The Zahiri school or Zahirism, also known as Ahl al-Dhahir or Ahl al-Wahi, is a school of Islamic jurisprudence within Sunni Islam. The school's name derives from the Arabic dhāhir (ظاهر), meaning "apparent" or "manifest", reflecting its emphasis on the apparent meaning of the Qur'ān and Sunnah. Dawud al-Zahiri, one of its earliest proponents, likewise took his epithet from this approach. The school flourished in Spain during the Caliphate of Córdoba under the leadership of Ibn Hazm. It was also followed by the majority of Muslims in Mesopotamia, Portugal, the Balearic Islands, and North Africa. The Zahiri school lost its presence around the 14th-century. The school is considered to be endangered, but it continues to exert influence over legal thought. Today it is followed by minority communities in Morocco and Pakistan.
The Zahiri school is characterized by strict adherence to textual evidence and reliance on the outward (ẓāhir) meaning of expressions in the Quran and a limited amount of ḥadīth literature; the consensus (ijmāʿ) of the first generation of Muhammad's closest companions (ṣaḥāba) excluding the scholars, for sources of Islamic law (sharīʿa); and rejection of analogical deduction (qiyās) and societal custom or knowledge (urf), used by other schools of Islamic jurisprudence, although the anti-Hazm wing of Zahiris sometimes accept Qiyas Al Jali and usually religious inference ().
After a limited success and decline in the Middle East, the Zahiri school flourished in Islamic Iberia, particularly under the leadership of the Andalusian Muslim jurist Ibn Hazm. The Zahiri school is said to have lingered on in various locations under various manifestations before being superseded by the Hanbali school.
History
Emergence During his formative years, al-Ẓāhirī relocated from Kufa to Baghdad and studied the prophetic traditions (ḥadīth) and Quranic exegesis (tafsīr) with a number of notable Muslim scholars of the time,Encyclopedia of Islam, vol. II, C-G, pg. 182. Eds. Bernard Lewis, Charles Pellat and Joseph Schacht. Assist. J. Burton-Page, C. Dumont and V.L. Menage. Leiden: Brill Publishers, 1971. Photomechanical print. including Abū Thawr, Yaḥyā ibn Maʿīn, and Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal.Al-Dhahabi, , v.13, Entry 55, pp. 97–108Abu Ishaq al-Faqih, Tabaqat al-Fuqaha, pg.92 His study under renowned figures of traditionalist theology (Atharī) was in contrast to the views of his father, who was a follower of the Ḥanafī school.Christopher Melchert, The Formation of the Sunni Schools of Law: 9th–10th Centuries C.E., pg. 179. Leiden: Brill Publishers, 1997.Dr. Omar A. Farrukh, Zaharism, A History of Muslim Philosophy, Ahlul Bayt Digital Islamic Library ProjectGoldziher, pg.28Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani, Lisan al-Mizan, v.2, pg.422Al-Dhahabi, Mizan al-'Itidal, v.2, pg.15 Indian Muslim reformist Chiragh Ali has suggested that Ẓāhirī's school was, like that of Ibn Ḥanbal, actually a direct reaction to the Ḥanafī system of jurisprudence.
The Ẓāhirī school was initially called the Dāwūdi school after Dawud al-Ẓāhirī himself, and attracted many adherents, although they felt free to criticize his views, in line with the Ẓāhirī school's rejection of legal conformity (taqlīd). Alongside the Ḥanbali jurists, Ẓāhiris constituted one of the major schools that originated from the Ahl al-Ḥadīth school, which advocated the superiority of the Quran, ḥadīth literature, and sunnah (accounts of the sayings and living habits attributed to the Islamic prophet Muhammad during his lifetime) in legal jurisdiction, and denied the validity of logic (‘āql) as an independent source of Islamic law. By the end of the 10th century, members of the madhhab were appointed as judges (qāḍī) in Baghdad, Shiraz, Isfahan, Firuzabad, Ramla, Damascus, Fustat, and Bukhara.Christopher Melchert, The Formation of the Sunni Schools of Law: 9th-10th Centuries C.E., p. 190. Leiden: Brill Publishers, 1997.
Umm al-Qura University professor Abdul Aziz al-Harbi has argued that the first generation of Muhammad's closest companions (ṣaḥāba) followed the methods and rulings of the Ẓāhirī school, and therefore it can be regarded as "the school of the first generation."Falih al-Dhibyani, Al-zahiriyya hiya al-madhhab al-awwal, wa al-mutakallimun 'anha yahrifun bima la ya'rifun . Interview with Okaz. 15 July 2006, Iss. #1824. Photography by Salih Ba Habri.
Westward expansion Parallel to the school's development in the east, Ẓāhirī ideas were introduced to North Africa by theologians of the Maliki school who were engaged in lively debates with the Hanafi school, and to the Iberian Peninsula by one of Dawud al-Ẓāhirī's direct students. Unlike Abbasid lands, where the Ẓāhirī school developed in parallel and in opposition to other madhhabs (chiefly Hanafi, Shafi‘i, and Hanbali), in the West it only had to contend with its Maliki counterpart, which enjoyed official support of the Umayyad rulers. Starting in the late 9th century CE, an increasing number of "hir" scholars emerged in various regions of the Iberian peninsula, but none of their works have survived.
