Zahir (Islam) in the context of "Isma'ili Shi'a"

The Zahiri school or Zahirism is a school of Islamic thought within Sunni Islam. It was named after Dawud al-Zahiri and flourished in Spain during the Caliphate of Córdoba under the leadership of Ibn Hazm. It was also followed by the majority of Muslims in Mesopotamia, Portugal, the Balearic Islands, and North Africa. The Zahiri school lost its presence around the 14th-century. The school is considered to be endangered, but it continues to exert influence over legal thought. Today it is followed by minority communities in Morocco and Pakistan.

The Zahiri school is characterized by strict adherence to literalism and reliance on the outward (ẓāhir) meaning of expressions in the Quran and a limited amount of ḥadīth literature; the consensus (ijmāʿ) of the first generation of Muhammad's closest companions (ṣaḥāba) excluding the scholars, for sources of Islamic law (sharīʿa); and rejection of analogical deduction (qiyās) and societal custom or knowledge (urf), used by other schools of Islamic jurisprudence.

Atharism (Arabic: الأثرية, romanized: al-ʾAthariyya / al-aṯariyyah [æl ʔæθæˈrɪj.jæ], "of athar") is a school of theology in Sunni Islam which developed from circles of the Ahl al-Hadith, a group that rejected rationalistic theology in favor of strict textualism in interpreting the Quran and the hadith.

Adherents of Athari theology believe the zahir (apparent) meaning of the Quran and the hadith are the sole authorities in matters of aqida and Islamic jurisprudence; and that the use of rational disputation is forbidden, even if in verifying the truth. Atharis oppose the use of metaphorical interpretation regarding the anthropomorphic descriptions and attributes of God (ta'wil) and do not attempt to conceptualize the meanings of the Quran by using philosophical principles since they believe that their realities should be consigned to God and Muhammad alone (tafwid). In essence, they assert that the literal meaning of the Quran and the ḥadīth must be accepted without a "how" (i.e. "Bi-la kayfa").

Esoteric interpretation of the Quran (Arabic: التأويل الباطني للقرآن, romanized: attaʾwīl al-bāṭinī li-l-qurʾān) is the allegorical interpretation of the Quran or the quest for its hidden, inner meanings. The Arabic word taʾwīl was synonymous with conventional interpretation in its earliest use, but it came to mean a process of discerning its most fundamental understandings. "Esoteric" interpretations do not usually contradict the conventional (in this context called "exoteric") interpretations; instead, they discuss the inner levels of meaning of the Quran.

The Arabic words taʾwīl and tafsīr both mean roughly "explanation, elucidation, interpretation, and commentary"; but from the end of the 8th century CE onwards, taʾwīl was commonly regarded as the esoteric or mystical interpretation of the Quran, while the conventional exegesis of the Quran was referred to using the term tafsīr. The term batin refers to the inner or esoteric meaning of a sacred text, and zahīr to the apparent or exoteric meaning. Esoteric interpretations are found in the Shīʿa, Sufi, and Sunnī branches of Islam and their respective interpretations of the Quran. A ḥadīth report which states that the Quran has an inner meaning, and that this inner meaning conceals a yet deeper inner meaning, and so on (up to seven successive levels of deeper meaning), has sometimes been used in support of this view.

Batiniyya (Arabic: باطنية, romanized: Bāṭiniyyah) refers to groups that distinguish between an outer, exoteric (zāhir) and an inner, esoteric (bāṭin) meaning in Islamic scriptures.