to do the salat, I do not need to go to classes; Fiqh goes much further.
That is why it is considered a collective obligation, a fardu kifaya, that in a community, or in a group of people, there are some versed in the science of Fiqh, since they will be the ones who will be able to settle questions such as these that we have just given as an example.
So at no time can we ignore or discredit Fiqh, we must give it all the importance it has, which is vital, because if the knowledge of Fiqh is not present, it is very likely that what we are doing, we are not doing it within the parameters established by Allah, no matter how much we say that our heart is saying or feeling otherwise.
What is the purpose of Islam?
What is Islam all about?
Islam aims to create a community, a society.
It is not aimed exclusively at the individual; or we can better say that it is addressed to the individual, if we take the individual as a social being, a being created to live in community, with other people, having all kinds of relationships with each other.
For this to be possible, a legal framework, a legal corpus, a compilation of legal judgments that encompass all aspects of the social and personal life of the Muslim community is necessary.
And this is certainly Fiqh, which is also called Islamic jurisprudence or law.
Islam aims to found a society with values different from those of idolatrous societies, and to this end it provides Muslims with everything they need to realize both their individual and collective Islam in practice.
Fiqh is the effort made to concretize these practices by deducing them mainly from the only two sources that Muslims accept as undisputed authorities: the Qur’an and the Sunnah or Tradition of the Prophet.
That is, Fiqh embraces in its discussions all aspects of human life, offering for each question a judgment (Hukm) obtained mainly from the two sources mentioned.
Fiqh is the effort made by Muslims in this regard. This is important: his will is to unite Muslims within a community, and for this he resorts to the only thing that we all accept above our personal will: Revelation.
This is how it is possible to reach a consensus that makes possible that common life and language that are the basis of Islam as a civilization.
The only thing that is demanded is the rigor with which the commitment to Islam must be faced, i.e., that it is not valid, to take what is convenient from Islam, from Fiqh, and to put aside what is not convenient for us.
Well, certainly that is one of the causes that lead to the loss and destruction of communities.
AFATUMINUNA BIBA’DIL KITABI WA TAKFURUNA BIBAD.
The Qur’an, the first of the Sources, was revealed to the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) over the course of twenty-three years.
During that period, he was interpreting and commenting on it with his words and actions.
Those twenty-three years, divided into two stages (Mecca and Medina), are the time of the revelations that shape Islam, which in turn was crystallizing into a community.
What people of knowledge have done over the centuries is to look for inspiration in that fertile period, to establish a legal corpus, and this is what is called Fiqh.
The Fiqh, therefore, aims to answer practical questions.
It is the how of Islam.
And in this sense it encompasses everything from individual practices (‘Ibâdât), to transactions of all kinds (Mu’âmalât), including family relations, economics, contracts, trade and business, politics and international relations, criminal proceedings and the administration of justice, war and peace, etc. WHAT IS FIQH The word Fiqh, Linguistically speaking, it means understanding, knowledge, understanding, deepening, and it is a term that is used in all branches of knowledge to designate its meticulous study. Giving it this meaning, Allah uses this verse in different verses of the Qur’an, such as when the people of Shu’aib say to him: “Shu’aib! We don’t understand much of what you’re saying.” Now, current usage uses the term Fiqh to designate almost exclusively Islamic jurisprudence: it is the science of law in a very broad sense as we will see throughout this seminar, or in others if we see that we find it interesting to delve into it. If we want to give it a more technical or more precise definition, and it is one of the classic definitions of what Fiqh is, perhaps the most appropriate is the following: The science that deals with the ramifications/sub-divisions of the judgments/laws of Sharia, on their detailed evidence and based on evidence. Perhaps this last sentence is one of the most important in the definition, and it is always based on detailed evidence, on evidence, taken for the most part, either from the Qur’an or from the Sunna. What we have seen so far is the explanation and definition of what Fiqh is and what it represents and we have also seen part of its importance. Now, it may be that at this point, if someone has been paying attention, which I hope you have, they may be asking a question that is very connected to what we have seen so far, especially with the last sentence of the definition that we have just given. The question would be something like: “Let’s see: if Fiqh is nourished by the same source, Qur’an and Sunnah mainly, if it is a legal corpus that seeks to lay the foundations of a society blah blah blah blah, why are there differences, why are there different schools in Fiqh, why are there different madhahib?” This question is fundamental, it is very important, it really is key and you will see how once we understand the answer, we will be able to resolve many of the doubts and misinterpretations that exist today regarding this matter, which I have to say because if I don’t burst, there are many and all of them, due to ignorance. But before answering the question, I want to make it clear that this is so, the fact that there are differences among the madhahib, does not mean, as many people think, that Islam is separate, or that it is at odds or anything like that, or that the supporters of one of these schools have the absolute truth and the others are wrong; on the contrary, these differences are a sign of the breadth and ease that our Deen contains. It is important that we understand this issue in this way; the differences between schools are not for some to confront others, NO; we can never take it like this, they are a sign of Allah’s mercy. AHMAD IBN HANBAL . BOOK DIFFERENCES IN FIQH. We have just mentioned the madhahib, what are the madhahib?, the madhahib are the four classical, traditional and accepted schools that are preserved today; those four schools, as we all well know, are: Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi’i and Hanbali. According to the vast majority of Muslims, although today, unfortunately, that majority is beginning to decrease; but it is still the vast majority, they agree that the one who follows one of these four schools, is, without any doubt, living under the parameters of the two great bases of Islam, which are the Qur’an and the Sunna. How are these schools formed? They are formed in an organic way, it is not a person who says, I am going to create a new school of jurisprudence because I do not like the way things are done, no, it has nothing to do with this, they are formed in a natural way, they arise when it is necessary to respond to the cases that have to be faced. Since Islam, as we well know, is born in the bosom of the Arabian Peninsula, it is born as something strange, something new, something unknown. Most of their acts of worship are unknown, as are their teachings regarding character and behavior. From its beginning, or rather, after its beginnings, Islam began to spread at a dizzying speed, in a time very different from the one we live in today, in which if something happens in China or America, here we are aware of what is happening in real time. 1400 years ago it wasn’t like that, it was very different. Distances and times cannot be measured with the parameter we measure them today. So we have to make an effort to open our minds and transport ourselves to those times, to those distances, to those measurements. Islam spreads at an implausible speed, and reaches places where there is a way of life, a culture, customs that are very different from those that existed in Mecca and Medina, they really had practically nothing to do with it, so we can say that there is a process of adaptation, of Islam adapting to what exists. or what is there is adapted to Islam; for it is precisely in this process of adaptation, in which what people had learned from their parents and these from theirs and these in turn from theirs, are confronted with all the new things that Islam brought. It is in this field of cultivation, in this new situation, that controversies arise, doubts about what Islam is and what are local customs and previous teachings. It is then that the figure of, among others, Abu Hanifa emerges, which arises from the need to differentiate and explain what is correct and what is not, what is genuine Islam and what is not. This is the origin of the madhahib, it is to protect the Din, to keep the Deen as clear and sharp as possible, it is not to create something new, it is not bi’da, it is not the pretensions of individuals who want to gain fame and name, we can never, ever understand it that way. Therefore the differences in the madhahib are not, as the ignorant think today, in that the founding imams of these madhahib are ignorant of some of the verses or the hadith, whoever says that, is nothing more than an ignorant, the difference lies in two things. We have to try to reach a judgment, this is allowed, it is obligatory, it is forbidden, it is recommended, it is undesirable, in order to be able to give that judgment, I do not say it like that without further ado, but I study the case and address the sources, about this case in the Qur’an such a thing has been said, there is a hadith that says another, the usual practice of the people of Medina is this, the custom of the people in the place where I live is different, etc, I look at all the possibilities, I study them in detail and then, I do something else and this is the key, I use a methodology, I stick to a pattern to give the judgment, that pattern, that methodology, which consists of how I approach the sources and what I have in mind about them, is known as the science of Usul al Fiqh. USUL And what is this new term, which some of you may not have heard in your life, what is usul al Fiqh?
Usoul to Fiqh is one of the keys to everything, and it is the key to understanding Fiqh.
Usul al Fiqh is a concept composed of two terms, usul and fiqh, so let’s try to explain these two terms in order to understand what science means.
Usul, what does Usul mean?
Whenever concepts or words are studied in Arabic, they are given two definitions, the linguistic definition, what it means in the language and the definition of the science you are dealing with, since the same word can have different meanings if you are dealing with one science or another, and these are important to know, not everything means the same thing, For example, ‘ILM if we speak in terms of fiqh is not the same as if we speak in terms of Tasawwuf, so we have to be very careful with what terms we use and how we understand them, the use of language is fundamental.
Usul, linguistically speaking, is that on which something is built, or the origin of something, for example the foundation on which a wall is built, or for example the father is the origin of the son, or for example the root of the tree. Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala uses this term in the Qur’an when he says: “Do you not see how Allah compares the good word to a good tree whose root is firm and whose branches are in the sky?”
