Talk:Madhhab

title

This page has been moved from "maddhab" to "madhhab".

The pronunciation is like "mahth-hab" (where the "th" is like the "th" in "there"), rather than "mad-thab", which is how it looks now. The "dh" denotes the "th" sound as in "there". - Fred Rice March 24, 2004

Why not rename it to Mahz-hab or something? --Striver 15:41, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

I suggest moving the page to Madh′hab instead of Madh'hab. It might not seem like a big deal, but it's technically correct to use the prime symbol and not the apostrophe. The apostrophe represents the hamza, and the prime symbol is the designated symbol for this. It's also used for Arabic: سه (s′h) to differentiate between that and Arabic: ش (sh). Cuñado - Talk 23:12, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Other Madhabs?

Are not Zaiddiyah, Ibadi, Zahiri also described as madhabs? Perhaps there are others? Шизомби 10:10, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

They're not actually. They're considered schools of thought or perhaps sects. Classically however, Sunni Islam has just 4 Madhabs. --Nkv 12:04, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Map?

Wouldn't it be nice to have a map in the article depicting the main areas of the world where each madhhab is most highly represented? -- 85.179.165.16 17:46, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Agreed and done--Daffodillman (talk) 19:12, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Restored the map again, please do not remove without discussion and consensus.Daffodillman (talk) 02:12, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Salafi Islam

I removed the term "school" following the parenthetical statement discussing itjihad, as it seems somewhat erroneous to refer to Salafi Islam as a "school" relative to the actual Madh'hab when translating that word as "schools" as well. Does anyone disagree with this or have a different perspective?

I agree with your edit. MezzoMezzo 18:48, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Jafari being a Madhhab?

I posted that Jafari is a madhhab due to the fact that the SUNNI islamic university Al-Azhar made a statement concerning the Jafari school, stating that it is a valid and recognized madhhab. I listed sources in the article. Sikandros (talk) 21:12, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

They recognized it as a madhhab, but not as a SUNNI madhhab. In fact, the very reference you used was the Al-Azhar Shia Fatwa which even notes that while Al Azhar considers it a legitimate madhhab, it is stil a SHI'A madhhab, and that they don't consider the fact that it is Shi'a to make it illegitimate. Seriously man, this is basic stuff any Muslim (Sunni or Shi'a) over the age of five could tell you. That you persist in this is quite ridiculous. In fact two of the sources you used were Shi'a sources explaining their madhhab.

You also threatened to report it as vandalism if I remove your mistake again. You need to review the official Wikipedia:Vandalism policy, as you don't seem to understand it at all. Any good faith edit, whether correct or incorrect, is not vandalism; vandalism is the intentional compromising of Wikipedia's integrity.

Look, if you want to get mediation on this then i'm down but I warn you this is going to reflect VERY poorly on you as an editor. The Jafari is a SHI'A madhhab, this is noted in every one of your own four sources aside from being common knowledge of anyone with even a basic understanding of Islam. MezzoMezzo (talk) 04:47, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

as-Salamu 'Alaykum wa Rahmatullahi wa Barakatu

Brother, insults will get you nowhere. The concept of a madhhab does not exist in Shi'ah Islam, therefore, they have no madhhab. The term used by Sunnis to describe the practices of the Shi'ah is Ja'fari. If a group of Sunnis followed the Ja'fari madhhab, they would be termed Ja'faris, just as one who follows Maliki would be a Maliki. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sikandros (talk • contribs) 06:21, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

I did find it strange that Jafari was in both Sunni and Shi'a sections. From what I know, there are 4 Sunni maddhabs (not including Jafari). Hence, I propose that Jafari be removed from the Sunni section. If a Sunni were to follow the Jafari rulings, then they may be called a Jafari, but this doesn't mean that Jafari is a 'school' in the sense that the other 4 are schools. In Wikipedia, we present mainstream views as far as possible. Sikandros, I believe your edits to be well-meaning, but I can assure you that the 'Jafari being a Sunni school of thought' is a very unconventional/erroneous viewpoint. As such, I strongly recommend that the Jafari content in the Sunni section be removed. Thanks. W'sam. MP ^{(talk•contribs)} 14:37, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Ja'fari is a Shi'a madhab, not a Sunni madhab - and needs to be presented as such. ITAQALLAH 15:38, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Established Schools

Please restrict editing of this section to providing additional information and/or correcting inaccuracies. Wholesale deletion of the text and replacement with a misleading and non descriptive paragraph does no one any favours. Additionally this Section is not the place to promote ones own particular preferred form of Islam, this is an encyclopaedic article.Daffodillman (talk) 02:20, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

