MAIN CAUSES OF THE DIVERSITY OF ISLAMIC SCHOOLS OF JURISPRUDENCE

الأسباب الرئيسة لتعدد المذاهب الفقهية

Abstract

This research examines a range of fundamental causes that led to differences among jurists in Islamic legal rulings. It presents applied examples from the lives of the Companions, the Successors, and leading mujtahid imams, while explaining the dimensions of each cause in detail. One of the primary reasons is the variation in scholars’ access to hadiths; some were unaware of certain narrations altogether, others received them through weak chains, or interpreted them differently. The second reason relates to the authentication of hadiths and the evaluation of narrators, where some scholars declared narrators reliable while others considered them weak. A further cause is the differing conditions for accepting solitary reports (khabar al-wāḥid), as some scholars required additional criteria such as the juristic expertise, integrity, or reputation of the narrator before accepting such reports. Additional important factors include forgetfulness of certain texts, lack of awareness of linguistic indications, ambiguity, and lexical homonymy, all of which significantly influence juristic inference. Moreover, some scholars may not have recognized whether certain individuals fall under general textual rulings, or they differed in understanding whether a term indicates a specific legal ruling. The emergence of legal schools (madhāhib) and the codification of their principles further expanded juristic differences, particularly due to methodological variations within the same school, where some prioritized direct evidence while others followed the established or dominant opinion. Other contributing factors include differences in the application of analogical reasoning (qiyās), blocking of means (sadd al-dharā’iʿ), and consideration of legal objectives (maqāṣid). Disagreements also arose in matters of abrogation (naskh), such as additions to texts or differences in temporal generality and specificity. The study also highlights the impact of scholarly contemporaneity and interaction, which further widened the scope of disagreement, as well as issues of textual conflict and the methods of reconciliation, abrogation, or preference among evidences. Linguistic ambiguity and lack of precision in understanding textual meanings are also major causes, alongside differences in foundational legal principles such as analogy, juristic preference (istiḥsān), the practice of a Companion’s opinion, and presumption of continuity (istiṣḥāb). These principles directly affect interpretive methodologies and lead to variation in legal conclusions.