This is the meaning linguistically speaking, whether we speak in terms of sharia’, or in terms of fiqh, the terms of law or jurisprudence, the usul is the established rule through which judgment is derived. And what is the judgment? The judgment is as we have said before the Fiqh itself. Therefore these two terms, usul and fiqh, form the Usul al Fiqh, and what is the Usul al Fiqh; it is the science that studies the methodology through which judgments are derived. Or another classic definition that is usually given is: “The proofs of the Fiqh trials.” That is to say that usul al-fiqh is what leads you to rule that a thing is forbidden or permissible, and this is where the differences between the madhahib lie. The four great Imams, Abu Hanifa, Malik, Shafi’ and Ibn Hanbal, what really differentiates them is not their fiqh, NO, it is their usul al Fiqh, it is what methodology they use to rule on a judgment, there being a difference in the methodology, there is of course difference in the final result, and that final result is fiqh. Therefore we can affirm that Fiqh is the rule and usul is how that rule has been reached. Now we do see it clearly. Why is it that in one madhhab this thing is done in one way and in the other it is done in that way? Because a different methodology has been used. We have said that this methodology differs from one Imam to another, although there are four points on which they agree, or four sources from which all madhahib draw and all use these sources; which are: The Qur’an, the Sunna, the Iyma’ (which is the consensus) and the famous and well-known Qiyas (the analogy) which is what is used to respond to new cases, we could talk about the Qiyas throughout a whole seminar, because it is what is done today, and the truth is that it is not done, in most cases, in the right way. Since there must be conditions to do qiyas, you cannot do it just because, there has to be a source, that is, an old case already established, there must be a new case, there must be a judgment and there must of course be a connector between both cases. But as I say, that has a lot of fabric to cut and we are not going to go into it today. But what I would like to mention is, so that we have an idea, even if it is a little general, of what other sources the great Imams use to establish their school of fiqh. We have said that there are four on which everyone agrees, we know, Qur’an, Sunna, Consensus and Analogy; apart from these four, there are others such as: the Practice of Medina, the Opinion of a Companion, the General Interest (
maslaha mursala), the abrogated and abrogating, the Avoidance of Pretexts (sadd ad-dara’i‘), Equity (istihsan), the Revealed Laws prior to the Shari’a, the Presumption of Continuity (istis-hâb) and Custom (‘urf).
There is only one madhhab who brings together all these aspects, i.e., before passing judgment he verified the matter in question with all these sources, and the only one who did so was Imam Malik ibn Anas, may Allah be pleased with him, and that is why madhhab al-Maliki is so broad, That is why Madhahab Al Maliki is the least extremist, and that is why Madhab Al Maliki is the one who has the most common sense, because when it comes to establishing or ruling on a judgment, he is the one who takes the most things into account, and one of the things that he takes into account and that none of the other madhahib except Abu Hanifa uses. It is al-‘urf, the custom, the custom of the place, the land and the time in which you live. The Qadi ‘Yyad, in his Madarik, speaks of this matter of methodology, focusing on Imam Malik and says: “If you first look at the methodology of these imams, their sources as far as fiqh is concerned and their way of proceeding in the idjtihad, you will see that Malik, may Allah have mercy on him, proceeded with respect to these grounds taking them in their corresponding order.
He put the Koran before the heroes.
Then he put the facts before analogy and considerations that are the result of reflection.
As for the children, he used to reject all those who did not transmit them, taking responsibility for it, the people of authority and trust, who knew what they transmitted or did not transmit; or those things that the great majority of the people of Medina did not put into practice.
Malik used to ignore those who used his mere opinion to misinterpret this attitude of his or to attribute to him statements that he never said.
He said that they were mere fallacies.”
For Imam Malik, and this is what makes his mahdhab known as the Madhhab of Medina, and for that very reason he is the closest to what the Messenger of Allah did, salla allahu alaihi wa sallam; it is that for him, for Imam Malik, the Practice of the People of Medina and the Opinion of a Companion (sahâbî) are fundamentals that fall within the category of the Sunna.
That is to say, for Imam Malik, the ‘amal of Madinah, and the word of a companion, does not fall into the category of opinion, or opinionable, for him, it falls within the category of the sunna. Just as for him, the General Interest, Usage and Customs, the Avoidance of Pretexts, Legal Homogeneity and the Consideration of Expediency are foundations that fall within the category of Opinion (ra’y), which is how the school of Iraq, of which Imam Abu Hanifa is, was mainly known. or rather, it was its maximum representative).
This in a very summarized way would be an introduction to the science of usul to Fiqh, it is a science that is very beautiful, well, more than beautiful the correct thing would be to say that it is a very important science, because if you go into it, it makes you see the way of thinking of the imams.
All the aspects they valued, why one gave preference to one thing over another, the differences due to the geographical area and the existing environment, that precision they had when it came to saying something; And the most wonderful thing about this science is to see the scrupulosity they had, how finely they spun together, the details they contemplated, that is to say that they did not take things lightly, they looked at everything before saying anything, they analyzed it in detail.
IYTIHAD/TAQLID We already have what Fiqh is and we also have what Usul is Fiqh, we have the judgments, the laws and how they have been reached.
What I would like to talk about now, even if it is a little bit above, is about those kinds of people, who do not take everything we have talked about so far, those people for whom the great Imams of the history of Islam have no value, those people who say that you should not follow any madhhab, those people who say that we live in new times, that we have to make a new reinterpretation of the Deen, the Qur’an and the Sunnah, and that in addition, and this is the most dangerous thing, that everyone has their own situation and having the access we have to knowledge, or rather to information, we must make our own, and this term is key: “Ijtihad”.
What is ijtihad: Ijtihad is the effort that the Muslim jurist or alfaqui makes to derive a certain judgment from the sources of Muslim law. In other words, it is the one that establishes a methodology or a usul to reach a judgment.
This man of knowledge who practices idjtihad is called a mudjtahid.
It must be taken into account in this definition that in order for the alfaqui to be able to carry out this derivation, he must meet the conditions and possess the knowledge that enables him to make it.
Observe, this is the classic and most correct definition of what Ijtihad means, always speaking in this field of Fiqh and Usoul.
The first thing is that the one who does it has to be a Faqih, the Faqih is the person who has knowledge of Fiqh, that as a basis, and then he has to meet a series of conditions, a series of knowledge more required to be able to do Ijtihdad.
And when we talk about Ijtihad and Mujtahid, we must also take into account that there are different degrees, there is Ijtihad in Madhad, Ijtihad on new matters, Ijtihad outside Madhhab, Ijitihad al Mutlaq, the complete one, who is qualified and therefore is not obliged to follow any madhhab, and there is also Taqlid, Another key term What is taqlid, is it what all those who do not reach the degree of mujtahid do or should do, its definition is: the girdling of the Muslim who is not an Alfaqui or the Alfaqui who does not possess the relevant knowledge to elevate him to the category of Mudjtahid; the judgment or judgments that a mudjtahid has derived from the sources of Muslim law by exercising the practice of idjtihad. Therefore, we can say that it is obligatory to do Taqlid for one who does not have the ability to do Ijtihad, i.e., that one should follow the judgments of a Mujtahid Mutlaq, and who these are, according to the consensus of the ‘ulamas are: Abu Hanifa, Malik, Safhi’ and Ahmad ibn Hambal.
This is very important for us to be clear, there are two general degrees, either muqallid or mujtahid, the one who is not mujtahid, has to be muqallid, that is, the one who is not able to derive the judgments of sharia’ by himself, is obliged to be one of those who follow a madhhab.
I suppose there will be people who think that I am making this up, or that this is a hard or extremist branch that we have; Well, no, it is not, since Allah says in the Qur’an: “Ask the people of remembrance if you do not know.” These people of remembrance are the great founding imams of madhahib, and although there have been other great Imams in history, today the only ones whose teachings and therefore their madhhab are preserved are: Abu Hanifa, Malik, Safhi’ and Ahmad ibn Hambal.
Conditions of Idhjtihad: 1. Being a Muslim.
2. Be responsible (mukallaf according to the shari’a of Islam, and we already know what that is).
3. Be morally upright (‘adl) and bring those morality into all aspects of your life.
4. To be aware of the social circumstances of the place and time in which one lives; This is a very important point, because what it means is that a person who lives in a certain place cannot do ijtihad for another person who lives in another place on earth and who has completely different circumstances.
5. Be insightful and have mental and intellectual acuity.
6. Have a broad command of the Arabic language.
And this is fabric, since it implies knowing grammar, lexicology and rhetoric, syntacsis, morphology.
7. Know the Qur’an.
And here things also get serious, because this implies knowing the different causes of the revelation of the different verses that deal with the law, with the ahkam; to know the abrogated men and women; to know what each and every one of the verses that deal with the law are (about 500 approximately); to know the commentaries on the Qur’an made by the Prophet (peace be upon him), the Companions, the Followers and the other scholars in the science of Tafseer; to know the different readings or recitations of the Qur’an and the legal implications that their differences may cause.
8. Know the Sunnah.
This implies knowing each and every one of the hadiths that deal with the law; to know the abrogants and the abrogated; to know the transmitters of the hadiths; to know what hadiths specify and restrict others in their legal application; To know the science that deals with the different levels of transmission force that the different hadiths have, the usul al hadith, since there are saheeh, hasan, da’if, which can be saheeh, hasan and da’if, then there is muttasil, marfu’, musnad, mauquf, maqtu’, etc.
There are many kinds of hadith, and you should know all these categories and know from the hadiths that deal with the law, which one is in which category.
9. To know the sayings of the Companions and to verify their transmissions, and here it is almost the same with the hadith, that there are different and numerous degrees. 10. To know on which points of the law there is consensus and on which there is not, and by consensus we refer to the iyma’, of which we could also speak at length.
11. Know the rules of Analogy and its perfect application, the famous qiyas, which has a lot of fabric to cut and which we were talking about a little last week
12. Master the science of the Fundamentals of Fiqh (usul al-fiqh).
13.