This section would benefit from a mention of Shi'ite Madh'ab from someone with some knowledge in this area.Daffodillman (talk) 02:26, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Suggestions for improvements

This article is coming along nicely, thanks to those who have contributed. If anyone has suggestions forv improvements and expansion perhaps they could be posted here so we can all contribute. I think it needs more citations and references and some limited expansion of each Madh'hab as an introduction.Daffodillman (talk) 14:28, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Ruling regarding following a madhhab

I'm really quite shocked that the Sufi movement here on Wikipedia seems to be at it again. I recently had to remove an entire section sourced by Attack sites and, in the case of masud.co.uk, hateful material used to "cite" this section. It has been said many times over: the position of Sunni Islam for centuries is that the layman has no madhhab; madhahib are for students of knowledge who wish to learn fiqh in an organized fashion. The laymen simply asks the scholar for his opinion, and this is not a madhhab. ONLY the modern day Sufi movement, with their revision of traditional texts, has attempted to imply that traditional Sunnism considered following a madhhab for laymen. This is evidence by the implication in the deleted section that non following a madhhab came from Saudi Arabia; a ridiculous assertion considering that Saudi Arabia teaches the Hanbali madhhab in its schools, and this accusation is only due to the enmity leaders of this Sufi movement such as GF Haddad and Tim Winter have for the country. And if there was any sort of a debate or consensus reached, it would have NOTHING to do with Peace TV, a 21st century English-language TV station whose influence is less than nothing in light of Islamic scholarly history. Please, let's all keep Wikipedia:Verifiability, Wikipedia:Neutral point of view and Wikipedia:No original research in the event that anyone witnesses a return of such unfounded claims. MezzoMezzo (talk) 11:10, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

Thank you brother for your input. Discussion is welcome. However, I will have to respectfully disagree with some points, while conceding and agreeing on others. Firstly, I would suggest that you desist from attacking the apparent (yet most likely non-existent) 'Sufi movement on Wikipedia', in a similar fashion that I would advise against people from attacking the big scary "salafi" or "wahhabi" movement, which similarly does not exist. The point being, when you disagree with someone, rather than resorting to labels, it is better to engage with them on their content. Secondly, it would seem that it is being inferred that masud.co.uk is an 'attack site', containing hateful material. To put it bluntly, this is baseless and not true, but on top of this is an altogether surprising allegation because I can't for the life of me figure out what the 'hateful material' or attack site nature of it comes from :/ Anyway, I will conclude that a slight oversight was made in the heat of argument, which happens to all of us. Just one further point on this matter, if the masud.co.uk link is consulted, you will see that the 'fatwa' is not authored by the site, rather it is simply hosted by it. The author of the 'fatwa' is the famous and most eminent Murabit Al-Hajj, and he is in and of himself a most reputable source, in a similar fashion as if you were to have a quotation from Tolstoy on Russian literature.

Also, it was stated "ONLY the modern day Sufi movement, with their revision of traditional texts" - again, please consider what was said about labelling, though I again make the assumption that this was a regrettable remark made in the heat of argument so no real harm caused :) However, this accusation against Sufis alone belies the number of valid and reputable references given. To simply remove the whole refenced section is incorrect, however if a good reason can be brought for this, I implore you please bring it to this talk page :)

However, your point made about the statements concerning Saudi Arabia is perhaps a valid one and I have sought to clean up the section and added a reference. I believe an acceptable level of neutrality has been reached, however please again feel free bring forth reasons why this may not be the case :) Indeed Saudi Arabia does teach Hanbali in its schools, as Saudi Arabia is the home of Hanbalism and the current Arabian Government is really the first ruling government to institute a sort of Hanbali Islamic law. However, as has been said in the revised version, and referenced, Saudi Arabia is also generally home to the Salafi movement, and the boundary between Hanbali and Salafi fiqh is often blurred to beyond distinction.

I have conceded that remarks made concerning PeaceTV and its speakers should be removed, however the influence of the channel considering its worldwide viewership should not be underestimated, especially considering such a small number of laymen have access to traditional sources, and are more likely to turn on the television in their tens of millions to hear a simple message in Urdu or English.

Looking forward to constructive feedback :) ServantofAllah93 (talk) 15:49, 28 October 2012 (UTC)

I can tell you that after almost six years on this site that the Sufi movement here, while uncoordinated, is real and pops up every few months. There is no way to prove this other than simple experience.

