Reasons For Differences

The Different approaches of the Ahl al-Hadeeth and Ahl arRa’I scholars may be traced to certain political factors combined with the differing socio-cultural backgrounds of the two areas in which their schools of thought flourished. From the time of the last Righteous Caliph, ‘Alee ibn Abee Taalib, the Cpital of the Islamic state was shifted first to Iraqand then to syria. Thus, the Hijaaz 106

was spared much of the turbulence and influx of foreign cultures and ideas which took place at the center of the state. Life in the Hijaaz continued to be easy-going and simple, due to its isolation. The Hijaaz was also the home of the Prophet (s.w.) and the birth-place of the Islamic state. Consequently, there was an abundance of Hadeeths in this region as well as a wealth of legal rulings made by the first three caliphs, Abu Bakr, ‘Umar, and ‘Uthmaan. On the other hand, Iraq was a new and strange land for Muslims. When capital of the Islamic State was stationed there, it became a virtual melting pot of various cultures and gave rise to a great number of situations and events, which were outside the experience of Muslim scholars of the time. Furthermore, because the number of Sahaabah who settled there was small, Hadeeths were not nearly as available there as in Hijaaz. Indeed, Iraq became the birth-place of fabricated Hadeeth as well as the breeding ground for most of the early deviant sects. Not being able to rely on the validity of quoted Hadeeth, the scholars of Iraq tended to rely on Hadeeth, to a lesser extent than did the scholars of the Hijaaz. The few Hadeeths which these Iraqi scholars considered accurate were only accepted after the fulfillment of very strict conditions. The natural result of this development was that the Iraqi school of thought and its scholars depended more on reason and logic than on the narrated Sunnah of the Prophet (s.w.).107