To know the objectives of the Shari’a (maqasid ash-shari’a) and its perfect application in order to apply the law by balancing the letter and spirit of the law and not with a rigidity that leads to absurdity, unnecessary hardship and injustice. WHY FOLLOW A SCHOOL? Having seen everything we have seen, we now enter a very interesting terrain and that is why to follow a school, the why of the Taqlid that we have talked about and not fall either into personal Ijtihad or into a movement that has a lot of strength lately that is known as “the madhahib”; Without Madhhab, there is no need to follow any Madhhab, or that what you have to do is to unite all the Madhhab into one and thus make it easier.
This, which at first glance may seem good and whose postulate, or whose excuse is to “make things easy” really is not, is a deception, it has a lot of demagogy and unreality.
Why?
Let us try to explain: If Allah, subhanahu wa ta’ala, the most merciful of the merciful had willed, He would have stated everything clearly and all things would be done in one way, both in ‘ibadat (acts of worship) and in mu’amalat (human transactions).
But the truth is that Allah, who is all Mercy, and the Messenger Muhammad, who was sent as a mercy to all the worlds, did not declare everything clearly, did not close the door and marked a unique and exclusive red line.
Therefore the result of the explanations and clarifications of the ‘ulama of the four Madhahib what they do is to give ease.
Why?
Because for example if I find something that is difficult for me in my madhhab, I can look for another opinion within the madhhab that is more relaxed, or that makes that matter more bearable for me, as long as it stays within the madhhab.
If the case has an even greater difficulty and there is no opinion within the madhhab that allows it, then you can, exceptionally and if you have the knowledge of it, you can go to another madhhab for that particular matter and you can perform that action, which if it were not that way in another madhhab you would not really do it in the end.
If there were only one madhhab, if there were only one path, if there were only one line this would not be possible.
So those who say, you have to make a single madhhab to make the way easier, what they are really doing is creating a system full of difficulties for Muslims without even (for the sake of maintaining a good opinion) without even being aware of it.
Let’s give a practical example of what we have just said: SUBJECT OF CHECKING THE EMPTINESS OF THE UTERUS – MALIK – ABU HANIFA.
Do you know what the importance of madhahib lies in for me?
In two main things, there may be more, but I am going to mention two, which perhaps none of you have thought of and that it is not something convoluted in legal terms, but it is something very human and very common sense.
The first is the gratitude and recognition to the great imams of antiquity, they really were men like no one since, and later when we talk about them and see their lives we will be able to verify it; they were scrupulous people, very scrupulous, who gave it all the importance in the world and even more when it came to making a judgment or addressing some matter related to Fiqh. Such as Imam Malik, of whom it has been said that he seemed to suspend himself between heaven and earth when he was asked to issue a fatwa (that word so used also today) due to the commitment and scrupulosity that this meant for him, the one who said that the shield, that the protection of the man of knowledge is to say I do not know, the one who did not ride any animal in the city of Madinah, because he said that the Messenger of Allah had walked those streets and therefore he would not do it riding on an animal, the one who when speaking of the hadith, of the words of the Messenger of Allah made wudu, dressed well, he combed his hair, perfumed himself and took it with the greatest seriousness and seriousness possible.
Or like the great Imam Ibn Sirin, who when asked about something of the haram or halal, the color of his face changed, to such an extent that he was transformed in such a way that he looked like a different person; or Imam Ahmad who practically never stated anything one hundred percent when it came to halal or haram, unless it was clear and evident, but he said, in my opinion, I think, I hope, what is dearest to me… This is the first point, the thanks and the recognition to these people, to these heroes, which is really how we should imagine them, heroes who give their lives to defend and protect the Deen of Allah.
And this brings me to the second point why I think it is important to follow one of the madhahib, and that is the protection, the protection that it entails, both in your acts of worship, as in your human transactions, and even in your way of thinking, in everything; Following a madhhab is a protection, a tremendous protection and the truth is that we do not realize it, we are not aware of the protection that it is for us until we see the point that can be reached if the madhahib are not followed.
EXAMPLE MARRIAGE – WAKIL – WITNESSES We could go on talking about this for a long time, but I think it’s enough for us with what we’ve already mentioned, because we already have some of the tools, not to get into discussions and debates, that’s better to leave it to those who have more knowledge than us, but to be clear about why we follow a school, why we follow a madhhab and what is the meaning and value of doing so. ABU HANIFA Having said that, we are now going to look at each of these schools with their respective founding Imams, in order to understand a little better the why of these schools and how and where they arise, and we are going to do it chronologically, so we are going to start with Abu Hahifa, whose real name was: An-nu’man Ibn Zabit, Ibn Zuta, Ibn Marzuban; that he was born (according to most historians) in the year 80 of the Hijra; corresponding to the year 699 A.D. under the Umayyad caliphate of Abdul Malik ibn Marwan, and died in 150 A.H., on June 14, 767 at the age of 67.
Perhaps what we can highlight most about Imam Abu Haneefah, and this as we will see is his great handicap, is that he did not live in Medina, which is as we all know, the place where the Deen was first established; he lived in Iraq and his school was developed in Iraq.
Abu Hanifah grew up in Kufa and received his education in this city where he spent most of his life, first he dedicated himself to the silk trade, a business he had inherited from his father, then he dedicated himself more firmly to the learning of the Deen and finally he became a great teacher of Islam.
Now we need to take a short break and see how important Iraq is.
Iraq was conquered in the year 14 of the Hijrah, 4 years after the death of the Prophet and it was Sa’ad ibn Abi Waqas who founded the city of Kufa.
Kufa was one of the two great Iraqi cities of the time and in Iraq there were many different religions, sects and beliefs.
Syriac Christians were scattered throughout their territory and had schools where Greek philosophy and the ancient wisdom of Persia were studied.
In other words, at the time we are talking about, Iraq was a melting pot, a concoction of different races, cultures and beliefs, and a place plagued by confusion and turbulence.
Conflicts of opinion regarding politics and religion were frequent.
The Shi’a and the Mu’tazilites started from that place and in their deserts, in the deserts of Iraq were the Kharijites.
On the one hand, on the other hand, we must add the fact that relatively few of the Companions of the Messenger of Allah had left Madinah to settle in Iraq. It is true that one of the most explicit rulings of the second Caliph, ‘Umar ibn al-Khattab, had been to discourage the Companions who had knowledge from leaving the Hijaz. He did this to prevent the knowledge of the Deen from spreading too far. This is the reason why most of the great men of learning, among the Muhajiroon and the Ansar, stayed in and around Medina. Despite this, two notable exceptions went to live in Iraq, ‘Ali ibn Abi Talib and ‘Abdallah ibn Mas’ud. What this meant, in practical terms, was that the people of Iraq had very limited access to the Sunnah itself, because so few models had come down to them. All these factors meant that the Iraqi environment, in which Islam began to take root in the first and second centuries of the Hijrah, was very different from that of Madinah where the Deen had been established for the first time and everything was done according to the custom and way of acting of previous generations. Another important aspect of Imam Abu Hanifa and his time and place was that, due to these multiple foreign influences, many situations arose that were quite different from those that had to be dealt with in the early days of Islam. However, in order to establish the Deen, it was necessary to find solutions to these new situations. As we are seeing, during the life of Abu Haneefah and the establishment of the Iraq School, the Islamic world was in a ‘difficult’ moment, a time when there was controversy in the field of politics and religion, which in Islam should not be unrelated.
After the death of the Prophet Muhammad, and especially with the rapid expansion of Islam, there was a kind of imbalance, since in Medina Islam was preserved in the purest form – because most of the companions of the Messenger of Allah resided in it, who had soaked it – there were other places that needed that knowledge that the Sahaba possessed. such as Kufa, Basra or Baghdad itself, which due to the large number of Muslims, began to claim the same value and weight that the city of Medina had.
(ISLAM – MEDINA; POLITICS – IRAQ).
At the same time, a rift began to arise between two groups of ‘ulamas, on the one hand there were those who followed the purest tradition (the people of Medina, ahl al hadith) and on the other hand there were the ulamas of opinion (ahl al Ray’).
Much of Abu Haneefah’s work was to unite, as far as he could, these two schools of thought.
The great division between these two schools was largely due to geography, about 1500 kilometers, which as we have said previously we cannot compare with the current distances, since most of the “traditional”, most of the Sahaba and the Tabi’in were in the Hejaz, with Medina as the capital and most of the ‘ulamas of the Ray’ were in present-day Iraq.
During Abu Haneefah’s lifetime, the disputes between these two schools had intensified, to such an extent that verbal attacks were continually hurled at each other.
Naturally, this debate threatened the unity of the Ummah.
And although it is generally said that Imam Shafi’i was the first to lay down the foundations and laws of Usul al-Fiqh, in truth this merit must be attributed to Abu Haneefah, since he, because of the necessity and danger that his keen intellect detected, was the one who laid the foundations of the science of Fiqh.
This was the setting in which the school of Abu Hanifa, known as “the school of Iraq,” developed, and which gave it the specific shape that characterized it so clearly. As we have already seen, because of these historical, geographical, and social reasons, the situation in Iraq was very different from that in Medina.
This means that being a land in which Islam was “new”, situations continually arose that made it necessary to discern how to apply the Book and Sunnah to these new circumstances without the Deen undergoing any change.
As far as the Book of Allah is concerned, of course, the Iraqis had the same access as the Muslims of the Hijaz.
The difference was clearly in the access to the Sunnah.
So we have the circumstance that in Iraq the knowledge by direct transmission of the Sunnah was limited.
