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