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Muhammad in his quality of Judge and chief of the Believers decided, without appeal or contradiction, all the affairs of the people. His sayings served as a guide to the Companions. After the death of the Prophet the first Khalifs acted on the authority of the Traditions. Meanwhile the Quran and the Sunnat, the principal elements of religion and legislation, became little by little the subject of controversy. It was then that men applied themselves vigorously to the task of learning by heart the Quran and the Traditions, and then that jurisprudence became a separate science. No science had as yet been systematically taught, and the early Musalmans did not possess books which would serve for such teaching. A change soon, however, took place. In the year in which the great jurisconsult of Syria died (A.H. 80) N'iman bin Sabit, surnamed Abu Hanifa was born. He is the most celebrated of the founders of the schools of jurisprudence, a science which ranks first in all Muslim seats of learning. Until that time and for thirty years later the Mufassirs,[36] the Muhaddis,[37] and the Fuqiha,[38] had all their knowledge by heart, and those who possessed good memories were highly esteemed. Many of them knew by heart the whole Quran with the comments made on it by the Prophet and by the Companions; they also knew the Traditions and their explanations, and all the commands (Ahkam) which proceed from the Quran, and the Sunnat. Such men enjoyed the right of Mujtahidin. They transmitted their knowledge to their scholars orally. It was not till towards the middle of the second century A.H. that treatises on the different branches of the Law were written, after which six schools (Mazhabs) of jurisprudence were formed. The founders, all Imams of the first class, were Abu Hanifa, the Imam-i-A'zam or great Imam (A.H. 150),[39] Safian As-Sauri (A.H. 161), Malik (A.H. 179), As-Shafa'i (A.H. 204), Hanbal (A.H. 241) and Imam Daud Az-Zahari (A.H. 270). The two sects founded by Sauri and Zahari became extinct in the eighth century of the Hijra. The other four still remain. These men venerated one another. The younger ones speak with great respect of the elder. Thus Shafa'i said:--"No one in the world was so well versed in jurisprudence as Abu Hanifa was, and he who has read neither his works, nor those of his discip
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