Hanbali school

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 ascribes to the Hanbali school is called a Hanbali (Arabic: ٱلْحَنْبَلِيّ, romanized: al-ḥanbalī, pl. ٱلْحَنْبَلِيَّة, al-ḥanbaliyya or ٱلْحَنَابِلَة, al-ḥanābila). It 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 the Arabian Peninsula, although the Salafi movement has grown, especially in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE. Hanbali minorities are found in Iraq, Syria, Egypt, and among Jordanian bedouins.

With the rise of the 18th-century conservative Wahabbi movement, the Hanbali school experienced a great reformation. The Wahhabi movement's founder, Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab, collaborated with the House of Saud to spread Hanbali teachings with a Wahhabist interpretation around the world. However, British orientalist Michael Cook argues Ahmad's own beliefs actually played "no real part in the establishment of the central doctrines of Wahhabism", and in spite of their shared tradition, "the older Hanbalite authorities had doctrinal concerns very different from those of the Wahhabis".