The four important schools of Sunni law, the Malikite, Hanafite, Shafi'ite and Hanbalite, that constitute the accepted schools of Shari'ah to the present day, thus came into being in the third Islamic century. Of these, the one with the least number of followers is the Hanbalite school which for long had its centre in Egypt and Syria and from whose background the Wahhabi movement began. The Shafi'ite school has always been strong in Egypt and to a certain extent in Syria. The Malikite school is completely dominant in North Africa and its followersconstitute the most homogeneous body in the realm of Sunni Law. As for the Hanafi school, it was the official school of the Ottomans and is widespread in Turkey, the eastern part of the Arab world and the Indo-Pakistani sub-continen

Ideals and realities of Islam On page 109 Saturday, January 5, 2013 @ 4:45pm