The Four Imams of Fiqh

Abu Hanifa, Malik, al-Shafii and Ahmad ibn Hanbal shape the four enduring schools of Sunni law.

Within a century and a half, four scholars of extraordinary piety and rigor systematized how the Quran and Sunnah answer daily life. Abu Hanifa in Kufa, Malik in Madinah with his Muwatta, al-Shafii who wrote al-Risalah and founded legal theory, and Ahmad ibn Hanbal whose Musnad gathered tens of thousands of narrations. They honored one another, and their schools still guide most of the Muslim world.