It was not until the rise of the Almohads that the Ẓāhirī school enjoyed official state sponsorship. While not all of the Almohad political leaders were Ẓāhirīs, a large plurality of them were not only adherents but were well-versed theologians in their own right.Adang, "The Spread of Zahirism in al-Andalus in the Post-Caliphal Period: The evidence from the biographical dictionaries," pp. 297–346. Taken from Ideas, Images and Methods of Portrayal: Insights into Classical Arabic Literature and Islam. Ed. Sebastian Gunther, Leiden: 2005. Additionally, all Almohad leaders – both the religiously learned and the laymen – were extremely hostile toward the Malikis, giving the Ẓāhirīs and in a few cases the Shafi‘is free rein to author works and run the judiciary. In the late 12th century, any religious material written by non-Ẓāhirīs was at first banned and later burned in the empire under the Almohad reforms.Kees Versteegh, The Arabic Linguistic Tradition, p. 142. Part of Landmarks in Linguistic Thought series, vol. 3. New York City: Routledge, 1997. Shawqi Daif, Introduction to Ibn Mada's Refutation of the Grammarians, p. 6. Cairo, 1947.
Decline
The Ẓāhirī school enjoyed its widest expansion and prestige in the fourth Islamic century, especially through the works of Ibn al-Mughallis, but in the fifth century it lost ground to the Hanbalite school.Mohammad Sharif Khan and Mohammad Anwar Saleem, Muslim Philosophy And Philosophers, pg. 34. New Delhi: Ashish Publishing House, 1994. Even after the Zahiri school became extinct in Baghdad, it continued to have some followers in Shiraz.Hossein Nasr and Morteza Motahhari, "The Religious Sciences." Taken from The Cambridge History of Iran, Vol. 4: From the Arab Invasion to the Saljuqs. p. 476. Ed. Richard N. Frye. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. Ẓāhirism maintained its prestige in Syria until 788 A.H. and had an even longer and deeper impact in Egypt. In the 14th century C.E., the Zahiri Revolt marked both a brief rekindling of interest in the school's ideas as well as affirmation of its status as a non-mainstream ideology. Al-Muhalla, a medieval manual on Ẓāhirī jurisprudence, served in part as inspiration for the revolt and as a primary source of the school's positions.Carl Brockelmann, Geschichte der Arabischen Litteratur. Zweite den Supplementbänden angepasste Auflage. Vol. 1, p. 400. Leiden: Brill Publishers, 1937–1949. However, soon afterwards the school ceased to function and in the 14th century Ibn Khaldun considered it to be extinct. With the Reconquista and the loss of Iberia to Christian rule, most works of Ẓāhirī law and legal theory were lost as well, with the school only being carried on by individual scholars, once again on the periphery.
Wael Hallaq has argued that the rejection of qiyas (analogical reasoning) in Ẓāhirī methodology led to exclusion of the school from the Sunni juridical consensus and ultimately its extinction in the pre-modern era. Christopher Melchert suggests that the association of the Ẓāhirī school with Mu'tazilite theology, its difficulty in attracting the right patronage, and its reliance on outmoded methods of teaching have all contributed to its decline.
Modern history The Zahiri school became extinct around the 14th-century. It was sometimes characterized as a fifth school of thought (madhhab) within Sunni Islam, In particular, members of the Ahl-i Hadith movement have identified themselves with the Ẓāhirī school of thought.Wiederhold, Lutz. "Legal–Religious Elite, Temporal Authority, and the Caliphate in Mamluk Society: Conclusions Drawn from the Examination of a “Zahiri Revolt” in Damascus in 1386." International Journal of Middle East Studies 31.2 (1999): 203-235. In the modern era, the Ẓāhirī school has been described as "somewhat influential", though "not formally operating today". In particular, adherents of the modern-day Ahl-i Hadith movement in India and Pakistan have self-consciously emulated the ideas of the Ẓāhirī school and identified themselves with it.Daniel W. Brown, Rethinking Tradition in Modern Islamic Thought: Vol. 5 of Cambridge Middle East Studies, pp. 28 and 32. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996. M. Mahmood, The Code of Muslim Family Laws, p. 37. Pakistan Law Times Publications, 2006. 6th ed. The family of Hasan al-Hudaybi reportedly was Zahiri. Modernist revival of the general critique by Ibn Hazm – the school's most prominent representative – of Islamic legal theory among Muslim academics has seen several key moments in recent Arab intellectual history, including Ahmad Shakir's republishing of Al-Muhalla, Muhammad Abu Zahra's biography of Ibn Hazm, and the republishing of archived epistles on Ẓāhirī legal theory by Sa'id al-Afghani in 1960 and Ihsan Abbas between 1980 and 1983.Adam Sabra, "Ibn Hazm's Literalism: A Critique of Islamic Legal Theory." Taken from: Ibn Ḥazm of Cordoba: The Life and Works of a Controversial Thinker, pg. 98. Volume 103 of Handbook of Oriental Studies, Section 1: The Near and Middle East. Eds. Camilla Adang, Maribel Fierro, and Sabine Schmidtke. Leiden: Brill Publishers, 2012. In 2004 the Amman Message recognized the Ẓāhirī school as legitimate, although it did not include it among Sunni madhhabs, and the school also received recognition from Sudan's former Islamist Prime Minister, Sadiq al-Mahdi.Hassan Ahmed Ibrahim, "An Overview of al-Sadiq al-Madhi's Islamic Discourse." Taken from The Blackwell Companion to Contemporary Islamic Thought, p. 172. Ed. Ibrahim Abu-Rabi'. Hoboken: Wiley-Blackwell, 2008. The literalist school of thought represented by the Ẓāhirī madhhab remains prominent among many scholars and laymen associated with the Salafi movement, and traces of it can be found in the modern-day Salafi movement. The school experienced a revival in the Islamic State. There have been attempts to revive the school in the mid-20th century.
Principles