Hanafi School of Thought in Islam
Hanafi School of Thought in Islam
Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi are schools of interpretation of Islamic jurisprudence and Islamic law within the broader umbrella of Sunni following. Sunni following refers to following life example of the Prophet Muhammad(Peace be upon Him) and this makes up about 85 percent population of the Muslim today who are Sunnis.
The Hanafi seek answers by study of Quran, the Sunnah, Ijma and Qiyas. Ijma is an agreement of Islamic scholars on an issue related to Islamic law whereas Qiyas is a process whereby a deductive analogy is reached when Hadis are compared and contrasted with Quran, in order to apply a new injunction to a new circumstance or reach a new injunction
Different Schools of Thoughts
Now how exactly do you follow the Prophet (Peace be upon Him)? What did he say or do on certain occasions? Sometimes there are different interpretations about that. Often because there are different reports about what he did. There were great scholars in the past who had to sift all of these reports and think about what was the general practice of the Prophet? What was the exceptional practice? What was practice in which situation? And what does this all mean? What is the implication? What precedents were set? And how do you interpret those precedents?
So there were many great teachers in the past among which four have emerged with a large number of followers so they came to be known as the founders of Islamic jurisprudence; tough they did not intend to found schools yet came to be remembered. They were:
1. Ahmad Bin Humble
2. Imam Shafi
3. Anus Bin Malik
4. Abu Hanifa (Hanafi School of Thought)
A Need to Tolerate Differences
These are known as the Humbali school, the Shafi school, the Malaki school and the Hanafi school. They are all schools of interpretation of the Islamic law. These schools were so largely followed that in certain area that was the only school that was known. It became adopted as state law where Muslims were the majority ruling in power. Muslims then became comfortable in those regions following those laws.
Hanfi School of Thought
Now a days in our Cosmopolitan centers like in Toronto there are people representing all different schools. Some people are praying with a slight variation according to one school and some people are praying according to some other school which can sometimes lead to tension and misunderstanding. However if we step back we realize that all of these schools have Islamic legitimacy in Islamic history. We tolerate all of these differences.
Sometimes people get to the bottom of the issues and they want to debate all these points all over again and some think that there is no need to debate these finer points because if these points were clear from the start we would not have had these four different schools having different interpretations from the beginning.
Those who think that we should get back to the bottom of things and try to reconstitute the matter all over again are right in a way that issues on which modern questions are arising need to be addressed.