Sunni Islam is the
largest branch of
Islam,
comprising at least 85% of the world's 1.2 billion
Muslims. Sunnis are also referred to as
Ahl
as-Sunnah wa’l-Jamā‘ah ( "people of the tradition (of
Muhammad) and the community") or
Ahl as-Sunnah ( )
for short. The word Sunni comes from the word
Sunnah ( ), which means the words and actions or
example of the
Islamic Prophet
Muhammad.
Sunni schools of law (Madh'hab)
Islamic law is known as the
Sharī‘ah. The Sharī‘ah is based on the
Qur'an and the
Sunnah. The Madh'hab translates to "way", and
different Madhaheb (plural of Madh'hab) reflect different opinions
on some laws and obligations of the sharia, for example when one
Madh'hab sees a certain act as an obligation,
while the other does not. There are four of these schools:
Abu Hanifah (d. 767), was the founder of the
Hanafi school.
He was born circa 702 in Kufa
, Iraq
.
Muslims of
Bangladesh
, Pakistan
, India
, Afghanistan
, Central Asia, Muslim
areas Southern Russia, The Caucasus, parts of The Balkans, Iraq
and Turkey
follow this
school.
Malik ibn Anas(d.
795) developed his ideas in Medina
, where he
knew some of the last surviving companions of Muhammad or their
immediate descendents. His doctrine is recorded in the
Muwatta which has been adopted by most
Muslims of Africa except in Lower Egypt, Zanzibar and South
Africa.The
Maliki legal school is the branch
of
Sunni that dominates most of the Muslim areas of
Africa, except Egypt and the
Horn of
Africa.
Al-Shafi‘i (d. 820) was a student of Malik.
He taught in Iraq and
then in Egypt
.
Muslims in
Indonesia
, Lower Egypt, Malaysia
, Singapore
, Somalia
, Jordan
, Lebanon
, Syria
, Kerala, India
, Sri
Lanka
, Palestine, Yemen
and Kurds in the Kurdish regions
follow this school. Al-Shafi'i placed great
emphasis on the Sunnah of Muhammad, as embodied in the
Hadith, as a source of the Shari'ah.
Ahmad ibn Hanbal (d.
855) was born in Baghdad
. He
learned extensively from al-Shafi'i. Despite
persecution, he held to the doctrine that the
Qur'an was uncreated. This school of law is followed
primarily in the
Arabian
Peninsula.
The followers of these four schools follow the same basic belief
system but differ from one another in terms of practice and
execution of rituals, and in juristic interpretation of "divine
principals" (or Shariah) as envisaged in Quran and Hadith. However
Sunni Muslims consider them all equally valid.
There are other Sunni schools of law. However, many are followed by
only small numbers of people and are relatively unknown due to the
popularity of the four major schools; also, many have died out or
were not sufficiently recorded by their followers to survive.
Interpreting the
Shari'ah to derive specific rulings (such
as how to pray) is known as
fiqh,
which literally means understanding. A
madh'hab is a particular tradition of
interpreting
fiqh. These schools focus on specific
evidence (Shafi'i and Hanbali) or general principles (Hanafi and
Maliki) derived from specific evidences. The schools were started
by eminent
Muslim scholars in the first four
centuries of Islam. As these schools represent clearly spelled out
methodologies for interpreting the
Shari'aa, there has
been little change in the methodology per se. However, as the
social and economic environment changes, new
fiqh rulings
are being made. For example, when
tobacco
appeared it was declared as 'disliked' because of its smell. When
medical information showed that
smoking was dangerous, that ruling was
changed to 'forbidden'. Current
fiqh issues include things
like
downloading pirated
software and
cloning. The
consensus is that the
Shari'ah does not change but
fiqh rulings change all the time.
A
madh'hab is not to be confused with a religious
sect. There may be scholars representing all four
madh'habs living in larger Muslim communities, and it is
up to those who consult them to decide which school they
prefer.
Many Sunnis advocate that a Muslim should choose a single
madh'hab and follow it in all matters. However, rulings
from another
madh'hab are considered acceptable as long a
preconditions of the actions are within the same school . Some
counterparts of Sunnis, however, do not follow any
madh'hab,. Indeed, some
Salafis or
Ahle Hadith also known as
wahabis reject strict adherence, while often being
loosely connected, to one of the four particular schools of
thought, preferring to use the
Qur'an and the
Sunnah as the primary sources of Islamic law or
the ruling by any of the jurists if it is in accordance with Quran
and Hadith. In fact, such debates about the balance taqleed or
ijtihad have been going on a long time in Islam. Generally
Hanbalis have favored the opinion to keep the doors
of ijtihad open while the other three have preferred taqleed.
Sunni theological traditions
Some Islamic scholars faced questions that they felt were not
specifically answered in the
Qur'an, especially questions
with regard to philosophical conundra like the
nature of God, the existence of human
free will, or the eternal existence of the
Qur'an. Various schools of
theology and
philosophy
developed to answer these questions, each claiming to be true to
the
Qur'an and the Muslim tradition (
sunnah).
Among Sunnites, the following were the dominant traditions:
- Ash'ari, founded by Abu al-Hasan al-Ash'ari (873–935).
