Analog and Consensus of Islamic Religion

As one of the Islamic tradition, the creation of the law was a significant accomplishment in Islamic history. After the disordered period when the numerous schools of religious law emerged, a unified jurisprudence -- “Shari’a” finally was established in the tenth century. The term of “Shari’a” used to refer to the path leading to the water hole in the desert; now, it represented the rules that Muslims needed to follow, which means the Islamic law. Followed by the emergence of “Shari’a”, Sunni experienced the consolidation of the Madhhabs which referred to the different schools of law; Shii, on the other hand, developed its own madhhabs distinguishing from the Sunni madhhabs.
The four sources of Shari’a included Qur’an, Hadith, analogy and consensus. The Qur’an and Hadith are the two primary sources, and analogy and consensus represented the interpretation of the law. The Qur’an, which originally was written by the Prophets, recorded Muhammad’s own examples of facing the confliction of life. In the sixth century, the Qadi (judge) endowed Qur’an with legal meaning. Thus, Qur’an eventually represented the principle of the rules of daily life for Muslims. Hadith originally represented the collection of Muhammad’s saying and behaviors under certain circumstances. Because there has been 600,000 Hadith since the sixth century, Al-Bukhari and other tradition collectors started evaluating the internal evidence of the Hadith and determining whether those traditions were worth to be passed through generations. After the evaluation, only 2700 Hadith was included in al-Bikhari’s collection. Therefore, the Qadi and ulama (religious scholar) determined the Qur’an and Hadith to be the standards of legal practice.
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However, the Q...

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...s of Sunni significantly influenced the uniformity of Muslim communities during the High Caliphate. The period of the High Caliphate exhibited that the bureaucracy was highly centralized. The unified content of Islamic law helped the government to maintain centralized political power by providing a common identity to the Muslims.
All in all, after the period of a disordered judicial condition, “Shari’a” finally became the authorized rule of Muslim life. Judged would use the four basic sources of Shari’a as the guide in the court. Sunni and Shii developed their own madhhabs based on the four essential sourced of the Shari’a: Qur’an, Hadith, analogy and consensus. The emergence of the Shari’a not only contributed to unify the numerous schools of law, but also helped the government to establish the common identity to the Muslim communities.