Ebu Hanife, Malik, Shafiya and Ahmad are the leading spirits of
Islamic thought. Their reasoning in the domain of Shari’ah made them
the unavoidable sources for all generations of Muslims throughout
history. The most obvious proof for that is the four great law schools that
have endured the time and that had been founded and defined by these
four great imams.
It is less known that these four great intellectual figures made great
contributions to the Hadith. All four of them were hufaz of the Hadith and
that is the greatest merit in the field of Islamic science. Their outstanding
knowledge of the conveyors of hediths, critical interpretation of each of
them, their knowledge of the Hadith text and its underlying deficiencies
made them an unavoidable part in founding this Islamic science.
These four leading spirits of Islamic thought are equally great
experts in the field of Fikh – Shari’ah law and they are better known for
this in the world.
In this paper we discuss only some of the aspect of the great
imams’ contributions to the Hadith science.
Keywords: Ebu Hanife, Malik, Shafiya, Ahmad, hadith sciences
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