Q. A friend wrote to me complaining that some of your answers are ambiguous, or do not provide a straightforward reply. He cited the example of a question he put to you on whether it is obligatory to follow one of the four schools of thought and stick to it all the time. He says that this question has puzzled large numbers of people over a very long period and they do not receive a clear answer. Please clarify.
Y. Siddiqui
A. I am amazed that I am accused of lack of clarity on this particular issue. I looked at the answer I gave to this question. The question says: “Is it necessary to stick to one of the four schools?” My answer starts with the words: “No, it is not.” What can be clearer? I go on to show that even in practice this does not happen.
I have been asked this question many times over the years, and sometimes I gave very detailed answers while on other occasions I made my answers short. What we need to understand is that a school of thought is not the work of only its founder. The Hanafi school does not consist only of the views and rulings of Imam Abu Haneefah. There is a very long tradition of scholarship in that school, with many distinguished scholars making very significant contributions to that school. However, they all use the methodology established by Abu Haneefah, and start with his rulings and views. Some of these may disagree with him, or with his most immediate students and associates. Yet all form part of the Hanafi school. The last major figure of this school is Ibn Abideen who lived less than 200 years ago, i.e. more than 1000 years separate him from Abu Haneefah. What I have just said about the Hanafi school also applies to all schools of Islamic thought. Each is a long tradition of scholarship, following its own methodology. Each may have more than one view on some questions.
Thus the views of some Hanafi scholars, who were imams in their own right, differ with Abu Haneefah’s views. Yet they are part of the Hanafi school and they may be the ones adopted by the majority of the Hanafi scholars. This means that you may be following the Hanafi school but not Abu Haneefah. How can this be?
Suppose that Abu Haneefah looked into a problem put to him and did not find a direct ruling on it in the Qur’an or the Hadith. He would have given a ruling on the basis of his overall knowledge of Islam. Suppose that two or three centuries later, a major Hanafi scholar looked at a very similar problem, but he was aware of an authentic Hadith that directly relates to it. He would give the ruling on the basis of the Hadith, not on the basis of Abu Haneefah’s earlier ruling. Everyone of the four Imams, and indeed all other scholars, make clear that when a Hadith is authentic, then the Hadith must be adopted, while their own views should be discarded. Once Al-Shafie was asked about a certain problem. He answered his questioner by quoting a Hadith. The questioner said: “But what is your own view?” Al-Shafie was disturbed and he literally trembled. He said to the man: “What part of the sky would shelter me, or what part of the earth would carry me, if I say something different from what the Prophet says?”
A person may ask: How could any of those most distinguished Imams be unaware of a Hadith, while later scholars may know it? This is easily explained. The Hadith anthologies we refer to, including all six major anthologies, were compiled after the time of these Imams. In fact Ahmad ibn Hanbal was one of Al-Bukhari’s teachers. When Al-Bukhari compiled his anthology, he showed it to Imam Ahmad for review and comments. All four Imams studied Hadith, but Abu Haneefah did not have the same wealth of Hadiths available to him as the others. Malik produced the first authentic anthology classified according to areas of Fiqh, known as Al-Muatta’. Ahmad’s anthology, Al-Musnad, is the largest authentic anthology. Al-Shafie was a very prominent scholar of Hadith and also had an anthology of his own. However, the study of Hadith attained a level of high distinction with the six authentic anthologies, but did not stop at that. Many later scholar made further great efforts and valuable contributions to this area. Thus they made the Prophet’s Hadiths more available to scholars of Fiqh. You appreciate that a scholar in old days had to rely on his books and memory. Today, we can easily look at all Hadiths relating to a certain question by referring to a concordance of Hadiths or by a computer search. Hence, the thought that a later scholar may be more informed on Hadith than an earlier one is by no means strange.
Where does this leave us concerning the basic question: is it necessary to follow a single school of thought in all respects? The answer is a definite ‘No, it is not.’ If you are able to look at the views of different schools and study the evidence in support of their different views, you should do so and choose the view that is better supported. If you cannot do that, you ask a scholar. The scholar should do this on your behalf and give you the view that is most suitable and better supported.
On the other hand, if a person wishes to study a particular school in depth and stick to it, he may do so. Only this type of person actually sticks to one school because he knows it well. Ordinary people do not. There is no problem with that.
