He was crying while I was talking to him about the tragedy of the Ahlul Bayt (a.

He was crying while I was talking to him about the tragedy of the Ahlul Bayt (a.s.). He was an Egyptian physician who loved the Ahlul Bayt (a.s.) too much. He said to me, “Be delighted my brother! I did not think that you would convince us so easily. I was warned about you by some fanatic persons who did not like you, but by the grace of Allah and by your influential and truthful speech, you could affect their hearts…yes by Allah!” [^1]: Ibn Khaldun in his Muqaddimah (p.

411), shows the cause of the difference between the first companions and the imams (of the Sunni) who came later by saying, “The new events are not covered by the (religious) texts, and for what is not clear in texts, it is required to turn to other (texts) when there is similarity between them (events).

And all these things cause disagreement which necessarily takes place.” It is clear that there came widespread dispersal of the companions and the second generation that came after them in different countries and towns. Some of them were appointed as judges or were in charge of giving fatwas. It led to differences in their theories and ijtihad (personal reasoning in giving a certain fatwa on a certain event).

These differences arose depending on the situation of the country they lived in and the personality of the jurisprudent himself when facing different questions. As a result, two schools came to light for them. First, the School of Opinion that was famous among the Iraqis. The most prominent one of this school were Abu Haneefah an-Nu’man ibn al-Munthir in Kufa and his disciples and adherents. This school had some characteristics.

One, they used branchings and then violated them - even the imaginary and abstract things. Therefore, they would often say, “what do you think if it was so”, then they asked about a contradictory situation, and then derived a ruling for that situation. Then, they turned the question over and over - upside down considering all its possible aspects, until they were called by the scholars of Hadith as Ara’aytiyyun (in Arabic, ‘…do you think…’ is ‘a ra’ayta’).

Secondly, they narrated and trusted in a few traditions and only according to certain conditions. So, only a few traditions were accepted by them, some of which were so excessive in nature, that it was thought not to depend on Prophet’s traditions at all. Their argument in this was that they suspected the narrators of Hadith and there was much doubting in traditions about narrators.