This theology was embraced by Muslim scholars such as al-Ghazali.
- Ash'ariyyah theology stresses divine revelation over human reason.
Ethics, they say, cannot be derived from
human reason: God's commands, as revealed in the Qur'an
and the practice of Muhammad and his companions (the
sunnah, as recorded in the traditions, or hadith), are the source of all morality.
- Regarding the nature of God and the divine attributes, the
Ash'ari rejected the Mu'tazilite position
that all Qur'anic references to God as having physical attributes
(that is, a body) were metaphorical. Ash'aris insisted that these
attributes were "true", since the Qur'an could not be in
error, but that they were not to be understood as implying a crude
anthropomorphism.
- Ash'aris tend to stress divine omnipotence over human free will. They believe
that the Qur'an is eternal and uncreated.
- Maturidiyyah, founded by Abu Mansur al-Maturidi (d. 944).
Maturidiyyah was a minority tradition until
it was accepted by the Turkish tribes
of Central Asia (previously they had
been Ashari and followers of the Shafi school,
it was only later on migration into Anatolia
that they became Hanafi and
followers of the Maturidi creed ). One of the tribes, the
Seljuk Turks, migrated to Turkey
, where later
the Ottoman Empire was
established. Their preferred school of law achieved a new
prominence throughout their whole empire although it continued to
be followed almost exclusively by followers of the Hanafi school while followers of the Shafi, and Maliki schools within
the empire followed the Ashari school. Thus, wherever can be found
Hanafi followers, there can be found the
Maturidi creed.
- Maturidiyyah argue that knowledge of God's existence can be
derived through reason.
- Athari, no precise founder of this school
of creed within Islam,but Ahmad ibn
Hanbal is often pointed to as an early champion of the Athari
creed. This became a serious issue within the Muslim World during
the Mu'tazili controversy over the belief of the Qur'an being
created, rather than being the speech of Allah. Others are cited as
earlier proponents, such as, Sufyan
al-Thawri (d. 778) was a Follower from Kufa
who held
what would later become the Athari
creed.
- The Athari methodology of textual interpretation is to avoid
delving into extensive theological speculation. They believe in
Allah and his characteristics in the fashion that they were
mentioned in the Quran, the Sunnah and by the Sahabah.
They do not attempt to further interpret the aforementioned texts
by giving a literal meaning like the Ẓāhirīs nor through tahreef
(distortion), ta‘weel (figurative interpretation), tamtheel (making
a likeness), tashbeeh (resemblance), nor ta’teel (denial). They
avoid entering into philosophical and rational discussions of
matters relating to Islamic beliefs that are not supported by the
Quran, the Sunnah or the understanding of the Sahabah with specific
wording; rather, their discussion and presentation of beliefs
revolves entirely around textual evidences found in these sources,
without taking the path of the literalists either, the Ẓāhirīs. The
Atharis believe this to be the methodology adhered to by the first
three generations of Muslims (i.e. the Salaf),
therefore making it the school of Sunni Aqidah
that they believe is the closest to the truth.
- Due to the emphasis of the Hanbali
school of thought on textualism, Muslims who are Hanbali usually
prefer the Athari in Aqidah. However atharis are not exclusively
Hanbali, many muslims form the other four schools of thought,
including Hanafis, adhere to the Athari
school of Aqidah also.
Sunni view of hadith
The
Qur'an as it exists today was compiled by Muhammad's
companions (
Sahaba) in approximately 650,
and is accepted by all Muslim denominations. However, there were
many matters of belief and daily life that were not directly
prescribed in the Qur'an, but were actions that were observed by
Muhammad and the community. Later generations sought out
oral traditions regarding the early history
of Islam, and the practice of Muhammad and his first followers, and
wrote them down so that they might be preserved. These recorded
oral traditions are called
hadith.
Muslim scholars sifted through the
hadith and evaluated
the chain of narration of each tradition, scrutinizing the
trustworthiness of the narrators and judging the strength of each
hadith accordingly.
Most Sunni accept the
hadith collections of
Bukhari and
Muslim as the most authentic
(
sahih, or correct), and grant a
lesser status to the collections of other recorders. There are,
however, four other collections of
hadith that are also
held in particular reverence by Sunni Muslims, making a total of
six:
There are also other collections of
hadith which also
contain many authentic
hadith and are frequently used by
specialists. Examples of these collections include:
Demographics
There are many challenges to demographers attempting to calculate
the proportion of the world's Muslim population who adhere to Sunni
and Shi'a Islam. Using various sources, estimates of the proportion
of Muslims adhering to Sunni Islam range anywhere from 85% to 90%
worldwide. Sunni denomination, claiming 1.36 billion
followers.
See also
Notes
- From the article on Sunni Islam in Oxford Islamic Studies Online
- Sunna - Definitions from Dictionary.com
- Josef W. Meri, Medieval Islamic Civilization: An
Encyclopedia, 1 edition, (Routledge: 2005), p.5
- Hisham M. Ramadan, Understanding Islamic Law: From
Classical to Contemporary, (AltaMira Press: 2006), p.26
- Objection to Following Another Madhab Answered [1]
External links