As for the issue of masud, however, then it's hateful intent is very clear; it represents only the Sufi-Ash'ari point of view, and both the hosted material and the people who run the site have come close to declaring Salafis, for example, to be outside the fold of Sunni Islam. It's just as subjective and biased as sites such as "Troid" or "salafimanhaj" and neither should be tolerated as serious references on an encyclopedic website. Both G.F. Haddad and Yasir Qadhi are similar in that neither should be cited when speaking about other movements, because objectivity simply won't be there. The issue of the masud site has already been discussed perhaps five years ago and noone who is familiar with Wikipedia guidelines on verifiability and neutral POV would accept such a site.

Now, is Saudi Arabia the home of the Salafi movement? Yes, for the most part, and Salafis are quite often hostile toward madhhabs, even the Hanbali madhhab. So what you've said there is accurate and cannot really be opposed, as long as it is made clear that the government in Saudi, especially in the last few years, has taken a very traditional approach to Islamic jurisprudence.

Ok, about PeaceTV. You're correct, it's modern, advanced and has a lot of viewers. But to say this view is considered refuted - by who? There are 1.5 billion Muslim people in the world, most are working poor in manual labor or agriculture. It is impossible to prove what the bulk of 1.5 billion people think, and as for scholars than there are quite a few scholars associated with the Athari school of aqida in Egypt, Morocco, Pakistan, Indonesia and so forth who don't agree with the view traditionally held by Ash'aris on madhahib and taqlid. To claim that one view or the other is refuted is to take a side, which is not what Wikipedia is for. Wikipedia is about providing information and then letting the reader decide. MezzoMezzo (talk) 18:58, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

Okay I'll take your word for Sufi movement, but what defines "Sufi" anyway?

Considering that the Asharis, together with the Maturidis, represent the vast bulk of Muslims, and considering that the two represent Classical Orthodox Islam, it's hard to say it's a POV, unless you are saying it is the established, majority POV?

With regards to Masud.co.uk, I again insist the website is irrelevant, as like I said they are hosting a fatwa. Now even if they are hate preachers or whatever, that is irrelevant to the fact that Murabit Al-Hajj is not, and is considered one of the foremost scholarly luminaries in the Muslim world. To draw a comparison, it's like a Socialist website hosting a transcript of an Obama speech... even if the website is another hate-preacher, it is only hosting an accurate transcript of a speech of someone completely unrelated to the group.

To make it more clear, I inserted the words Orthodox and Classical. So the Orthodox opinion has been given. While yes you admit that many challenge this today, again this is not the orthodox opinion. So hopefully that has been made clearer and is no longer possibly ambiguous.

And you make a point about 'refute' which is valid, so I have rephrased it appropriately. ServantofAllah93 (talk) 11:34, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

While I am happy to have the feedback, there are a few things where it's necessary to put one's foot down and call out a disagreement over factual information. The claim which Ash'aris and Maturidis often repeat - that they comprise most of the Muslim world - is beyond ridiculous. In order to understand and join either movement, one must study multiple classical texts of Greek logic and syntheses such as jawharat at-tawhid; things with the common laymen from Africa and Asia neither have the time, education or resources to do. One of the difficulties of pinning down Athari/Hanbali/whatever one wishes to call it creed is that it includes the vast majority of Musim laymen. The fact that the highly educated at insititutions like Azhar and Deoband (and even then, both places have scholars who are also Athari) might ascribe to these schools says nothing about the 1.5 billion Muslims in the world, especially considering that these two intellectual movements are somewhat antagonistic toward laymen and the beliefs they commonly hold. I don't see how, logically, Asharis or Maturidis can claim to have sway over any more than the scholars of those creedal schools and their direct students.

As for Murabit al-Hajj, then he is held in high esteem, but again only among those who agree with them. If we do want to go classical/orthodox, then we find that the scholars of all four madhihab were unanimous that the laymen - again, the vast majority of the Muslims - do not have a madhhab; they ask the knowledgeable ones and are not bound to only ask scholars of one school, or even ask only one scholar. The notion that Muslims must follow madhahib is a relatively recent phenomenon, and even in institutions like Deoband which have a Maturidi majority, there is a recent movement among Hanafis of both Maturidi and Athari creeds to recognize that the layman has no madhhab; thus, they are returning to the orthodox position that madhahib are for scholars and students. I can bring the quotes from the Hanafi and Shafi'i scholars on this matter in particular, though I think that since both you and I appear to be busy and only edit intermittently, we might shelve this for now and move the differing views of the Sufi/Ashari-Maturidi and true classical/orthodox view to a shared sandbox page, and do our best to ensure that both views are represented. Will that serve better to represent all views? MezzoMezzo (talk) 08:26, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Zahiri Madhab

