Skip to content
Bluemangoa2z at Malayalam Wikipedia  · Public domain

Guided journey

Four jurists and their teachers

The four Sunni schools of law carry the names of Abū Ḥanīfa, Mālik, al-Shāfiʿī and Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal — and three of them sat with one another as teachers and students.

  • 6 steps
  • Figures, Places, Traditions
  • A note at each step
Begin the journey

Step 1 is free · every journey with Plus

Not yet reviewed · written . The notes follow the records; no editor has signed them.

  1. OatCookies · CC BY-SA 4.0

    Step 1 of 6: Figure

    Abū Ḥanīfa

    8th-century Sunni theologian and jurist

    Abū Ḥanīfa, the earliest of the four, whose name the Hanafi school carries. His page lists many teachers and none of the other three: the records do not connect him to them directly, and the site does not draw a connection the records do not hold.

    Open the profile Continue to Malik ibn Anas Continue Plus

Plus

The rest of this journey is with Plus.

5 more steps, each with its own note — written here, and every one a real page.

  • Every journey
  • Every generation
  • Every century
See membership

Already a member? Sign in

Still to come

  1. Malik ibn Anas Figure
  2. Prophet's Mosque On the atlas
  3. Al-Shafi'i Figure
  4. Ahmad ibn Hanbal Figure
  5. Islam Tradition
  1. Sun'i · Public domain

    Step 2 of 6: Figure

    Malik ibn Anas

    Arab Islamic jurist, theologian and hadith traditionist (711–795)

    Mālik ibn Anas of Medina, whose name the Maliki school carries. The records list about twenty teachers for him and one student among these four — al-Shāfiʿī. Being taught by someone is a relationship of learning. It is not descent, and it does not make the student’s school a branch of the teacher’s.

    Open the profile Continue to Prophet's Mosque
  2. Bluemangoa2z at Malayalam Wikipedia · Public domain

    Step 3 of 6: Place · On the atlas

    Prophet's Mosque

    Mosque in Medina, Saudi Arabia

    The Prophet’s Mosque in Medina, where Mālik is remembered teaching. Its date on the atlas is its founding, on the historical clock. A pin here says a site was recorded; it says nothing about who prayed there in any century, or which school anyone followed.

    See it on the atlas Continue to Al-Shafi'i
  3. Sun'i · Public domain

    Step 4 of 6: Figure

    Al-Shafi'i

    Arab Muslim theologian, writer and scholar (767–820)

    Al-Shāfiʿī, who studied with Mālik in Medina and also with a student of Abū Ḥanīfa, and who taught Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal. One man sits between three of the four names and still founded a school of his own. That is what a teaching line looks like when it is not flattened into a family tree.

    Open the profile Continue to Ahmad ibn Hanbal
  4. OatCookies · CC BY-SA 4.0

    Step 5 of 6: Figure

    Ahmad ibn Hanbal

    Muslim jurist and theologian (780–855)

    Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal, the last of the four and al-Shāfiʿī’s student. Follow the “studied under” rows back and you walk a chain of teachers; nowhere does it become a chain of parents. The site draws transmission as transmission, and a school’s name as a school’s name.

    Open the profile Continue to Islam
  5. Antonio Melina/Agência Brasil · CC BY 3.0 br

    Step 6 of 6: Tradition

    Islam

    Monotheistic Abrahamic religion founded by Muhammad

    Islam, the tradition. The four schools are traditions of legal reasoning inside it — not sects, and not descent groups — and this site never infers a person’s school, or anyone’s belief, from a name or a place.

    Open the profile Finish, and see where next

Continue exploring

Every stop on this route.

Each one a page of its own — free to read, whatever the journey's gate.

All journeys