Ahl al-Ra'y ( ar, أهل الرأي or 'liberal theologians', ''aṣḥāb al-raʾy'', advocates of ''ra'y'', 'common sense' or 'rational discretion') were an early Islamic movement advocating the use of reasoning to arrive at legal decisions.

Encyclopedia of Islam The ''Encyclopaedia of Islam'' (''EI'') is an encyclopaedia of the academic discipline of Islamic studies published by Brill. It is considered to be the standard reference work in the field of Islamic studies. The first edition was published i ...

(3rd ed.
Ahl al- raʾy
/ref> They were one of three main groups debating sources of Islamic law in the second century of Islam, the other two being '' ahl al-kalam'' (speculative theologians) and ''

ahl al-hadith Ahl al-Ḥadīth ( ar, أَهْل الحَدِيث, translation=The People of Hadith) was an Islamic school of Sunni Islam that emerged during the 2nd/3rd Islamic centuries of the Islamic era (late 8th and 9th century CE) as a movement of hadith ...

'' (the partisans of hadith who eventually prevailed). Its proponents, which included many early jurists of the

Hanafi The Hanafi school ( ar, حَنَفِية, translit=Ḥanafiyah; also called Hanafite in English), Hanafism, or the Hanafi fiqh, is the oldest and one of the four traditional major Sunni schools ( maddhab) of Islamic Law (Fiqh). It is named a ...

school, used the term ''ra'y'' to refer to "sound" or "considered" reasoning, such as '' qiyas'' (analogical deduction). Their opponents from the ''

'' movement held that the Quran and authentic

hadith Ḥadīth ( or ; ar, حديث, , , , , , , literally "talk" or "discourse") or Athar ( ar, أثر, , literally "remnant"/"effect") refers to what the majority of Muslims believe to be a record of the words, actions, and the silent approva ...

were the only admissible sources of Islamic law, and objected to any use of ''ra'y'' in jurisprudence, whether in the form of ''qiyas'', ''

istislah ''Istislah'' (Arabic استصلاح "to deem proper") is a method employed by Islamic jurists to solve problems that find no clear answer in sacred religious texts. It is related to the term مصلحة ''Maslaha'', or "public interest" (both words ...

'' (consideration of public interest), or '' hiyal'' (legal subterfuges). According to Daniel W. Brown, ''Ahl al- raʾy'' thought a hadith should "sometimes be subject to other overriding principles" such as the "continuous practice" of the

Ummah ' (; ar, أمة ) is an Arabic word meaning "community". It is distinguished from ' ( ), which means a nation with common ancestry or geography. Thus, it can be said to be a supra-national community with a common history. It is a synonym for ' ...

(Muslim community) and "general principles of equity" which better represented "the spirit" of the Prophet of Islam. Over time, Hanafi and Maliki jurists gradually came to accept the primacy of the Quran and hadith advocated by the ''ahl al-hadith'' movement, restricting the use of other forms of legal reasoning to interpretation of these scriptures. In turn,

Hanbali The Hanbali school ( ar, ٱلْمَذْهَب ٱلْحَنۢبَلِي, al-maḏhab al-ḥanbalī) is one of the four major traditional Sunni schools (''madhahib'') of Islamic jurisprudence. It is named after the Arab scholar Ahmad ibn Hanbal ...

jurists, who had led the ''ahl al-hadith'' movement, gradually came to accept the use of ''qiyas'' as long as its application was strictly founded on scriptural sources.

References

Hanafi Sunni Islam Schools of Sunni jurisprudence Islamic theology Islamic philosophical schools {{Islam-stub

See also

References