:salam2: sisters and brothers,
I were wondering if someone could explain more about the diffrent schools, interpretting of hadiths and more. For example Hanif is one. Could someone write them all, and examples what makes them diffrent i know about the prayer. And where are they mostly common in what countries. Or have anyone a book/webpage to recommend. I'm just curoius to read about this.
:tti_sister:
Salaam Aleykom sister,
The schools of thought, or also known as Madhabs, are simply interpretation of Islamic laws. There are four schools of thought in Islam and normally in the past centuries people have adhered to one. For example there is the Hanafi madhab which is named after Iman Hanifa, there is also Shafi, named after iman Shafi, Maliki, after Iman Malik and Hanbali. They were all great and respected scholars who did their best to interpret sharia based on Quran and the Hadiths. They differ in some rulings and I had wondered about this and I did research on it as a revert and came to learn that these imams lived apart from one another and the difference between resulted mainly because the same hadiths weren't available to all of them. In the past, it was expected that Muslims pick between one of the four but in reality the Imams never said so nor did they require that we follow one in particular. We have to follow Prophet Muhammad(saaws) and we should respect all the scholars and the Imams but we should not become narrow minded and suddenly start calling ourselves by the name of a particular Madhab.
None of the 4 imams asked to be followed in particular and all of them said that if they made a mistake then people should realize they were only doing their best in trying to intrepret the rulings and laws. During the time of Rasulullah(saaws) there was no such thing as those madhabs and Muslims should go back to being Muslim, and follow the Quran and Sunnah. I myself do not adhere to one particular madhab but I try to compare the scholars and figure out from there. Don't get me wrong I am not saying you can't respect them or learn from them since they were great scholars but they made mistakes and if there is a mistake, one has to go with the right ruling. I am not a scholar or anything so please forgive me if I have made a mistake but I am trying to explain based on my studies of Islam.
The madhabs are not denominations or sects but simply schools of thought. They were formed after Rasulullah(saaws) and the difference is in intrepreting sharia. One has to keep in mind that back then there were no phones, cars, air planes and fax mashines where the different hadiths could have been sent to everyone of the imams and they based their rulings and opinions on what was available to them but today Muslims, Alhamdulillah, are starting to realize this and they no longere strickly adhere to one particular madhab. I respect all of them but I do not belong to one in particular. I like to follow the truth of Islam to the best of my ability and inshaAllah we all will be able to. I am sure others, who know more than me on this subject will help answer you better. May Allah guide us all and keep us on the correct path, may He unite us all under Islam and make us better in deen, amin.
