THE CONTRIBUTION OF THE FOUR IMAMS TO THE HADITH SCIENCE

Abstract

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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