Istihsan in the context of "Hanafi"

Sunni Islam is the largest branch of Islam and the largest religious denomination in the world. It holds that Muhammad did not appoint any successor and that his closest companion Abu Bakr (r. 632–634) rightfully succeeded him as the caliph of the Muslim community, being appointed at the meeting of Saqifa. This contrasts with the Shia view, which holds that Muhammad appointed Ali ibn Abi Talib (r. 656–661) as his successor. Nevertheless, Sunnis revere Ali, along with Abu Bakr, Umar (r. 634–644) and Uthman (r. 644–656) as 'rightly-guided caliphs'.

The term Sunni means those who observe the sunna, the practices of Muhammad. The Quran, together with hadith (especially the Six Books) and ijma (scholarly consensus), form the basis of all traditional jurisprudence within Sunni Islam. Sharia legal rulings are derived from these basic sources, in conjunction with consideration of public welfare and juristic discretion, using the principles of jurisprudence developed by the four legal schools: Hanafi, Hanbali, Maliki and Shafi'i.

The Hanbali school or Hanbalism is one of the four major schools of Islamic jurisprudence, belonging to the Ahl al-Hadith tradition within Sunni Islam. It is named after and based on the teachings of the 9th-century scholar, jurist and traditionist, Ahmad ibn Hanbal (c. 780–855 CE), and later institutionalized by his students. One who subscribes to the Hanbali school is called a Hanbali (Arabic: ٱلْحَنْبَلِيّ, romanized: al-ḥanbalī, pl. ٱلْحَنْبَلِيَّة, al-ḥanbaliyya, or ٱلْحَنَابِلَة, al-ḥanābila). It mostly adheres to the Athari school of theology and is the smallest out of the four major Sunni schools, the others being the Hanafi, Maliki and Shafi'i schools.

Like the other Sunni schools, it primarily derives sharia from the Quran, hadith and views of Muhammad's companions. In cases where there is no clear answer in the sacred texts of Islam, the Hanbali school does not accept juristic discretion or customs of a community as sound bases to derive Islamic law on their own—methods that the Hanafi and Maliki schools accept. Hanbalis are the majority in Saudi Arabia and Qatar where the Salafi movement has grown. As such, Hanbalis form barely 5% of the Sunni Muslim population worldwide.

The Shafi'i school or Shafi'i Madhhab (Arabic: ٱلْمَذْهَب ٱلشَّافِعِيّ, romanized: al-madhhab al-shāfiʿī) or Shafi'i is one of the four major schools of Islamic jurisprudence, belonging to the Ahl al-Hadith tradition within Sunni Islam. It was founded by the Muslim scholar, jurist, and traditionist al-Shafi'i (c. 767–820 CE), "the father of Muslim jurisprudence", in the early 9th century.

The other three schools of Sunnī jurisprudence are Ḥanafī, Mālikī and Ḥanbalī. Like the other schools of fiqh, Shafiʽi recognize the First Four Caliphs as the Islamic prophet Muhammad's rightful successors and relies on the Qurʾān and the "sound" books of Ḥadīths as primary sources of law. The Shafi'i school affirms the authority of both divine law-giving (the Qurʾān and the Sunnah) and human speculation regarding the Law. Where passages of Qurʾān and/or the Ḥadīths are ambiguous, the school seeks guidance of Qiyās (analogical reasoning). The Ijmā' (consensus of scholars or of the community) was "accepted but not stressed". The school rejected the dependence on local traditions as the source of legal precedent and rebuffed the Ahl al-Ra'y (personal opinion) and the Istiḥsān (juristic discretion).

Sunni Islam is the largest branch of Islam and the largest religious denomination in the world. It holds that Muhammad did not appoint any successor and that his closest companion Abu Bakr (r. 632–634) rightfully succeeded him as the caliph of the Muslim community, being appointed at the meeting of Saqifa. This contrasts with the Shia view, which holds that Muhammad appointed Ali ibn Abi Talib (r. 656–661) as his successor. Nevertheless, Sunnis revere Ali, along with Abu Bakr, Umar (r. 634–644) and Uthman (r. 644–656) as 'rightly-guided caliphs'.

The term Sunni means those who observe the sunna, the practices of Muhammad. The Quran, together with hadith (especially the Six Books) and ijma (scholarly consensus), form the basis of all traditional jurisprudence within Sunni Islam. Sharia legal rulings are derived from these basic sources, in conjunction with consideration of public welfare and juristic discretion, using the principles of jurisprudence developed by the four predominant legal schools: Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi'i and Hanbali.