Ḥanbalī school

Ḥanbalī school, in Islam, one of the four Sunni schools of religious law, known especially for its role in the codification of early theological doctrine. Based on the teachings of Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal (780–855), the Ḥanbalī legal school (madhhab) emphasized the authority of the Hadith (traditions concerning the Prophet Muhammad’s life and utterances) and of the precedent set by the early generations of Muslims. It was deeply suspicious of speculative legal reasoning (raʾy) and analogy (qiyās) and rejected their use to overrule hadiths or to contravene early precedent. Between the 11th and 13th centuries, Iraqi Ḥanbalīs experienced a period of intellectual efflorescence and social prominence, counting philosophers and caliphal viziers among their number. By contrast, the Levantine Ḥanbalīs, whose quietist Damascene school rose to prominence after the Mongol invasion in the 13th century, maintained staunchly traditionalist theological norms. The Syrian Ḥanbalī scholar Ibn Taymiyyah (1263–1328) synthesized the two approaches, inspiring the 18th-century Wahhābī movement of central Arabia as well as the modernist Salafiyyah movement of 19th- and 20th-century Syria and Egypt. Beginning in the 20th century the Ḥanbalī school was broadly disseminated via Saudi Arabia, where it constitutes the official school of law.