Jurisprudential Diversity in Early Islam: The Rise, Fall and Intellectual Survival of Extinct Legal Trepidation

Abstract

This article is an analytical and exhaustive study and research on the extinct Islamic schools of legal thought (madhahib) and measures their long-term relevance on jurisprudence of today. Although a number of four main schools of jurisprudence are currently associated with the Sunni tradition, including Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi'i, and Hanbali, the history of Islam has seen a number of other important tradition of jurisprudence that have since either faded or evaporated in the form of an institution. In this research, a particular attention will be paid to the legal methodology and the intellectual input of the prominent jurists, such as Imam al-Awza'i, Imam Sufyan al-Thawri, Imam Layth ibn Saad, Imam Abu Thawr, Imam al-Tabari, and the Zahiri school of thought developed by Imam Dawud al-Isfahani. This research explores the intricate historical background and the multidimensional causes, which resulted in the fact that these schools were eventually extinguished. Among the critical aspects evaluated are unsystematic codification of their principles, the inability of the students to maintain and transmit the juristic heritage of their masters, the inability to offer central institutional support, and the changing tastes of governing officials. Although the schools have vanished institutionally, the article does suggest that they still have a role to play in the wider history of Islamic law.With the analysis of the modern practice the paper sheds some light in how the principles and judgments of these early jurists are applicable even in the present day. Their thoughts have been assimilated into the current form of the law and they remain a source of critical resource in contemporary ijtihad (autonomous legal reasoning) on solving contemporary socio-economic and mercantile problems. The author concludes that these extinct schools are too important to be ignored in the study of the diversity, breadth, and development of Islamic law.