This led to the specific way of approaching the Sunnah that has characterized the school of Iraq, something that also affected their attitude towards the Qur’an.
In the period we are talking about, there was already a lot of “forgetting” and some misrepresentation; there were cases of invention of hadiths that were said to be true when in fact they were not; faced with this situation, and rather than rely on sources they were not sure of, the ‘ulama of Iraq preferred to come to judgment based on the use of their own intellect. This led to a way of approaching texts that was characteristic of the Iraqi school: the study of the reasons that underlay the judgments contained in them. It is as if they did not depend on external words but, instead, they looked at the meaning they contained and what was intended by the previously obtained statement, and then applied it to the new situation that confronted them at that moment. This methodology of applying the Book and Sunnah, which developed in Iraq, made Iraqis known as the people of ra’y, the people of opinion. Abu Hanifa summed up his Usūl al-fiqh as follows: “I turn to the Book of Allah, and if I find no instruction or command in it, I consult the Sunnah of the Prophet. If I cannot find a reference in any of the main texts (collections), I look into the words and states, aqwâl, of the Companions of the Prophet. From this, and as I deem appropriate, I extract or ignore the necessary evidence. I never consult other sources. When I come to the Tabi’een, such as Ibrāhim, Sha’bi, Ibn Sīrin, Atā’ and Sa’īd b. al-Musayyab, I draw my own conclusions, as they do, since they are nothing but men like me.”
Abu Haneefah began as a silk merchant, but soon devoted himself to learning, becoming a disciple of Shaykh Hammad ibn Sulayman with whom he studied all Islamic sciences.
There is no doubt that Abu Haneefah was a man of absolute integrity and filled with a fear of Allah.
He was also extremely generous and a person characterized by great self-control.
However, what led him to be rightly remembered as the leader of the madhhab of opinion people was his brilliant intellect and his ability to apply it to the issues he faced.
What Abu Hanifa did is that he penetrated to the very core of the issues.
What does this mean?
That he did not stop at the external meaning of the texts, but went beyond it in search of the intentions.
He studied a text and looked for the causes that had motivated the judgment it contained.
Once he had understood why, he used analogy to rule on a new trial. His general attitude is well summed up in a simile that he himself declared: “One who studies the hadiths but has no Fiqh can be compared to the pharmacist who prepares medicines without knowing what they cure until the doctor tells him. He who studies the hadiths without understanding their implications does exactly the same.”
An illustrative example showing how Abu Haneefah’s intellect functioned can be seen in his famous meeting with Muhammad al-Baqir, the great-great-grandson of the Prophet, to whom Allah bless and grant peace.
Abu Haneefah apparently met al-Baqir on a visit to Madinah.
It is reported that al-Baqir, based on what he had heard about the development of things in Iraq and the kind of teaching that was used there, said to him: “Are you the one who changes my great-great-grandfather’s Deen and his Sunnah with the use of analogy?”
Abu Haneefah replied by saying, “I seek refuge with Allah!” and told al-Baqir that he had as much respect for him as the Companions had respected for their predecessor, may Allah bless and grant peace, throughout his life.
And then Abu Haneefah said to al-Baqir: “I am going to ask you three questions that must be answered. The first is, “Who is weaker, the man or the woman?”
Al-Baqir replied: “The woman.”
“What is the woman’s share in the inheritance?” Abu Haneefah continued.
“Man has two parts and woman has one,” al-Baqir replied.
“This is what has come to us from your great-great-grandfather,” Abu Haneefah said.
“If I were to change the Deen with the analogy I would have to say that, being the weakest, the woman should have two parts and the man only one, but I have not said that.”
Then Abu Haneefah asked al-Baqir: “Which is better prayer or fasting?” “Prayer,” said the other.
“That’s what your great-great-grandfather said. If I were to change his Deen with the use of analogy, he would have said that, since prayer is better, the woman who has finished menstruation should return to prayer and not fasting.”
Abu Haneefah then asked the following question: “Which is more impure, urine or semen?” “Urine is more impure,” al-Baqir said.
“If it were true that I have changed your great-great-grandfather’s Deen with the use of analogy, I would have forced people to do ablution after urinating instead of after the emission of semen. May Allah protect me from changing the Deen of your great-great-grandfather with the use of analogy.”
This was Abu Haneefah’s way of acting, his first references were always the Qur’an and the Sunnah.
In this particular case, Imam Abu Haneefah used his incisive and analytical intellect to defend Islam’s orthodox stance on these issues; but it also clearly indicates the way in which he, in another situation in which the position on an issue was not yet decided, and therefore susceptible to interpretation, would use his intellect to reach a decision on the matter.
This great mental agility that characterized Imam Abu Haneefah had been recognized by Imam Malik who said of him: “If he had taken those stone columns (and pointed to some stone columns from the place where he was) and made an analogy saying that they were made of wood, you would have thought that they were made of wood.”
Once Abu Hanifah’s knowledge, insight and mental acuity were recognized, he was offered various positions of responsibility, including Qadi; the offer came from the Umayyad Caliph Marwan Ibn Muhammad. When the offer came, Abu Haneefah rejected it, saying, “If he asks me to restore the gates of the Al Wasir Mosque for him, I would not do it. What would I do then in the event that he asks me to sign a document in which I say that so-and-so should have his head cut off? No, by Allah, I will never participate in this.”
The Caliph took the refusal as a personal offense, he ordered him to be flogged; when he was released from his punishment, Abu Haneefah went into exile in Mecca, where he remained for six years, until the fall of the Umayyad dynasty, then returned to Iraq, during the reign of the second Abbasi caliph Al Mansur.
Despite the change of Caliph, relations between Abu Haneefah and the new Caliph Al Mansur were not good.
In an attempt to buy it and have it under his control, he offered Qadi’s post to Baghdad’s Qudat, which in practice was Qadi’s statewide post.
(Which today would be something like Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.)
But Abu Haneefah also refused that position, saying, “I am not made for that office.”
Caliph al-Mansur said to him, “You lie, you can take care of him.”
To which Abu Haneefah replied: “I have declared myself unfit for that position, in case as you say, if I were fit, I would be lying; how then can it be lawful to appoint a liar as Qadi?”
This reply did not sit well with the Caliph Al Mansur and he ordered that he be punished by flogging and prison sentences, he died because of the ill-treatment and punishments received in prison, or even according to some broadcasts, he died of poisoning in prison, or as soon as he was released from it.
In this dramatic and unjust way the life of this noble and great Imam ended.
Abu Haneefah was described by his contemporary Abdullah ibn al-Mubarak as the quintessence of fiqh, and this great Mujtahid was and is still known as Imam al-A’dham, the Great Imam.
He is considered the systematizer of Fiqh par excellence and the founder of one of the largest and most important madhhabs of Islamic Fiqh.
Today, their madhhab is still taught and transmitted in many parts of the world, and it is even said that a third of Muslims follow their madhhab.
This was Imam Abu Haneefah, the silk merchant who became a man of knowledge.
A man of immense knowledge who saved Islam from falling into the darkness that threatened it, a man of knowledge, of a keen and insightful intelligence, a man of knowledge who always before making a judgment looked in the Book of Allah and in the Sunnah of the Messenger and who in case he did not find it, he used his sharp and privileged intellect.
A man of knowledge who did not allow himself to be bought by the pleasures and appetites of this world, even if it cost him punishments, hardships and sufferings.
A man of knowledge who was firm in his decisions, the great Imam who gives his madhhab his name, and all who follow him, in the East or in the West of the Earth, will be free from falling into deviation and darkness, both in this life and in the next.
IMAM MALIK We will now move on to talk about the second Imam in chronological order, Imam Malik ibn Anas He was born in the year 93 of the Hijrah in the city of Medina (remember that Abu Haneefah was born in the year 80), corresponding to the year 711 of the Christian era. His full name was: Abu Abdullah Malik Ibn Anas Ibn Malik Ibn ‘Amir. His family was originally from Yemen and it was his great-grandfather Abu ‘Amir who settled in Medina after accepting Islam in the second year of the Hijrah. Imam Malik’s grandfather was one of the most renowned ‘ulamas of the tabi’een, and so Imam Malik grew up in a house in which knowledge was always present. He memorized the Qur’an at a very early age and later devoted himself to the pursuit of knowledge among the ‘ulamas of Medina Al Munawara, the Enlightened City, the City of Knowledge. He particularly excelled in two sciences, the science of Hadith and the science of Fiqh, as far as hadith is concerned he was a very scrupulous person, so much so that Imam Al Bukhari, mentions that the chain of transmission of gold, the best possible chain of transmission is that of Malik of Nafi’, of Ibn ‘Umar of the Messenger of Allah, to whom Allah may bless him.
This scrupulosity in acquiring some knowledge, and specifically with regard to the science of Hadith, led him to say: “I do not accept the knowledge of four types of person:
1) A person known to be foolish, despite the fact that other people do narrate about him.
2) A person who commits heresy and who calls people to innovation in the Deen.
3) A person who lies in his conversations with people, although I am not accusing him of lying in the transmission of Hadith.
4) A person who is very pious in worship, or who has a lot of knowledge, but does not memorize correctly what is narrated.”
