The Schools of Thought
The schools of Sunni Islam are each named by students of the classical jurist who taught them. The Sunni schools (and where they are commonly found) are
- Hanafi (Turkey, the Balkans, Central Asia, Indian subcontinent, China and Egypt)
- Maliki (North Africa, West Africa and several of the Arab states of the Persian Gulf)
- Shafi'i (Indonesia, Malaysia, Egypt, East Africa, Yemen and southern parts of India)
- Hanbali (Arabia).
- Zahiri No longer exists
- Qurtubi No longer exists
- Laythi No longer exists
These schools share many of their rulings, but differ on the particular hadiths they accept as authentic and the weight they give to analogy or reason (qiyas) in deciding difficulties.
The Shiite schools comprise:
- Jafari (Iran, Iraq)
- Zaydi
- Abathi (Oman)
Read more about this topic: Principles Of Islamic Jurisprudence
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