Disagreements among Muslims on issues essential to their beliefs (such as community leadership) and practices (including the times when hands should be raised in prayer) came about soon after the Prophet Muhammad’s death (year 632). These differences (ikhtilaf in Arabic) largely explain the formation of distinct schools of legal thought (madhahib) among Sunni and Shi‘a Muslims. Based on the advent of the ikhtilaf and the initial use of the mechanism of taqlid (imitation), Prof. Maribel Fierro will mainly be analyzing the emergence and development of the Sunni schools. One of these, the Maliki school, was almost exclusively predominant in North Africa and Al-Andalus, though this did not necessarily mean there were homogeneous stances on issues, because ikhtilaf may also be found within one single legal school. Likewise, the criticism of taqlid by some thinkers and currents of thought is analyzed, along with the threat that this criticism posed in terms of upholding the framework of legal schools, especially within contexts of modernity.
Legal schools (madhahib), divergence (ikhtilaf), imitation (taqlid), al-Andalus, Malikism, al-Shatibi.