The Fifth Stage: Consolidation (950CE - 1258CE)

The Fifth Stage: Consolidation (950CE – 1258CE)

The stage of Consolidation lasted 300 years. 1258CE represents the time when Baghdad was sacked; when the Mongols captured it and destroyed the Islamic libraries. This was a major turning point in history, and represented the end of the Abbasid Dynasty.

The number of Islamic Schools of Thought dwindled until they reached the main four that we know of now. The Hanbali Madh’hab was a minor Madh’hab – and the main three at this time were the Maliki, Shafi’i, and Hanafi Madh'habs.

The common people came to understand that Islam was limited to these four schools. The other schools were forgotten to the laymen and these four schools became entities in and of themselves.

There was a rise in fabricated narrations to justify the existence of these four. It started in this period and got worse as time went on.

The scholars were labeled under the schools they studied under. It became such a standard that no one even questioned it.

The scholars began the practice of analyzing the rulings of their founding fathers, as the founding scholars analyzed the Qur’anic texts, Hadithic texts, and the rulings of the Sahabah to draw out principles. The scholars of this era no longer went back to the Qur’an and the Sunnah and the sayings of the companions, they went back to the people whom they designated as the founders of their schools, and went back to see what principles they could deduce from their rulings. They saw certain patterns of analysis which their scholars used and codified it, instead of going back to the Qur’an and Sunnah to make Ijtihad on a specific issue. It became “Ijtihad Madh’habi”. 

They would not override the rulings of the founding scholars. They rarely differed with the founding scholars with regards to the Usool, but they may have differed with regards to the secondary principles.

We find the process of Ijtihad coming to a halt.

This was a mistake. Shari’ah is unchangeable because it’s based on revelation but Fiqh is variable based on information. That was a fundamental difference.

The scholars of this era were not going back and varying the rulings of Fiqh by their earlier scholars, they built on top of it, and considered it fixed like the Shari’ah itself.

Because they wouldn’t go back to the Qur’an and Sunnah to make Ijtihad, their rulings only focused on the earlier scholars, and basically focused on the principle of Tarjeeh.

We have different statements of a given issue, because the earlier students didn’t have a problem with differing from the founding scholars. What this later generation did, was rather than go back to the sources and weigh these differences and choose what they considered the right one, they would use the authentic narrations attributed to the founding fathers and favour one over another among those early rulings. It would usually be according to what the majority of the scholars of the madh’hab favoured.

Or a given scholar may have made two statements, and they may go with his earlier statement, if more scholars supported it, even if he stated that his later statement was more accurate based on further evidence.

It was all within the confines of the Mad’hab; Moulding and cleaning up what had already existed.

It made the process of establishing rulings a lot of easier, because things were organized and streamlined. That was a good development, but at the same time you’ve made the Madh’hab into a clear separate entity. You’ve limited your whole view to a very narrow field.

The Madh’habs became so systematized that Fiqh as a science developed its own format of presentation. And the Fiqh books developed a standard format which remains until today.

The topics covered are according to the 5 pillars of Islam, and they wouldn’t go into Eeman because they left that for Aqeedah. They start with Taharah, then Salah, then Fasting, then Zakaat, then Hajj. Following that they would go to Nikah, then Talaq, then to Business Transactions and close it off with Manners.

In this period, they would present all the proofs in the chapter. But what the author would then do is systematically undermine the arguments of the other Madh’habs and then establish why the opinion of his Madh’hab was in fact the correct opinion. He would do this at the cost of evidence.

E.g. Raising the hands in prayer after the beginning Takbir. This was strictly rejected by the Hanafi school. 

If we look at the evidences, the Hadith pertaining to the raising of hands reached the level of Tawatur (its been narrated by so many companions it would be impossible to agree that it’s a lie). The evidence is overwhelming. There is also evidence, however, that you don’t have to raise your hands. This tells us that there were times when the Prophet raised his hands and times where he didn't. So it's okay not to do so. But the scholars of the Hanafi School in that period set about trying to undermine the Hadiths of the raising of the hands. You’ll find attacks to the narrators of these Hadiths. Some went as far as to say Bukhari was a Shafi’i. You find them even bringing fabricated Hadiths to defend the non-raising of the hand.

False narrations were invented to defend the Madh'habs, some going on to say that the Prophet predicted the coming of these Madh'habs.

So there was a rise in comparative Fiqh texts, but it was done with a bias.