should I not weep, and who has more right to weep than I? By Allah! I
wish I had been flogged and reflogged for every question of law on which I
pronounced an opinion founded on my own private judgment."[28]

Imam As-Shafa'i, a member of the Quraish tribe, was born A.H. 150. He
passed his youth at Mecca but finally settled in Cairo where he died (A.H.
204). Ibn Khallikan relates of him that he was unrivalled for his knowledge
of the Quran, the Sunnat, and the sayings of the Companions. "Never," said
Imam Ibn Hanbal, "have I passed a night without praying for God's mercy and
blessing upon As-Shafi'i." "Whosoever pretends," said Abu Thaur, "that he
saw the like of As-Shafi'i for learning is a liar." Having carefully
studied the systems of the two preceding Imams he then proceeded on an
eclectic system to form his own. It was a reaction against the system of
Abu Hanifa. As-Shafi'i follows rather the traditional plan of Ibn Malik.
The Hanifite will be satisfied if, in the absence of a clear and a direct
statement, he finds one {22} passage in the Quran, or one Tradition from
which the required judgment may be deduced. The Shafi'ite in the same
circumstances, if Tradition is the source of his deduction, will require a
considerable number of Traditions from which to make it.

Imam Ibn Hanbal was the last of the four Orthodox Imams. He was born at
Baghdad (A.H. 164). His system is a distinct return to Traditionalism. He
lived at Baghdad during the reign of the Khalif Mamun, when Orthodox Islam
seemed in danger of being lost amid the rationalistic speculations, (that
is, from an Orthodox Muslim stand-point), and licentious practices of the
Court. The jurists most in favour at Court were followers of Abu Hanifa.
They carried the principle of analogical deduction to dangerous lengths in
order to satisfy the latitudinarianism of the Khalif. Human speculation
seemed to be weakening all the essentials of the Faith. Ibn Hanbal met the
difficulty by discarding altogether the principle of analogical deduction.
At the same time he saw that the Maliki system, founded as it was on the
"Customs of Madina," was ill-suited to meet the wants of a great and
growing Empire. It needed to be supplemented. What better, what surer
ground could he go upon than the Traditions. These at least were inspired,
and thus formed a safer foundation on which to build a system of
jurisprudence than the analogical deductions of Abu Hanifa did. The system
of Ibn