There is a statement in parentheses which is being continually reverted so I would just like to make it clear again: according to the Amman Message, and Sunni Islam on the whole, the Zahiri madhab is not an accepted Sunni madhab today. Now the issue is a bt more complex than that, but the simple statement is largely true. If you read the Amman message, it mentions four schools of Sunni Islam, two Shia schools, the Ibadi school (without specifying them as kharijites) and finally the Zahiri school. If the Zahiri school were a Sunni madhab they would have just mentioned it with the other four at the beginning.

So thanks, hope that all makes sense and clears things up. I'm going to proceed and undo the undoing of the undoing :) ServantofAllah93 (talk) 20:14, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

Also, would like to point out that the current listing of the eight schools is the same as appears in the Amman Message, so naturally it is better, more accurate and faithful to maintain it in this order ServantofAllah93 (talk) 20:16, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

Your points on the organization of the mahdhab list according to the Amman Message is very logical and I think all can agree to that. While I uphold that not including it with the main four is a semantic issue - if they aren't Sunni, are they Shi'a? - your point on simply following the text of it makes a lot of sense. MezzoMezzo (talk) 18:48, 3 November 2012 (UTC)

Exactly, it is NOT a Sunni Madhab. All agreed. The POV bias in favour of Zahiri has therefore been removed.109.144.134.141 (talk) 13:27, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

Sir, you're essentially deleting sourced content across several articles using multiple IP addresses to push your own POV. I'm the one that researched the issue and added the source in the text; what I wrote represents modern scholarly consensus, not your own personal POV. Do NOT remove reliably sourced material again. MezzoMezzo (talk) 17:12, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

End of lede (last two sentences) belongs in Development if anywhere. Lacks clarity as it stands within the lede:

Fourth sentence was (paraphrased perhaps, sorry): "The prominent Islamic jurisprudence schools of Damascus in Syria (often named Awza'iyya), Kufa and Basra in Iraq, and Medina in Arabia survived as the Maliki madhhab, while the other Iraqi schools were consolidated into the Hanafi madhhab." The mention of Awza'iyya seems quite awkward not only within the context of that sentence fragment but in the paragraph as a whole. If that school rates a mention shouldn't it be detailed (or at least identified in a full sentence) below in Development? The fifth sentence vaguely referred to schools "developed later", pointed out that the Jariri school is no longer extant... and the paragraph ends. An indirect hint at the absorption of Awza-iyya and no mention anywhere of Laythi or Thawri? Development needs an overhaul if all recorded schools are to be touched on in a single page (and this would seem to be the appropriate page to do that, even if it requires a digression into whether the concept (or a specific interpretation) of "madhhab" is/was exclusive to Sunni). Also removed Development reference to the former Libyan leader: not only did it skip from the 10th century CE to "the modern day" in the middle of a paragraph, but it was merely the list of schools acknowledged by the Amman message, which has its own section. TheNuszAbides (talk) 07:01, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

While you're point about the former Sudanese (not Libyan) leader is correct, total removal of sourced content which is technically related is something better avoided. However, I reinserted it under Amman Message and to be honest my version seems awkward upon review. Perhaps there is a better way to include it in the article? MezzoMezzo (talk) 08:23, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

needs correction as follows: # Zaidi (Shia) AND # Ibadi (Khawarij)

Amman Message

Main article: Amman Message

In the modern era, Sadiq al-Mahdi, the former Prime Minister of Sudan, defined the recognized schools of Muslim jurisprudence as eight specific schools. The Amman Message, a three-point ruling issued by 200 Islamic scholars from over 50 countries, officially recognizes those eight legal schools of thought.

1. Hanafi (Sunni)
2. Maliki (Sunni)
3. Shafi'i (Sunni)
4. Hanbali (Sunni)
5. Ja'fari (Shia) (including Mustaali-Taiyabi Ismaili)
6. Zaidi (Shia)
7. Ibadi (Khawarij)
8. Zahiri

References

@68.100.166.227:corrected the link to Khawarij.--Peaceworld 17:05, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

Zahirism

Stop edit warring. There's only 4 Sunni schools. Misdemenor (talk) 06:33, 10 December 2015 (UTC)