The Jariri school is the name given to a short-lived Sunni school of

fiqh ''Fiqh'' (; ) is the term for Islamic jurisprudence.Fiqh
Encyclopædia Britannica ''Fiqh'' is of ...

that was derived from the work of

al-Tabari Abū Jaʿfar Muḥammad ibn Jarīr ibn Yazīd al-Ṭabarī (; 839–923 CE / 224–310 AH), commonly known as al-Ṭabarī (), was a Sunni Muslim scholar, polymath, historian, exegete, jurist, and theologian from Amol, Tabaristan, present- ...

, the 9th and 10th-century

Muslim Muslims () are people who adhere to Islam, a Monotheism, monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God ...

scholar in

Baghdad Baghdad ( or ; , ) is the capital and List of largest cities of Iraq, largest city of Iraq, located along the Tigris in the central part of the country. With a population exceeding 7 million, it ranks among the List of largest cities in the A ...

. Although it eventually became extinct, al-Tabari's

madhhab A ''madhhab'' (, , pl. , ) refers to any school of thought within fiqh, Islamic jurisprudence. The major Sunni Islam, Sunni ''madhhab'' are Hanafi school, Hanafi, Maliki school, Maliki, Shafi'i school, Shafi'i and Hanbali school, Hanbali. They ...

flourished among

Sunni Sunni Islam is the largest branch of Islam and the largest religious denomination in the world. It holds that Muhammad did not appoint any successor and that his closest companion Abu Bakr () rightfully succeeded him as the caliph of the Mu ...

ulama for two centuries after his death.

Principles

University of Oxford The University of Oxford is a collegiate university, collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the List of oldest un ...

lecturer Christopher Melchert describes the Jariri school as semi-rationalist, similar to the Shafi‘i school. It also shared features with the

Ẓāhirī The Zahiri school or Zahirism is a Madhhab#Sunni, school of Fiqh, Islamic jurisprudence within Madhhab#Sunni, Sunni Islam. It was named after Dawud al-Zahiri and flourished in Spain during the Caliphate of Córdoba under the leadership of Ibn Haz ...

school in addition to the Shafi‘is. Al-Tabari was characterized by strong scriptural tendencies but from within a limited time frame. He appears, like

Dawud al-Zahiri Dāwūd ibn ʿAlī ibn Khalaf al-Ẓāhirī (; 815–883 CE / 199–269 AH) was a Sunni Islam, Sunnī Muslim Ulama, scholar, Faqīh, jurist, and Islamic theology, theologian during the Islamic Golden Age, specialized in the study of Sharia, Isl ...

, to restrict consensus historically, defining it as the transmission by many authorities of reports on which the

Sahaba The Companions of the Prophet () were the Muslim disciples and followers of the Islamic prophet Muhammad who saw or met him during his lifetime. The companions played a major role in Muslim battles, society, hadith narration, and governance ...

agreed unanimously. Like Dawud al-Zahiri, he also held that consensus must be tied to a text and cannot be based on legal analogy. After quoting his sources—in his major works, he depended essentially on existing written works and reports—he gives what he considers to be the most acceptable view. However, his most notable difference with his contemporaries was his emphasis on Ijtihad and independent exercise of judgement. These views were shared by many influential scholars in history that reached the rank of

Mujtahid ''Ijtihad'' ( ; ' , ) is an Islamic legal term referring to independent reasoning by an expert in Islamic law, or the thorough exertion of a jurist's mental faculty in finding a solution to a legal question. It is contrasted with '' taqlid'' (i ...

(scholars who allowed to open their own Madhhab due to their knowledge vastness) such as

Ibn Kathir Abu al-Fida Isma'il ibn Umar ibn Kathir al-Dimashqi (; ), known simply as Ibn Kathir, was an Arab Islamic Exegesis, exegete, historian and scholar. An expert on (Quranic exegesis), (history) and (Islamic jurisprudence), he is considered a lea ...

Ibn Taymiyyah Ibn Taymiyya (; 22 January 1263 – 26 September 1328)Ibn Taymiyya, Taqi al-Din Ahmad, The Oxford Dictionary of Islam. http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780195125580.001.0001/acref-9780195125580-e-959 was a Sunni Muslim ulama, ...

Ibn Hazm Ibn Hazm (; November 994 – 15 August 1064) was an Andalusian Muslim polymath, historian, traditionist, jurist, philosopher, and theologian, born in the Córdoban Caliphate, present-day Spain. Described as one of the strictest hadith interpre ...

, Bukhari, and

Zahiri The Zahiri school or Zahirism is a school of Islamic jurisprudence within Sunni Islam. It was named after Dawud al-Zahiri and flourished in Spain during the Caliphate of Córdoba under the leadership of Ibn Hazm. It was also followed by the majo ...

Maddhab scholars. The Jariri school was frequently in conflict with the

Hanafi The Hanafi school or Hanafism is the oldest and largest Madhhab, school of Islamic jurisprudence out of the four schools within Sunni Islam. It developed from the teachings of the Faqīh, jurist and theologian Abu Hanifa (), who systemised the ...

school of

Abu Hanifa Abu Hanifa (; September 699 CE – 767 CE) was a Muslim scholar, jurist, theologian, ascetic,Pakatchi, Ahmad and Umar, Suheyl, "Abū Ḥanīfa", in: ''Encyclopaedia Islamica'', Editors-in-Chief: Wilferd Madelung and, Farhad Daftary. and epony ...

. Conflict was found with the Hanafi school on the matter of juristic preference, which the Jariri school censured severely.

References

{{reflist Schools of Sunni jurisprudence Muhammad ibn Jarir al-Tabari