Hanbali school

The Hanbali school (al-maḏhab al-ḥanbalī) is one of the four major traditional Sunni schools (madhahib) of Islamic jurisprudence. It is named after the Arab scholar Ahmad ibn Hanbal (d. 855), and was institutionalized by his students. The Hanbali madhhab is the smallest of four major Sunni schools, the others being the Hanafi, Maliki and Shafi`i. The Hanbali school derives sharia primarily from the Qur'an, the Hadiths (sayings and customs of Muhammad), and the views of Sahabah (Muhammad's companions). In cases where there is no clear answer in sacred texts of Islam, the Hanbali school does not accept istihsan (jurist discretion) or 'urf (customs of a community) as a sound basis to derive Islamic law, a method that Hanafi and Maliki Sunni madh'habs accept. Hanbali school is the strict traditionalist school of jurisprudence in Sunni Islam. It is found primarily in the countries of Saudi Arabia and Qatar, where it is the official Fiqh. Hanbali followers are the demographic majority in four emirates of UAE (Sharjah, Umm al-Quwain, Ras al-Khaimah and Ajman). Large minorities of Hanbali followers are also found in Bahrain, Syria, Oman and Yemen and among Iraqi and Jordanian bedouins. The Hanbali school experienced a reformation during the 18th-century Wahhabi movement. Historically the school was small; during the 18th to early-20th century Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab and Al Saud greatly aided its propagation around the world by way of their interpretation of the school's teachings. Historian Michael Cook argues that Ibn Hanbal's own beliefs actually played "no real part in the establishment of the central doctrines of Wahhabism," and that inspite of their shared tradition, "the older Hanbalite authorities had doctrinal concerns very different from those of the Wahhabis". Other scholars maintain that Ahmād Ibn Hānbal was "the distant progenitor of Wahhābism" who also immensely inspired the conservative reform movement of Salafiyya.