Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 27, 2025
The exact composition of the Azhar university is as follows. Of the five hundred and odd sheykhs or professors, two hundred are Shafite, two hundred Malekite, one hundred Hanefite, and five Hanbalite. Each of these sections has a supreme sheykh, chosen by itself, whose fetwa on questions concerning the school is decisive.
The Viceroy and the ruling clique, men of Ottoman origin, are Hanefites, and so too are the descendants of the Circassian Beys, but the leading merchants of Cairo and the common people of that city are Shafites, while the fellahin of the Delta are almost entirely Malekite. Malekite, too, are the tribes west of the Nile, following the general rule of the population of Africa.
It is undoubted that with the prestige of success against a Christian Power, and backed by the vast populations of Soudan and the fierce military fervour of the Malekite Arabs, an Abd el Kader or an Abd-el-Wahhab would attract the sympathy of Islam, and might aspire to its highest dignity.
The Malekite school of religious thought differs widely from the Hanefite. If the latter has been described as the high Church party of Islam, this must be described as the low. It is puritanical, fierce in its dogma, severe in its morals, and those who profess it are undoubtedly the most fervent, the most fanatical of believers.
The reform preached by Abd el Wahhab was radical. He began by breaking with the maxim held by the mass of the orthodox that inquiry on matters of faith was closed. He constituted himself a new mujtahed and founded a new school, neither Hanafite, Malekite, nor Shafite, and called it the school of the Unitarians, Muwaheddin, a name still cherished by the Wahhabites.
Even without pretending to the rank of an inspired guide, it is certain that a man of zeal and character might in the present crisis easily persuade the Malekite Arabs to reform their moral practice, if necessary to asceticism, by proving to them that they would thus regain their ascendancy in arms.
Indeed a rather striking analogy may be traced between these three phases of English church teaching and the three so-called "orthodox sects" of Islam. The three Mohammedan schools are the Hanefite, the Malekite, and the Shafite, while a fourth, the Hanbalite, is usually added, but it numbers at the present day so few followers that we need not notice it. A few words will describe each of these.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking