MAJALAH AL-HIKMAH EDISI 3 | 2015

15 (These differences) occupied a very large space in Islam. (Originally,) people could adhere to any (juridical authority) they wished. Later on, the matter was in the hands of the four leading au- thoritiesin the Muslim countries. They enjoyed a very high prestige. Adherence was restricted to them, and people were thus prevented from adhering to anyone else. This situation was the result of the disappearance of independent judgment, because (the exercise of independent judgment) was too difficult a matter and because, in the course of time, the scholarly disciplines constituting material for independent judgment had multiplied. Also, there existed nobody who might have organized a school in addition to the existing four. Thus, these four were set up as the basic schools of Islam. Differences of opinion among their adherents and the followers of their laws received equal status with differences of opinion concerning religious texts and legal principles (in general). The adherents of the four schools held disputations, in order to prove the correctness of their respective founders. These disputations took place according to sound principles and fast rules. Everyone ar- gued in favour of the correctness of the school to which he adhered and which he followed. The dis- putations concerned all the problems of religious law and every subject of jurisprudence. The differ- ence of opinion was on occasion between al-Shafi'i and Malik, with Abu Hanifah agreeing with one of them. Or it was between Malik and Abu Hanifah, with al-Shafi'i agreeing with one of them. Or it was between al-Shafi'i and Abu Hanifah, with Malik agreeing with one of them. The disputations clarified the sources of the authorities as well as the motives of their differences and the occasions when they exercised independent judgment. This kind of scholarship was called "controversial questions." The persons who cultivate it must know the basic rules through which laws can be evolved, just as they are known to scholars of independent judgment. However, the latter need those basic rules in order to find the law, while the former need them in order to guard the legal problems that have been evolved against destruction by the arguments of an opponent. It is, indeed, a very useful discipline. It affords acquaintance with the sources and evidence of the authorities, and gives students practice in arguing whatever they wish to prove. Works by Hanafites and Shafi'ites are more numerous on the subject than those by Malikites. As one knows, analogy is for the Hanafites a principle on which many details of their school depend. Therefore, they are the people who speculate and investigate. The Malikites, on the other hand, most- ly rely on tradition. They do not speculate. Furthermore, most of them are Maghribis who are Bedou- ins, who care only a little for the crafts. There are the following works on the subject: the Kitab al-Ma'akhidh by al-Ghazali, the Kitab al-Talkhis by the Malikite Abu Bakr b. al-'Arabi, who imported (the subject) from the East, the Kitab al-Ta'liqah by Abu Zayd al-Dabusi, and the ' Uyun al-Adillah by the Malikite Shaykh Ibn al-Qassar. In his Mukhtasar on the principles of jurisprudence, Ibn as-Sa'ati has collected all the controversial law that is based on the principles of jurisprudence. In connection with every problem, he noted the controversial questions that are based on it.