Islamic Law, Mysticism, and Civilization

Sharia, often translated as Islamic law though more accurately understood as a comprehensive path or way of life derived from divine guidance, rests on four principal sources: the Quran; the Sunnah, as documented in Hadith; ijma, the consensus of qualified scholars; and qiyas, analogical reasoning applied to situations not directly addressed by the first two sources. The practical discipline of deriving specific legal rulings from these sources is known as fiqh, jurisprudence, and gave rise, within Sunni Islam, to four major schools, or madhhabs, each named after its founding jurist: the Hanafi school, associated with Abu Hanifa; the Maliki school, associated with Malik ibn Anas; the Shafii school, associated with Muhammad al-Shafii; and the Hanbali school, associated with Ahmad ibn Hanbal. Shia Islam developed its own principal school of jurisprudence, the Jafari school, named for the sixth Imam, Jafar al-Sadiq, which additionally accords a distinctive interpretive role to the teachings of the Imams. These schools differ in specific legal methodology and rulings but generally recognize one another as valid within the broader framework of Islamic law, whose application has varied enormously across different regions, states, and historical periods rather than constituting a single fixed legal code.