Hanafi and Shafi'i Madhabs (Schools) of Fiqh: Formation, Evolution, Modern State

The increasing number of Muslims, including convert people, causes the need of being educated in the basic laws of Islam. Studying the evolution of the Madhabs (schools of Islamic legal thought) over the centuries is important because this information helps people to use correct application of these laws (Philips, 1988, Iaman, 2005). The overall purpose of the present study is to identify the current state of each school of Fiqh and to determine the process of ideology change in order to understand how the various Mazkhabs came about. Although a number of researches was focused on history, the process of development and evolution of schools (Hallaq, 2005), none of them reveals the current state and principles of each school. In order to achieve this goal, the method of analysis is necessary to observe the principles of ideology changes of Madhabs. Next, the functional method is used in order to implement the current state of schools. The results of this research may aid people who converted Islam and in addition be relevant for scientists. Moreover, the outcomes of the study will give a clear idea about classification of Madhabs and their correlation. Keywords: Fiqh, Madhabs, evolution, ideology, law