Madhhab

A school of law: a settled method of deriving rulings, carried by generations of scholars.

Also written · Mazhab · Madhab · Mathhab · Maslak · Mezhep · Madhhabs · Madhahib · Mazahib · school of thought · school of law · Islamic school · fiqh school

The meaning

What Madhhab means in Islam

The plural is madhahib, and the word means a way gone along. Four Sunni schools survive with a living scholarly tradition: Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi'i and Hanbali. They agree on the pillars and on the great majority of rulings, and differ mostly in method and in detail. A madhhab is not a sect, and a Hanafi and a Shafi'i pray behind one another without difficulty.

Evidence · Editorial · Our own summary, drawn from the sources named

Read beside it

Words that sit beside it

HanafiThe school of Abu Hanifah, the most widely followed, known for careful reasoning and analogy.المَذْهَبُ الحَنَفِيّ
MalikiThe school of Malik ibn Anas of Madinah, weighted towards the practice of that city.المَذْهَبُ المالِكِيّ
Shafi'iThe school of al-Shafi'i, known for tight textual method and a systematic theory of sources.المَذْهَبُ الشّافِعِيّ
HanbaliThe school of Ahmad ibn Hanbal, the most text bound of the four, strongest in Arabia.المَذْهَبُ الحَنْبَلِيّ
IkhtilafScholarly disagreement, which classical Islam treated as normal rather than as a crisis.اِخْتِلاف