concerning the dying out of other madhabs

[callofthedeen]

:salam:


I was wondering if anyone has any information regarding of the 'dying' out of other madhabs, because I read that scholars like Sufyan al Thawri was the founder of his own madhab. Mayb someone can help.

Jazakalah Khair

[Yahya]

It is because the chains are no longer Saheeh.

For example, if you want to study the Hanafi school, there are thousands of sheikhs you can study with. They are trustworthy transmitters of the school. They were taught by trustworthy transmitters of the school. And THEY were taught by trustworthy transmitters of the school... in an unbroken chain that stretches back to Abu Hanifah and the Saahibayn (rahimahumullah), going through the top scholars of the madhhab over the years. So, you can have certainty that you are receiving the teachings of the madhhab properly.

But, if you wanted to study the madhhab of Imam Layth, for example, you might find that there is no scholar whose chains that go back to Imam Layth are completely Saheeh. As a result, you would not be certain that you are being taught the madhhab properly. There would be doubt surrounding the authenticity of the teachings you are receiving.

This is why, several centuries ago, the scholars of the ummah agreed that only the Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi'i and Hanbali schools were still Saheeh, and the people had to make due with these four.

It's really interesting to look at. In some cases, the madhhab that died out was HUGE! The school of Imam al-Awzaa'e DOMINATED what is now Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Palestine for a while. But once Imam ash-Shafi'i came along, those regions became Shafi'i instead. Meanwhile, a school like the Hanbali school, which has always been small, has continued until this very day.

[ENIGMA]

Very interesting topic. Nice info Brother Yahya.

[Ibn_Harith]

Ive heard you have some people who follow Ibn Hazm (ra) even nowadays, effectively making then dhahiri.

[Isa al-Maliki]

Assalaamualaikum,

Unfortunetly, it seems like the Hanbali madhab is starting to die out aswell.
It's being misrepresented and tampered with. What is important to take note of is that some scholars talked about the four madhahhib, but excluded the Hanbali madhab for another. Some of the great scholars of the past did not accept it as an authentic fiqhi madhab at all. Some of those close to the Dhahiri madhab these days are those who used to be associated with the Hanbali madhab, but went far in their deviation.

[Yahya]

Without doubt, the great and honorable Hanbali madhhab is being tampered with nowadays. Truly, the trustworthy transmitters of Hanbali fiqh are few. But they exist. The school is not dead yet.

And this wouldn't be the first time that the school was on the verge of dying out. Sheikh Abdul-Qadir al-Jilani, the great wali, was a big scholar of the Shafi'i school. But when he feared that the Hanbali school would die out, he switched schools. He learned the Hanbali school, followed it, and taught it. And by the mercy of Allah, he attracted a lot of students, and the Hanbali school had a resurgence. Perhaps a similar thing could happen nowadays.

Allahu 'A'lam

[Isa al-Maliki]

Yes, let's hope so, inshaAllah. Because i fear it might die out if nothing is done.

[callofthedeen]

:salam:

Bismillahir Rahmaan ir Raheem

Jazakallah Khair brother for the information but I was wondering.

1) Does that mean views of these madhabs which were authentic that could be traced back to the Prophet died out? Meaning now noone knows about it. So wouldn't that mean with the dying out of these madhabs we lost certain practices that were traceable back to the Prophet?

2) And from what i have read, the Dhahiri Madhab rejected taqleed and consensus of people other the sahaba. Is that true?

[Nawawi619]

As Salamu Alaykum


There are many factors leading to why a particular school died out. Imam Zaid gave some really good reasons in his cd lecture "Why Muslims follow a madhhab."

One reason is that the school has not been updated and refined in an unbroken chain of successive scholars to the present day. We may have remnants of works from particular Imams or schools but because these surviving works have not been updated or refined or reevaluated by living scholars who belong to this school, we cannot know for certain what we have of these Imams or schools is in fact the original methodology and rulings it purports. In other words the surviving books of these madhhabs and scholars have not been transmitted to us by tawattur (successive unbroken chains of transmission of scholars from the school to the present day).

Secondly, some of these schools who died out , died out because they were replaced by superior more flexible schools. For example the madhhab of Imam Awza'i which was in egypt was gradually replaced by the school of Imam Shafii which many viewed to be a more superior school.


So the reason that the four madhhabs have continued to exist to this day was one they have been transmitted to us by tawattur (transmission in successive groups upon groups of scholars from the school to the present day) and two they were probably more superior and more flexible then the others. Third, unlike the four schools, the dead schools were not updated nor reevaluated by these succesive groups of scholars.