Once his knowledge was recognized, he used to sit leaning on one of the pillars of the Mosque of the Messenger of Allah and give classes to his disciples, among whom Imam Shafii’ himself stood out, among others, of whom we will speak later. People from all over the world came to listen to him and sometimes to ask him questions, in many of those questions, without any shame or shame, he said: I don’t know; he said it because of how scrupulous he was, because he did not want to say something that could be analyzed in a different way than he had done and therefore he would have said something wrong; not in vain one of the sayings that have been transmitted that he said was: “The shield of the ‘alim is to say I DO NOT KNOW, because if he is careless, if he is not scrupulous with what he says, his statement will be attacked”. Imam Malik died in the city of Medina in 179 AH corresponding to 795 CE and was buried in the Baqi cemetery, he had three sons whose names were: Yahia, Muhammad and Hammad. This is what we could say is a very basic biography of the life of Imam Malik, now we are going to see what is the usul of his Madhhab, what differentiates him from that of Abu Hanifa and in doing so we will continue to see some of the highlights of his life, as well as some more or less known events about him. When we have spoken before of the Hanafi madhhab, the madhhab of Imam Abu Hanifa what we were actually talking about was the school of Iraq, the school of thought, or the school of opinion. Well, the situation in Madinah was completely different from the situation in Iraq, while in Iraq, there were hardly any companions of the Messenger of Allah, in Madinah almost all of them stayed; in Medina a large part of the Qur’an was revealed, in Medina Muhammad was established, in Medina was where the Deen of Islam was really spread and established, as a social reality that was alive, which was day to day. While in Iraq it was necessary to adapt the customs of the land, with all the influences it had, in Medina the matter was completely different, the only thing to do was to continue doing what was being done. At the time of Imam Malik in Medina (remember that he was born in 93 AH, i.e. 80 years after the death of the Messenger of Allah) people prayed, did salats, did wudu and ghusul, performed Hajj, collected and gave Zakat and every aspect of their lives as Muslims. in the same way as it had been done, without any interruption or variation since the days of the Messenger of Allah and his companions. To this must be added the fact that we have mentioned before and that is the orders of ‘Umar ibn Al Khattab that forbade the Sahaba who had knowledge to leave the city of Medina; This decision that may be questionable, why did it prevent it? If it hadn’t done so, the day would have spread more, people would have had more access to the sunna, etc. But he did not do so as he was aware of the need that he was to maintain and ensure that the original teaching and practices of Islam remained pure and unaltered, and that could only happen in Medina. What he achieved with this was that both knowledge, the ilm, and practice, the amal, continued to be in Medina; That is why Imam Malik said: “If you want knowledge, settle (in Madinah). The Qur’an was not revealed in the Euphrates (i.e. in Iraq).” All this brings us to the big difference between Iraq and Medina. In Iraq, the question was to take the available knowledge, the knowledge contained in the Book and in the Sunnah, to understand what was intended, to understand what the true meaning is and then to apply it in this new environment for Islam. In Medina this did not happen, since in Medina the Qur’an and the Sunna were part of what there was, that is to say in Medina, the day to day, the daily life was to put into practice, to put into action the Qur’an and the Sunna. Knowing this, we can then affirm that, as the first ‘ulamas unanimously recognize, no innovation of any kind entered Medina during the first three generations of Islam, which are the generation of the Messenger of Allah and the Sahaba, the generation of the Tabi’in and the generation of the Tabi’i tabi’in, Imam Malik belonging to the latter. In other words, what Imam Malik received and learned, and what he then passed on to his students and disciples was the complete set of the Deen of Islam that had come to him, it was a whole, it was not just parts, no, it was everything. Imam Malik himself expressed the essence of this issue in a famous letter he sent to al-Layz ibn Sa’ad in which he said: “It has come to my ears that you issue fatwas that are contrary to what our people do and what is practiced in our city. You are the Imam and you enjoy an excellent position among the people of your city who need you and trust what comes from you.
Consequently, you should fear for yourself and follow what you know will save you.
Allah the Almighty says in His Book: “And the Adelantados, the first of the Muhajiroon and of the Ansar” (9:100).
Allah Almighty says, “Give good news to those who hear the Word and follow the best of it” (39:18).
People follow the people of Madinah, hijrah was made towards them and there the Qur’aan has been revealed, there halal became halal and haram became haram because the Messenger of Allah lived among them and they were present when the Revelation came.
The Prophet commanded them and they obeyed.
He established the Sunnah for them and they followed him until Allah caused him to die and chose for him what is next to Him, the blessings of Allah and His Mercy be upon him.
And then, after him, the people followed those in their community who had been given authority.
Whenever something happened that they had knowledge about, they acted on it.
When it was something that they were not aware of, they would ask about it and take the most solid based on their ijtihad and the most recent from their experience (from the Prophet, may Allah bless and grant peace).
If someone disagreed or said something else that was more forceful and better, they abandoned the first opinion and acted on the latter.
The Tabi’een who came after followed this path and these Sunnahs.
As in Madinah affairs were public and carried out I do not think that anyone would object, precisely because of this legacy that the inhabitants of Madinah possessed, a heritage that no one can plagiarize or claim for himself.
If people in other cities started saying ‘this is the practice in our city and what was happening in it with those who came before us’ they would not be sure of it nor would they have what would allow them to take that position.”
The point I want to get at with all this is that we understand what mahhab al Maliki is, it is a madhhab in which the transmitted action, the act performed, the practice of the people of Medina, sometimes has more weight than the text or the word transmitted.
Action is more forceful than words.
Zayd ibn Thabit, one of the important companions of the Messenger of Allaah, said: “When you see the people of Madinah doing something, remember that it is a sunnah.”
And ‘Umar ibn al-Khattab, the second of the caliphs of the Muslims, said: “By Allah Almighty I will make it difficult for anyone who relates a hadith other than it (the ‘amale, or transmitted practice).” Sunnah/Hadith Now we come to a very interesting point that we have to deal with and that is the difference between Sunnah and Hadith, or rather, we have to understand that Sunnah is two aspects, that when we talk about Sunnah we are not really referring to hadith and ‘amal. If we were to ask ourselves, what is the basis of Muslim behavior? Where should we look, what are our sources, what should we follow if one is a Muslim? The answer is very simple, and we all know it, Islam is to follow the Qur’an and the Sunna. About following the Qur’an, there is no doubt, there are no problems. But the difference between the madhahib arises mainly when we come to the second point, what is the sunna, what is following the sunna? The first question to ask is: What is the sunnah and how do we find it? This is the fundamental question because what the Sunnah actually does is explain the Qur’an as it relates to conduct. It is the way the Prophet behaved and shows us how the guidance of the Qur’an is transformed into the conduct to which we can aspire. To understand what Sunnah is, we have to understand two terms: hadith and ‘amal. And this is what makes Imam Malik’s madhhab so special, which is the one that brings together these two aspects, the hadith and the ‘amal, and unites it, combines it to form the sunna. What is a hadith? A hadith is an oral transmission from the Prophet Muhammad, salla allaahu alaihi wa sallam. It is a record of something you said or something you did that has been transmitted from person to person, or from groups of people to groups of people, following a known chain of transmission. But this is not the sunna, even though many people regard the collections of hadiths as if they were the sunnah. Nowadays, there is a current of looking only at the hadith, and it seems as if there is a kind of fear of losing the sunnah and this current wants to put it into practice before it disappears. This added to the fact that what was compiled, the collections of Bukhari, Muslim, etc., are hadiths, for then there is that association of hadith = sunna. This in a summarized way is the hadith, now we are going to try to explain what the ‘amal is; and surely you have heard on numerous occasions that the Madhhab of Imam Malik is the Madhhab of the ‘amal of Medina. Linguistically speaking, the literal meaning of ‘amal is action; in the Fiqh terminology we are talking about, ‘amal is the accepted practice of the people of Medina; Thus this leads us to the conclusion that the ‘amal includes the sunnah of the Messenger of Allaah, as well as the Ijtihad or individual judgment of the early authorities of Islam, namely ‘Umar ibn al-Khattab, in fact al-Madhab al-Maliki, is sometimes called the Madhahb of ‘Umar. Now we can understand that ‘amal is an integral part of the sunna, and as we have already said, the sunna is not synonymous with hadith. ‘amal is the practice of the Prophet or the first Four Khalifas, of the Companions and their Successors, the Tabi’een, and of the subsequent generation, the Tabi’ut-Tabi’een.
The fact is that Sunnah and ‘amal are closer to being synonymous than hadith and Sunnah.
What is happening in our day, and part of the weakness of the Ummah lies in this, is that the position of the hadiths has become too rigid.
And taking them as the basis and foundation of behavior poses a very serious problem, since in order to use the hadiths it is necessary to have fiqh or understanding.
Ibn Wahb said: “Whoever knows a hadith but does not have an imam in fiqh is lost.”
And Ibn ‘Ujaynah said: “The hadiths are a cause of misguidance, except for the fuqaha.”
What this means is that you have to have criteria to be able to decide what the hadiths mean, which ones are abrogated, which ones you should act on and which ones should be left. As with the Qur’an, you cannot take a hadith and say there is this hadith, you have to act according to it, since it may be that this hadith refers to a specific situation, at a specific time and addressed to a specific person.
Madinah’s criterion for determining a hadith was the ‘amal.
If a hadith conflicted with the ‘amal, it was ignored.
It is possible that the hadith in question was outdated, that it referred to a certain situation, etc., etc.
Hence Ibn al-Qasim once said: “I have seen that, according to the opinion of Malik, ‘amal (the transmitted practice) had more force than hadith (a transmitted statement).”
Malik said: “The ‘ulama of the Tabi’een (Followers) would sometimes transmit a hadith that had been transmitted to them by others and then say: ‘We know that, but the ‘amal that has come down to us from the past is different.'”
