The madhhab

In legal usage a madhhab is a way of reasoning and deriving rulings, traced to an imam and his students. The four famous Sunni schools are the Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi'i and Hanbali.

A madhhab is a way scholars use to understand religion and derive its rulings, named after a known imam and his students. The four best-known Sunni schools are the Hanafi, the Maliki, the Shafi'i and the Hanbali.

In the legal sense a madhhab is a method of reasoning and derivation traced to an imam and his followers. Jurists speak of the four schools: Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi'i and Hanbali. They differ on the principles of inference, on giving priority to analogy, juristic preference or public interest, on following the companions' opinions, and on many details of the branches, all of them efforts of reasoning based on the text. The museum presents the schools as methods of understanding and deriving rulings, does not prefer one over another, and states each school's known principles with their source.