Development of Fiqh

Development of Fiqh after the Prophet’s Era
1.    The Companions spread out in different parts of Muslim world and occupied the positions of intelectual and religious leadership
2.    They gave decisions sometimes according to what they had learnt and retained in their memory from the commandments of the Prophet, and sometimes to what they understood from the Quran and Sunnah. Often they formed an opinion by looking to the Syaria value which led the Prophet to take a decision.
Example (Opinion)
1.    Ibn Mas’ud was asked whether a woman would be entitled to dower if her husband died without fixing its amount and consummating the marriage. (Receiving average dower according to her social standing, receiving full share of inheritance, and undergoing a waiting period.) Ibn Mas’ud opinion was countered by Ibn Umar and Zayd ibn Tsabit. (Not receiving any dower, but entitled to her share of inheritance.)
Example (Hadits)
2 .    The case of Fatimah bint Qays. She testified that she was given a triple divorce by her husband, but the Prophet made no provision for her residential accommodation during the period of her ‘iddah, nor did he recommend expenses for her inheritance. But Umar did not eccept this hadis saying that he could not abandon the Quran for the report of a woman when he could not judge whether she was speaking the truth or telling a lie. (This remark is known only to the Iraqis and reported by Abu Yusuf alone, but Malik and Syafi’i followed the hadits.)
3.     Ibn Umar narrated a hadits that a deceased is punished on account of the mourning of his relatives. Aisyah rebutted that Ibn Umar might have been mistaken or forgotten some relevant part of the hadits. She remarked that the Prophet once heard the relatives of a deceased Jewess weeping over her death saying that “the relatives were mourning her demise, while the deceased was being punished in the grave.” Hadis Ibn Umar also contradicts the Quranic verse, “No soul bears the burden of another.”
Example (Quran)
4.   Some Quranic injunctions are ambiguous, which are sometimes interpreted in the light of the tradition from the Prophet, and sometimes on the basis of the fuqaha’s opinion. The word “three course (quru’)” is ambiguous; it can be taken to stand for menstruation (haid) and the state of purity (tuhr).
       Umar, Ali, Ibn Mas’ud, Abu Musa al-Asy’ari » haid
       Aisyah, Zaid ibn Tsabit, Ibn Umar » tuhr
Three Great Geographical Islamic World
1.    Iraq     : Split further into Basrah and Kufah
2.    Hijaz    : Mecca and Medina
3.    Syria    : Not so frequently mentioned in the early text, but known to us by the writing of Abu Yusuf.
Egypt cannot be included in the early school of law as it did not develop its own legal thought. Egyptian scholars followed the doctrines of Iraq and Medina. The most prominent scholars of Egypt was Layts ibn Sa’d (d. 175).
Important Figures of Early Jurist
1. Mecca  : Ata ibn Abi Rabah (d. 114)
                  Amr ibn Dinar (d. 126)
2. Medina : Said ibn al-Musayyib (d. 94)
                  Urwah ibn al-Zubair (d. 94)
                  Abu Bakr ibn ‘Abd al-Rahman (d. 95)
                  Ubaidillah ibn Abdullah (d. 98)
                  Kharijah ibn Zaid (d. 99)
                  Sulaiman ibn Yasar (d. 107)
                 Qasim ibn Muhammad (d. 107)
                 Salim ibn Abdullah ibn Umar (d. 107)
                 Ibn Syihab al-Zuhri (d. 124)
                 Rabi’ah ibn Abi Abd al-Rahman (d. 136)
                 Yahya ibn Said (d. 143)
3. Basrah : Muslim ibn Yasar (d. 108)
                 Hasan ibn Yasar (d. 110)
                 Muhammad ibn Sirin (d. 110)
4. Kufah : Alqamah ibn Qais (d. 62)
                Masruq ibn al-Ajda (d. 63)
                Aswad ibn Yazid (d. 75)
                Syuraih ibn al-Harits (d. 78)
5. Syiria : Qabisah ibn Zhuwaib (d. 86)
                Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz (d. 101)
                Makhul (d. 113)
                Al-Auza’i (d. 157, the last jurist of Syria)
The Chain of Jurists
Jurists of different regions based their decision and legal verdicts on the opinions and decisions of the Companions living in their respective places.
1.    Umar, Aisyah and Ibn Umar » Medinan Jurists
2.    Ibn Mas’ud and Ali » Kufan Jurists