Malik said: “On one occasion I saw that Muhammad ibn Abi Bakr ibn ‘Amr ibn Hazm, who was a qadi, was being admonished by his brother, ‘Abdallah, who was an honest man with a great knowledge of hadiths, for having passed judgment on a case in which there was a hadith that gave a different judgment. ‘ Abdallah said: ‘Has this hadith not been transmitted to us which speaks of this subject?’ Muhammad replied, ‘That is true.’
And ‘Abdallah said: ‘Why don’t you give a judgment based on that?’ Muhammad replied, ‘What is the people’s position on this?'” That is, (what is) the ‘amal that is followed in Madinah?’ thereby saying that the ‘amal of Madinah had more force than the hadith.
Ibn Mahdi, who died in 186 A.H. and was one of the ‘ulama of the highest hadiths in Madinah, said: “It is possible that he will know a hadith on a certain issue and then he will find that the people in the street do something different. In that case, and according to my assessment, the hadith becomes weak.”
Reflect with me on one thing, which is that when we think about the things we want to tell someone, talk about how much I enjoyed myself in such a place, how well things are going in such a country, the good character that so-and-so has, we tend to talk about the unusual, the highest aspects, instead of the mundane and the everyday; The same thing happens on numerous occasions with the hadiths.
But in addition to this, we must take into account something else, which are the words of Ibn Taymiyyah when he said: “The People of Madinah were the most reliable of all the cities both in transmission and in opinion (ra’y). His hadiths are the most valid of all hadiths. The people of the knowledge of hadiths agree that the most reliable hadiths are those of the people of Madinah and then those of the people of Basra.
IMPORTANT: What this matter can lead to is that at a given time there is a contradiction between a hadith and the ‘amal of the people of Madinah, what should be done at that time? What should be our way of acting? We can do what Imam Malik said: “The ‘ulama among the Followers would transmit a hadith that had been transmitted to them by other people and then they would say: ‘This we know, but the ‘amal that has come to us from the past is different.'”
Or as Rabiah said, may Allah be pleased with him: “I prefer a thousand out of a thousand to one of one, for one of one will snatch the Sunnah from your hands.”
This is exactly what has happened.
Why has this been the case? Malik said: “At a certain point a few thousand Companions returned from an expedition in which they accompanied the Messenger of Allah. About 10,000 of them died in Medina and the rest were divided into several cities. Who would you rather follow and admit their verdicts? Those whom I have mentioned and in whose presence the Prophet and his Companions died, or those among whom one or two of the Companions of the Prophet died?”
We understand the matter, don’t we?
It is not possible for a whole generation of people (the sahaba) to stop doing things in a certain way and do them in another way without there having been a direct order from the Messenger of Allah; otherwise, there would be no reason to change the way they did that thing.
Imam Malik himself refers to it as “a heritage that has been bequeathed to us from generation to generation until we reach our days”.
This is the key, an inheritance handed down from generation to generation, a distance of only three generations, in the place where the Messenger of Allah was established, in the place where much of the Qur’an descended, in the place where Islam was completed and perfected, in the place where the sahaba remained doing the same thing they had seen the Messenger of Allah do, teaching their children, not in words but in actions, with practice what they had seen and done together with the Messenger of Allah.
This is the purity of Madhhab al-Maliki, the Madhhab of Shaykh Al-Akbar, the Madhhab of the Imam of the Muhajireen and the Ansar, the Imam of giving al-Hijra, the Imam who was not afraid to say I DO NOT know when he did not know a matter, the Imam who was faithful and scrupulous at all times, paying more attention to what the people around him were doing, to the ‘amal of Medina than to the hadiths handed down, even though his chain of transmission was the chain of transmission of Gold; the Imam about whom the Messenger of Allah said: “The days are near when people will burst the livers of their camels in the pursuit of knowledge, but they will not find anyone with more knowledge than the ‘alim of Madinah.” This ‘alim of Madinah is Imam Malik ibn Anas, about whom the also Grand Imam Ashhafii’, said: “When the ‘ualamas are mentioned, Malik is the star.”
The madhhab of Imam Malik is the madhhab of Medina, the madhhab of the place where the Messenger of Allah is buried, the madhhab of the city of knowledge, the city in which there were no innovations, but the further you got from them the more innovations you found, the greater the number and scope of innovations. because it was and is impossible that there should be a river purer than the river that is born from the spring itself, from the source itself, from the city of Medina itself.
SHAFII’ We are now going to address the third school, the third madhhab, which is the madhhab Asshifi’.
The Imam and founder of Madhhab al-Shafii’ was: Abu Abdullah Muhammad ibn Idris ash-Safi’i; he was born in the year 150 of the Hijra (the same year in which Imam Abu Hanifa died) corresponding to the year 767 of the Christian era.
According to most historians he was born in Gaza, Palestine and at the age of two, after the death of his father, his mother decided to go to live in Mecca.
In Makkah he studied fiqh and tafsir with great ‘ulamas, all of them shared the same origin of their knowledge which was none other than the noble Companion Abdullah ibn ‘Abbas and specifically all his commentary on the Qur’an, this knowledge will have a lot of influence on the methodology of the madhhab ashafii’ as we will see later. From a young age he showed signs of a privileged intellect, he memorized the Koran when he was seven years old and when he was ten he had also memorized the Muwatta of Imam Malik.
Although he had already attained high knowledge there in Makkah, and was a respected ‘alim when he was not more than twenty years old, he was not satisfied, so he decided to go to Madinah to study with Imam Malik, who was regarded as the ‘Luminous Star’ and respected by all the great masters that Asshafii had.
Imam Shafi’i himself narrates his entry into Madinah and his first contact with Imam Malik saying: “I came to Madinah after Salat al-Asar, I prayed in the Mosque of the Messenger of Allah and I saw Malik ibn Anas with a group of pupils around him; saying: ‘Nafia has transmitted to me, from Ibn ‘Umar, from the one who is in this tomb’ and pointed to the grave of the Messenger of Allah (remember that this is according to Imam al-Bukhari the chain of transmission of Gold, Imam Malik, from Nafia’, from Ibn Umar, from the Messenger of Allah) and Imam Ashfi’i says: “When I saw this I felt an immediate charisma towards him.”
Then Imam Shafi’i approached Imam Malik and when Imam Malik saw him, he said: “O Muhammad, be afraid of Allah and stay away from disobedience, for you will certainly have one of the great positions. Allah has put a light in your heart, do not extinguish it with disobedience.”
He remained in Medina until the death of Imam Malik in the year 179 of Hijrah.
After the death of Imam Malik, Imam al-Shafi’i was appointed qadi of Najran by the governor of Yemen.
He remained in that place for five years, but his uncompromising application of justice and his condemnation of all transgressions earned him the antipathy of those who held power and the court.
They slandered him before the Caliph by accusing him of rebellion, which is why he was sent to Baghdad to be put on trial.
He managed to be exonerated but did not return to Yemen, but stayed in Iraq studying with Muhammad ibn al-Hasan ash-Shaybani, one of the great students of Imam Abu Haneefah.
After a couple of years he returned to Makkah, where he actually began his career as a teacher.
He remained in Makkah for nearly ten years and in 195 A.H. visited Baghdad for the second time where he stayed for two years.
He left again and returned again in 198 A.H. and the following year went to Egypt where he would remain for the rest of his life, dying in Fustat on the last day of the month of Rajab of the year 204 at the age of 54.
This would be a brief biography of Imam Shafii’, the reason we have mentioned it is because all the movements he makes have great relevance in the development of his method.
Both Imam Abu Haneefah and Imam Malik remained relatively stationary during their lives; this meant that the source of his knowledge was geographically limited and consequently quite consistent in his approach to the Deen.
On the other hand, as we have just seen, Imam Shafi’i traveled a lot and saw many different ways of approaching the Deen.
The truth is that it could be said that he studied fiqh with most of the ‘ulama of his time.
He began by learning fiqh from Ibn ‘Abbas in Makkah.
He then went to study the fiqh of Imam Malik in Madinah.
He learned the fiqh of al-Awza’i, the school of Syria, from his companion ‘Umar ibn Abi Salam. He studied the fiqh of Imam Abu Haneefah, the school of Iraq, with his follower Muhammad ash-Shaybany and also the fiqh of al-Layz ibn Sa’d, the faqih of Egypt.
EACH WITH ITS DIFFERENCES Imam Shafi’ was a man with a brilliant intellect, so after much travel he analyzes in detail the situation of the Muslims, sees the differences in the methodology of the schools and realizes that Islam is in danger, that that newborn baby that was Islam was at that moment of his life in which he requires protection and attention of 24 hours.
In order to protect and care for this baby, Imam ash-Shafi’i establishes a system, establishes a basis, a method by which to save the baby from all evil, or really, and rather establishes a basis to protect the Deen from falling into the same fate as the previous religions in which the teachings of its prophets are changed. they distort and forget until they end up getting lost.
He does not follow the school of opinion, which as we know is the school of Iraq, despite having lived in Medina and being a student of Imam Malik, he does not follow the school of Medina and he does not follow it because he perceives that people who have not lived in Medina cannot access it and that is why he sees it as a little limited. so evaluating all the options and I repeat, based on his brilliant intellect, he creates a new methodology, which is the methodology that he has received in his first years of learning in Mecca, the methodology of the great companion Ibn ‘Abbas, the one known as the translator of the Qur’an.
Ibn ‘Abbas’s teachings were firmly based on his commentary on the text of the Qur’an, for which he had received explicit permission from the Prophet.
The Qur’an is of course a book, well, it’s not really a book, it’s the Book; for this reason, a fundamental element of the methodology transmitted by Ibn ‘Abbas was the literal analysis of the text.
