The same state of things prevails in the statements of tradition in matters of law and religion. Each statement, cast into the traditional form, and relying for authentication in the first instance upon the testimony of an actual eye-witness, professes to show the practice of the prophet at certain times of prayer, or what judgment was given by him or his companions in certain legal questions. During the first century of Islamism divergencies of practice in minor details of law and worship had grown up in different congregations of believers. Every one of these divergent forms can appeal to the authority of a formal and well-attested traditional account, with a sanad in which the names of the most trustworthy witnesses are adduced in support of theses diametrically opposed to one another.
In order to obviate this incongruity, there soon developed in Islam a science of textual criticism, a study in which Islamite erudition outstripped that of Europe by several centuries. Its object was to decide the claims of the various authorities, to judge of the degree of credit to be given to each, to weigh the possibility that sectarian or party tendencies might have vitiated the bona fides of men otherwise above reproach. The climax of this work of criticism is to be found in certain systematised compilations of traditions, the editors of which start with the definite object of sifting what appears to them authentic out of the vast body of obviously spurious material. The most famous of these compilations are those of Buchari (died 870) and Muslim (died 875). The general consent of Islam presently invested these compilations with canonical authority.
Other works of the same kind were also held in great honour. In course of time other compilations from among those made in the ninth century were added to the first two, and in these the sifting of tradition was carried out upon the most liberal principles. From the thirteenth century onward, six codices have been recognised as the sources of authentic traditional records. Out of these theological science gathers the evidence of tradition in questions of law, and with the Koran, they constitute the canonical literature of Islam.
Judged by a scientific criterion, only a very small part, if any, of the contents of these canonical compilations can be confidently referred to the early period from which they profess to date. Minute study soon reveals the presence of the tendencies and aspirations of a later day, the working of a spirit which wrests the record in favour of one or other of the opposing theses in certain disputed questions.
What we gather from these traditional authorities is by no means a homogeneous system of instruction. The voice of thoroughly well-attested tradition can be quoted in support of the most diverse, nay, of the most contradictory teachings on certain points of ritual and law. This is one of the principal causes of divergences of practice in minor details of religious usage and of the law. These differences, together with the vexed question of the use of the subjective factor in legal deduction, lie at the root of the controversies between the four great schools of law (the founders of which we have already enumerated) which occupy the whole field of orthodox Islam. These schools are in accord upon the great fundamental doctrines of religion, and the outward differences in practice are not regarded as elements of division. The Islamites consider them of equal validity, with equal claims to pass for orthodox.
Sunnite Islam early formulated and put into the mouth of Mohammed the doctrine that “Differences of opinion in my congregation are to be regarded as tokens of the mercy of God.” Like Lessing, the Islamites think that all trees cannot have the same bark. It is therefore a great error, and one which leads to a total misunderstanding of the whole character of Islam, to describe these four currents of thought, or madsahib, as the Mohammedans call them, as “sects,” or use such language as recently appeared in a widely circulated journal, which said: “We need only recall the question which resulted in a schism in Islam, as to whether ablutions should be begun at the elbow or at the wrist.” (Münchener Allgemeine Zeitung, Beilage No. 209, Sept. 12th, 1901.) The fact that these differences of ritual exist cannot be denied. But schisms take their rise from dogmatic and juridical questions of a far more radical character, and lie far beyond the sphere of the points in controversy between the four schools of the law.
On the other hand, in the present state of the Islamite world, orthodoxy is wholly confined to these four main schools of thought, which rank as the right and recognised modalities of correct religious usage and of the practical interpretation of the law. To borrow an image from philology, they and they alone are legitimate dialects of the one fundamental language of Islam. Quintum non datur. Zealous religious associations, which take their stand on the fundamental principles of Islam, yet cannot be classed in either of these four categories, are looked upon as dissenters of dubious character, although they themselves regard it as their one object in life to purify Islam and imbue it with fresh vigour. They are styled chums or chawamis, from a word meaning “fifth,” to mark their independence of the four parallel streams of orthodoxy. Such, for example, are the Senussis, a religious association in north Africa, whose proceedings are at present engaging the serious attention of the leaders of French colonial policy. They are not adherents of the school of Malik, which predominates in north Africa, and are therefore regarded as chawamis by the Moslem “high churchmen” of the locality.
One of the cardinal points of orthodox Islam in every sphere of religion and law is the “general consent and practice of the whole body of believers” (consensus ecclesiæ). The Arabic name for this mighty principle is ijma. The general consent of the whole body of believers on certain points of faith and law is of binding force, no less than Scripture and tradition. Nay, even the authority of all the primary sources of the Islamite religious system, as historically developed, derives its force from this consensus, which constitutes its principal title to recognition. The acceptance of such compilations of tradition as are received as canonical, and subsequently of the standard juridical codes, rests on no other legal basis than this general consent of the whole body of believers, by which they have been invested with binding authority. This great principle—which, if any man fail to realise and rightly appreciate the development of Islam and Islamite institutions, must remain a sealed book to him—was in process of time defined as the doctrine accepted alike by all the four orthodox schools of thought. This definition of the idea of ijma is the result of the self-imposed limitation of the principle itself in practical application. In process of time it was found impossible to verify this general consent by any other method than by confining it to the well-defined sphere of the schools of the law. Thus this free intellectual outlook lost the vital force which might have made it an element of far-seeing and liberal development.
The recognition of the principle of the ijma as a fundamental element is a point on which all schools of orthodox Islam are at one. The schi’itic branch of Islam, however, has not adopted it as one of its fundamental doctrines. It takes its stand on blind obedience to authority. In its eyes the visible and invisible heads of the whole body of true Islamites are the successors of ’Ali, the infallible imams. They alone are the legitimate rulers of the faithful, both as the rightful chiefs of the state, and as the true organs of the divine will in matters of law and doctrine. To this sect every historical and political development of Islam, which derives its title to authority from the consensus, is a usurpation and an impiety which the last imam, the Mahdi who is yet to come, will bring to a terrible end. From their point of view the recognition of the consensus is mere error and heresy, and the sentiment and will of the whole body of believers is not entitled to be recognised as a criterion. In its stead they set the word of the infallible imams, the lawful successors of the prophet and the interpreters of his will, which is one with the divine will. Thus perishes the last remnant of the autonomous authority which the body of orthodox Islamites have assumed by the recognition of the principle of the consensus.