Wa Llahu Alim

[Yahya]

1) Does that mean views of these madhabs which were authentic that could be traced back to the Prophet died out? Meaning now noone knows about it. So wouldn't that mean with the dying out of these madhabs we lost certain practices that were traceable back to the Prophet?wa'alaykumussalaam

It doesn't mean that no one knows about the judgments of those schools. There are living scholars who have studied over 30 madhhabs. But it means that there are chains that are not Saheeh. That's all. If a judgment is relayed to us with a weak chain, it doesn't mean that the judgment is wrong. And it doesn't mean that the judgment is lost. Rather, it means that there is doubt about it.

[Sunni_Student786]

Without doubt, the great and honorable Hanbali madhhab is being tampered with nowadays. Truly, the trustworthy transmitters of Hanbali fiqh are few. But they exist. The school is not dead yet.

....

Putting Aqeedah issues aside, do you really think that the madhab is being tampered with or that it has merely evolved?

I understand that contemporary claimants to the Hanbali madhab (i.e. many of the Salafis in the Gulf) differ with contemporary classical Hanbali scholars in their rulings, however, how is this different than the evolution that the Hanafi, Shafi'i and Maliki madhabs have undergone in the past where latter day scholars have ruled differently than earlier scholars on certain issues?

I am honestly not entirely convinced that the majority of the claimants to the Hanbali madhab, even among Salafis, have really "deviated" any more from the madhab than any group of scholars who are foun dwithin a madhab who have made rulings that are not from the Mutamid of the madhab.

[rami.]

Bi ismillahi rahmani raheem

asslamu alaikum

Thats because you assume the salafi scholars are the same caliber as the mujtahids of the other madhhabs. Salafi's in there entire history have not produced a single scholar who was capable of ijtihad.

Its similar to saying since this group of mujtahid imams are allowed to differ in there opinions regarding the madhhabs they followed so why cant this group of children be equally allowed to differ with the madhhab they are following.

The door to ijtihad has always been open but no one has ever been qualified to walk through it.....It is obligatory for a mujtahid to make his own conclusions.

[Ma'ruf]

2) And from what i have read, the Dhahiri Madhab rejected taqleed and consensus of people other the sahaba. Is that true?

That sounds very likely, but the more important point about Dhahiri methodology was that it rejected qiyas. It confined itself to the literal (dhahir) meaning of the relevant text (Qur'an or hadith), and rejected the use of analogy to extend a principle from one situation to another. Funnily enough, this means that that of any extinct madhab, it is the Dhahiri school which is best suited for revival, since it really a method, not a school of scholarly thought. Ibn Hazm was responsible for such a revival; I don't see why anyone with a copy of the mushaf and a few books of hadith could not do the same. In fact, that sounds a lot like modern-variety salafism. I won't add any more here since I do not really know what leading salafi / ahl al hadith / wahhabi scholars say about qiyas and other sources of law such as custom.

Regarding the situation with madhabs dying out: in my personal opinion, the existence of madhabs in their various geographic regions is first and foremost a result of social and political processes. For instance, the madhab of imam al Auzai' was the madhhab of the original Muslims who conquered Andalusia; later waves of migration brought in Malikis from North Africa who became politically dominant. It was social/political factors that caused the disappearence of that madhhab in Andalusia, not issues of scholarship. Similarly, Hanafism is strong in the Levant/Turkey because Hanafi scholars and sufis built strong links with the ruling military elite of the turkish tribes who migrated into the region. Naturally, when they became dominant, the Turks sponsored Hanafism as their preferred school of law. Other smaller madhabs are now extinct, probably for no other reason than their failure to attach themselves to a ruling power.

But, as brother Yahya pointed out, the lack of reliable chains means those extinct madhhabs probably cannot be revived today.

[Hmmm]

Bi ismillahi rahmani raheem

asslamu alaikum

Thats because you assume the salafi scholars are the same caliber as the mujtahids of the other madhhabs. Salafi's in there entire history have not produced a single scholar who was capable of ijtihad.

Its similar to saying since this group of mujtahid imams are allowed to differ in there opinions regarding the madhhabs they followed so why cant this group of children be equally allowed to differ with the madhhab they are following.

The door to ijtihad has always been open but no one has ever been qualified to walk through it.....It is obligatory for a mujtahid to make his own conclusions.

You don't need to be a mujtahid to transmit a chain..