This meant giving particular attention to the muŷmal (unspecified) and the mufassal (detailed), the mutlaq (unrestricted) and the muqayyad (qualified), the jass (specific) and the ‘amm (general).
Imam Shafi’i was a master at this, he was a genius at the literal analysis of the text, and that produced a new field of expertise for the fuqaha that had not existed before.
And I don’t know if you will remember that earlier we talked about the conditions necessary to do Ijtihad, which is what Imam Ash-safi’i actually does, of those thirteen conditions there is one which is: 7.
Know the Qur’an.
And this implies knowing the different causes of the revelation of the different verses that deal with the law, with the ahkam; to know the abrogated men and women; to know what each and every one of the verses that deal with the law are (about 500 approximately); to know the commentaries on the Qur’an made by the Prophet (peace be upon him), the Companions, the Followers and the other scholars in the science of Tafseer; to know the different readings or recitations of the Qur’an and the legal implications that their differences may cause.
And the same about Hadith.
The detailed examination of the written word was at the core of the methodology established by Imam Shafi’i.
He created a method in which every action, or rather every judgment that was given, had to be approved by valid textual evidence. With this system it was impossible to express an opinion that did not have a ratified text; in this way, the possibility of innovation in Shari’a was drastically reduced and he succeeded.
However, and this is something we have to say, every coin has two sides, and in this literalism or textualism of Imam Shafi’ lies both the strength and the weakness of this system.
His system achieved the desired objective: to stop the accelerated rupture and the great diversity of opinions that existed in the Muslim world at the time.
Another thing to thank Imam Shafi’ for is that since his system needed textual proof, it became necessary to collect as many authentic hadiths of the Prophet as possible; in fact, most of the great collections of hadiths have been compiled by ‘ulama who were followers of the madhhab Shafi’i.
However, and this is perhaps the “but” that we put to this madhhab, is that this, this detailed and rigorous analysis of the Qur’an and the Sunnah, also meant that the Book and the Sunnah were treated in a way that had not existed until then.
Until those days, the Sunnah consisted of the practice handed down from the Prophet and the first community of Muslims in Medina.
In many cases there was a textual confirmation of what was being done, but there were many others in which the practice in question had been passed from generation to generation without there being any text to endorse it.
Up until the time Imam al-Shafi’i appeared, the Sunnah was simply and in many cases the way in which Muslims lived their lives protected by the ‘ulama who had dedicated theirs to ensuring that there would be no change in what they had received from the past.
However, after Imam Malik, the Sunnah began to be more and more identified with hadiths, with the danger that this entails; for as you will remember, we have spoken that the Sunnah is the hadith, but it is also the ‘amal. This meant that, unless there was a text authorizing an action, it was no longer considered part of the Sunnah no matter how much it had been practiced by the Muslims of the early days. Not only that; Imam Shafi’i’s system of textual analysis meant that even actions that had this textual endorsement were affected by how the texts were interpreted so that, in some cases, those actions were changed by Imam Shafi’i’s methodology, something that applies to both the Qur’an and the hadiths. Let us now look at two concrete examples, one related to the Book and the other to the Sunnah, which will serve to illustrate the methodology of Imam al-Shafi’i: In Surat al-Nisa, verse 43, Allah says: “You who believe! Do not approach the salat drunk until you know what you are saying; nor unclean until you wash. And if you are sick or on a journey, or one of you comes to relieve himself or touches the women, and you do not find water, procure clean soil and pass it over your faces and hands. Verily, Allah blots out sins and is Forgiving.” As far as words are concerned “or touched women”, Muslims prior to the system of Imam al-Shafi’i, had always interpreted them as having a connotation of desire; that is, the renewal of the Woooo it was only necessary after some kind of sexual caress.
The word used in the Qur’an for “touch”, the dough, can mean just that, without the need for sexual contact of any kind.
Applying his method of rigorous textual analysis, Imam ash-Shafi’i came to the conclusion that the most comprehensive interpretation should be taken and proclaimed that all contact between men and women was sufficient to break wudoo’.
This meant a major change in people’s usual practice.
With regard to the Sunnah there is an example of a similar change in practice with regard to prayer.
In the Saheeh al-Bukhaari we find narrated from ‘Ubadah ibn as-Samit, may Allaah be pleased with him, that the Messenger of Allaah said: “There is no prayer for anyone who does not recite al-Faatihah from the Book.”
All early Muslims accepted that al-Fatihah had to be recited in every rak’at of prayer.
However, the almost universal acceptance was that, in the prayers aloud, the recitation of al-Fatihah by the Imam was sufficient to cover the recitation of all those who recited behind him.
But after the application of the system of Imam al-Shafi’i to the text of the hadith, it was deemed necessary for each person to recite al-Fatihah in each rak’at, which forced the Imam to stop for a while after his recitation of al-Fatihah to allow those who prayed with him to complete their individual recitation.
This again introduced a practice that had not been followed by the Muslims prior to Imam ash-Safi’i.
From this methodology implemented by Imam Ashfii’, i.e., that textualism in its application of the Book and Sunnah, the “problem” it had is that it was based, almost entirely, on the external and manifest indications of the texts.
It did not take into account the Iraqi school in its judgment because it tended to be based on the principle of opinion, or the principle of qiyas, and it did not follow the Medina school, because of its tendency to accept norms transmitted without a textual guarantee to support them.
As we have already seen, Imam ash-Shafi’i based his system almost entirely on texts that he took in the most literal and objective way, something that perhaps made him mistaken because of his excessive caution.
But it is undeniable that Imam al-Shafi’i took responsibility for establishing the principles of a methodology of deduction with which to provide guidance to all who were qualified to make judgments on the Deen and formulate the requisites.
It established a universal system based on sound principles that did not depend on opinions, precedents or the resolution of hypothetical questions; and he succeeded in creating a methodology that could be followed by all subsequent judges and ‘ulama .
Its influence on the development of Islam is incredible, it cannot be overemphasized, and it is correct to say that the Islam we have inherited in our day owes no small debt to the splendid system that Imam ash-Shafi’i formulated more than twelve centuries ago. AHMAD IBN HANBAL In this way we come to the last of the four Imams of the Madhahib, who is none other than Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal.
But there is a notable difference between Imam Ahmad and the other Imams. The first three created a specific methodology: Imam Abu Haneefah the Iraqi school of opinion, Imam Malik the Madinah school of direct transmission and Imam ash-Safi’i his own system based on textual analysis.
It cannot be said of Imam Ahmad that he designed a methodology for fiqh. But let’s look at a little of his life, in order to understand these aspects.
His full name is Abu Abdullah Ahmad bin Muhammad bin Hanbal Asshaybani, he was born in the year 164 in the city of Baghdad (14 years after the birth of Imam Shafii’).
When he was 22 years old, he began to travel throughout the Muslim world in search of knowledge, specializing mainly in the science of Hadith.
At the age of 40 he returned to Baghdad where he settled and began teaching his students, it is said that the number of students he had was around five thousand.
He died in the year 241 at the age of 77.
The environment in which Imam Ahmad was born and grew up very different from that of the rest of the Imams, although it is true that Abu Hanifa was also from Iraq when he lived did not have the weight it had during the life of Imam Ahmad since during the life of Imam Ahmad the Abbasid caliphate was fully established and Baghdad was an imperial capital and very diverse. a world totally different from the world of Medina where Islam had been established, grown and developed from its origins.
By the time of Imam Ahmad, the mostly Persian elements had come to dominate the Arabs, and the sophistication of Persian civilization was beginning to assert itself throughout the Muslim world.
At that time there was a whole mixture with different peoples and races and texts of all kinds were translated into Arabic; Persians, Syriacs, Greeks, Latins, etc… The result of all these influences was that Islam did not establish itself in Iraq in a way that went beyond the parameters of Islam, that is, it did not impose itself, if we want to call it that, “Islamic culture”.
This is what Imam Ahmad faced when he was growing up in the capital of the empire; he was a young man who had that restlessness, a young man with a pure heart, very intelligent, tremendously fearful of Allah, who realized that something had to be done, otherwise all those influences could end up imposing themselves on Islam.
Seeing this panorama, he came to the conclusion that what he had to do was to recover the most detailed and complete picture of the life of the first Muslims, so he dedicated himself to accumulating as many transmissions as possible from that time, not only from the Prophet, but also from his noble companions.
This is why Imam Ahmad is better known as a muhaddiz than as a faqih; Seeking this knowledge of the hadiths is when he undertook the travels through all the regions of the Muslim world.
Another thing that distinguished him in his work was the use of the written form in his compilation of the hadiths.
Despite his prodigious and recognized memory, Imam Ahmad wrote down the hadiths he collected.
The end result of his work, which began when he was sixteen years old and continued throughout most of his life, was his great work for which he is world-renowned, Al-Musnad, which contains about thirty thousand hadiths approximately.
Why then is this great muhaddith Ahmad ibn Hanbal thought of as a faqih, as a man of fiqh? The truth is that Imam Ahmad became the Imam of fiqh after his death because some of his disciples compiled his statements, fatwas and opinions creating a legal form, a legal method that was ascribed to him posthumously.
To this we add the scrupulous knowledge he had of the science of Hadith, and also of the Qur’an, since he had been a student of Imam Shafii’ and had taken his methodology for the science of Hadith.
It is possible that another reason why Imam Ahmed has been given this prestige of being regarded as one of the founders of a new school of fiqh was his absolutely exemplary character that inspired many people to take him as a model during the course of his life, was the excellence of good character and conduct put into practice.
There is no doubt that the four Imams of the Madhhab all had impeccable character and conduct, they had extraordinary qualities of character that distinguished them from their contemporaries, and that to some extent, apart from the knowledge that they all possessed of these qualities, this behavior was also an important factor in attaining the rank they attained.
The four imams possessed such a special character and demeanor, but Imam Ahmad enjoyed a reputation, which was a reality, not just a reputation that eclipsed all others.
And this is so from his earliest youth, from his childhood he was even known for his integrity, totally incorruptible that would be tested in the following years, when a situation was to come that would elevate him even more, since unlike most of his contemporaries, he suffered for more than two years tremendous punishments and imprisonment for refusing to accept the doctrine of the Mu’tazil, that said that the Qur’an had been created and had become the official policy of the Abbasid government; which was totally contrary to the position defended by the first Muslims.
Punished for two years, whipped, imprisoned for not submitting to what the deviants said, for standing firm in his belief, for remaining unwavering in what he knew was right.
That is to say, Imam Ahmad stood firm in what was right, in what he had collected in his hadiths and learned from his teachers, and he showed himself to be totally incorruptible.
This event demonstrated his patience and perseverance that were to accompany him during the many difficult periods he was to go through throughout his life.
Among the qualities in which Imam Ahmad also excelled were the generosity he possessed, despite the fact that he was a person who was not rich, but rather we could say that he had a shortage of means, but in spite of this everything that fell into his hands he distributed among the needy.
He was known for his tremendous sincerity, for being scrupulous in everything he did, he did not transmit a hadith without having scrupulously ensured his chain of transmission, he was a person whom Allah had freed from pride, as he was totally modest in each and every aspect of his life.
He was also known for his cheerful character and good humor, so that everyone who shared a few moments with him came out renewed in his love for Allah and His Messenger and without any oppression or difficulty; And to this we must add another quality that probably gave her the status she had, and that is that she possessed a natural authority among the people that guaranteed her the attention of all those around her and all those who listened to her. Even though Imam Ahmad lived two centuries after the Messenger of Allah and his companions, he had such a great connection with them, he had such a strong connection with the early days of Islam and so resplendent was that connection with the light of the beginning of Islam that in everything he did and everything he said, that even some of his contemporaries described him as one of the companions, or as one of the tabi’in who was not living in a time that belonged to him.
All these qualities, the love he gave to others and that made others love him, the good treatment he had towards his contemporaries, towards everyone who met him even if it was only for a few minutes; motivated that on the day of his burial, the 12th of Rabi’ al Awal of the year 241, more than three hundred thousand people accompanied his funeral procession; This is incredible, three hundred thousand people, at a time when you don’t travel by car or train, that is to say practically all the inhabitants of the city attended his funeral, this is nothing more than a sample of the position he held, the good treatment he had towards each and every one of his companions.
Summing up what his madhhab is, there was a lot of discussion from the beginning about whether Imam Ahmad could be considered the founder of a madhhab.
There is no doubt that he belonged to a different category than the other three who represented very specific methodologies when it came to implementing the Book and the Sunnah.
Imam Ahmad was unique in terms of the time and place in which he lived and he strove to get as close as possible to the path of the first community of Medina.
Imam Ahmad himself said: “A man should not be disposed to give independent judgments about the Deen unless he possesses these qualities. It has to have a clear intention because, otherwise, it will have no light. You must have knowledge, moderation, seriousness and tranquility. It has to be independent and not in the hands of other people. And it must be known by the people.”
Certainly there are few people throughout the history of Islam who have gathered these qualities as Imam Ahmad did; then we can affirm without any doubt that Imam Ahmad was a mujtahid of the highest rank, absolutely capable of making judgments related to any of the issues of the Deen.
Now that we know the four schools and their different methodologies, we are going to see where each of these schools are present today and we are going to do it following the chronological order of the birth of each of the Imams.
First of all we have Abu Hanifa, who as we have already mentioned, his full name was: An-nu’man Ibn Zabit, Ibn Zuta, Ibn Marzuban; that he was born (according to most historians) in the year 80 of the Hijra; corresponding to the year 699 A.D. under the Umayyad caliphate of Abdul Malik ibn Marwan, and died in 150 A.H., on June 14, 767 at the age of 67.
At present, Madhhab al Hanafi is largely followed in Egypt, in Turkey, the Balkan area, in parts of Syria, Jordan, Iraq, in southern Russia, Kazakhstan, Turkemistan, Uzbekistan, Pakistan, Afghanistan, eastern Iran, areas of Muslim India, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, in western China as well as in Bangladesh. In second place we have the Madhab Maliki, founded by Imam Malik whose full name was: Abu Abdullah Malik Ibn Anas Ibn Malik Ibn ‘Amir. His family was originally from Yemen and it was his great-grandfather Abu ‘Amir who settled in Medina after accepting Islam in the second year of the Hijrah. Imam Malik was born in the year 93 of the Hijrah in the city of Medina (remember that Abu Haneefah was born in the year 80), corresponding to the year 711 of the Christian era. At present, Maliki madhhab is followed in Senegal, Guinea, Mauritania, Western Sahara, Morocco, Algeria, Mali, Tunisia, Libya, Niger, Chad, Nigeria, Sudan, southern Egypt, parts of Eritrea and Abyssinia and in some parts of the Arabian Peninsula, especially in some countries of the Persian Gulf. The third of the Imams is as we already know Imam Ash-safi’i, whose full name was: Abu Abdullah Muhammad ibn Idris ash-Safi’i; he was born in the year 150 of the Hijra (the same year in which Imam Abu Hanifa died) corresponding to the year 767 of the Christian era. Currently the Ash-Shafi’i madhhab is followed parts of Mozambique, Tanzania, Kenya, Somalia, Ethiopia, eastern Egypt, much of Yemen, western Iraq, eastern Turkey, parts of northern Iran, Malaysia and Indonesia. And finally we have the Mahdhab Hanbali, whose Imam was Abu Abdullah Ahmad bin Muhammad bin Hanbal Asshaybani, born in the year 164 in the city of Baghdad (14 years after the birth of Imam Shafii’).
He died in the year 241 at the age of 77.
Today, Madhab Hanbali is followed almost everywhere in the Arabian Peninsula, as well as in parts of Oman and the United Arab Emirates.
This is how the four madhhabs accepted by Ahlu Sunna wal Jama’ah are followed today, and we say this, because as we know, apart from Ahlu Sunna wal Jama’ah there are other tendencies that are far from the true message of the Deen of Islam, among those “tendencies” we highlight the Shi’as who are mainly divided into three schools, Isma’ili, Ja’fari and Zaidi; the Ya’fari are the most widespread today and are mainly settled in Iran, in areas of Iraq, the Persian Gulf, Azerbaijan and in some parts of Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The Zaidi, or Zaidiyas, who are also Shi’a, have a strong presence in much of Yemen and southwestern Saudi Arabia.
To conclude, let’s make a metaphor of what the creation of madhabs means: Imagine that Islam is a river whose source was the first community and that has flowed for more than fourteen centuries until it reaches our days, it is evident that madhhabs have been an inseparable part of this river.
But the question is, will they take us back to the source?
If we continue with the metaphor of the river and change the years by kilometers, when we go up the current we will reach a dam that is about two hundred and twenty kilometers from the source.
Behind the dam is a huge swamp in which much of the river’s water is contained before flowing back into the sea.
This prey is Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal.
About one hundred and eighty-five kilometers from the source we will discover a channel that has been dug and runs parallel to the main course for hundreds of kilometers before joining the river again in its lowest course.
It has been beautifully designed and allows the original river water, filtered and purified, to flow evenly making it easy to manage and administer.
This channel is the madhhab of Imam Shafi’i. If we continue upstream, about one hundred and twenty kilometers from the source, we will discover a tributary that, having its spring in some nearby hills, flows into the river and its waters mix.
This is the methodology of the madhhab of Imam Abu Haneefah.
And finally, a little before reaching this tributary, we will discover a system of gates with which the water that comes from the source of the river is regulated and directed.
This is Imam Malik.
What this shows is that only through Imam Malik will we have access to the very sources of the Deen, to that primeval image of Islam in action that we so desperately need to re-establish the Deen here and now.
In this sense, Imam Malik should not be regarded as the founder of the madhhab that bears his name, but as the Imam of Dar al-Hijrah (the Abode of the Hijarah), Madinah al-Munawwarah, and the compiler and transmitter of ‘amal ahl al-Madina, the Practice of the People of Madinah.
As we know, Imam Malik considered it his mission to collect for posterity the living tradition of Islam in action, the Book and Sunnah in its original form, which had come down to him unchanged through the two generations that had elapsed since the death of the Prophet, may Allah bless and grant peace.
This clearly represents the closest exposition of how Islam was lived by the Prophet and his Companions, the continued transmission of the Book and the Sunnah in the place where it had been established, preserved and unchanged by the two generations who had lived there between the days of the First Community and the time of Imam Malik.
What it conveys to us is that vital energy, naturally, of the early days of Islam, the days of the Prophet, may Allah bless and grant peace, and the time immediately after the Julafa Rashidun, may Allah be pleased with them all, when the Deen was in its mighty phase of expansion and establishment.
For this reason he is sometimes referred to as the madhhab of ‘Umar, may Allaah be pleased with him.
That pattern of behavior is what made Islam possible; So, what better model could there be for this time when it is so necessary to start from the foundations, in which it is so necessary to return to the origin?