Nor do you need to be one to deliver a reasoned fatwa on a new issue! Lots of different levels of mujtahid and ijtihad.

The qualifications for a mujtahid aren't agreed upon either, self-confidence probably being the most important :cheesygri

Gulf scholars are too quickly tarred with the Salafi-idiot brush, there are some learned ones out there who have both book learning and proper ijaza. In fiqh anyway.

On that topic, aqeedah has also been a contributing factor to madhab death..

[Yahya]

Putting Aqeedah issues aside, do you really think that the madhab is being tampered with or that it has merely evolved?

I understand that contemporary claimants to the Hanbali madhab (i.e. many of the Salafis in the Gulf) differ with contemporary classical Hanbali scholars in their rulings, however, how is this different than the evolution that the Hanafi, Shafi'i and Maliki madhabs have undergone in the past where latter day scholars have ruled differently than earlier scholars on certain issues?

I am honestly not entirely convinced that the majority of the claimants to the Hanbali madhab, even among Salafis, have really "deviated" any more from the madhab than any group of scholars who are foun dwithin a madhab who have made rulings that are not from the Mutamid of the madhab.

First, I'm not sure that bin Baz and the others who have issued these new opinions were mujtahids (ie. they may not have been qualified to issue these opinions).

Second, even if they were qualified to issue those opinions, the aqidah differences affect their trustworthiness. So, by some opinions, the wahhabis are still muslims, but since they are deviants in aqidah, they would not be considered trustworthy narrators. By other opinions, they are kuffar and DEFINITELY not trustworthy narrators. So either way, even if they had the knowledge to be mujtahids, any chains that go through them are no longer Saheeh.

[Ali al-Hanafi]

Putting Aqeedah issues aside, do you really think that the madhab is being tampered with or that it has merely evolved?

I understand that contemporary claimants to the Hanbali madhab (i.e. many of the Salafis in the Gulf) differ with contemporary classical Hanbali scholars in their rulings, however, how is this different than the evolution that the Hanafi, Shafi'i and Maliki madhabs have undergone in the past where latter day scholars have ruled differently than earlier scholars on certain issues?

I am honestly not entirely convinced that the majority of the claimants to the Hanbali madhab, even among Salafis, have really "deviated" any more from the madhab than any group of scholars who are foun dwithin a madhab who have made rulings that are not from the Mutamid of the madhab.

:salam:

The development of the other three Maddhabs has always been in line with the Usools of the Maddhab. Salafis do not claim to follow the Usools of the Hanbali Maddhab as far as I am aware and thus, though there may be some similarity between the Fiqh of the Hanbalis and that of the Salafis, the latter in no way can be reagrded as adherents of the former. In fact, they openly deny Taqleed the way it has always been understood in the past and so they are not merely developing the Hanbali Maddhab. Btw, what are the Usools of the Salafis?

[Isa al-Maliki]

It's important to note though that Ibn Baz and Ibn Uthaymeen did not reject taqleed, but they concidered themselves beyond that. They have given fatawa that one who is not on a level to weigh the different positions should do taqleed of one of the four madhahhib.

Now alot of the Salafis take this and point out that they deem themselves fit to do so (weigh the proofs). This is in itself proof that they are ignorant, as they belittle the scholars of this ummah and have no respect for knowledge.

Other so called Salafis follow fatawa by others who explicitly states that it is haram to do taqleed of a madhab. They are ignorant to Islamic history, and they usually do taqleed to a certain extent themselves.

Important thing is that we all do taqleed to a certain extent, even if we accept it or not. When we accept a hadith in Sahih al-Bukhari, this is taqleed on the judgement of Imam al-Bukhari (rahmatullahi ta'aala alaih) and the scholars who agreed to it being authentic. When one accept a certain tafsir as authorative, this is taqleed. And then we have the people who base a fatwa on a translation of Sahih Bukhari, well they even do taqleed of a translator.

Evidence of the tahreef of the Hanbali madhab is that they take minority positions and exclude others. Such as where to place the hands during prayer. The majority position is to place them below the navel, as do the Hanafis. But if you ask these so called Hanbalis, they will not even accept that as a valid position within the Hanbali madhab. They claim to follow Imam Ahmad (radiAllahu anhu), but in fact they are closer to the Dhahiris. They are not Hanbalis, because they have left the methodology of Imam Ahmad (radiAllahu anhu), they do not accept hadith da'eef, while the Imam did. Of course this doesn't go for all of them, but for many of the so called Hanbalis.