THE MADHABB OF MADINA

Previously published as The Madinan Way and now reissued in a second edition, this small treatise, Aisha Bewley’s translation of The Soundness of the Basic Principles of the School of the People of Madina by  Ibn Taymiyya (661/1263-728/1328) the extremely influential Hanbali jurist, has an importance belied by its size. It is, in fact, an investigation into the origin and nature of the Prophetic Sunna. In it he discusses the value of the consensus of the people of Madina and its standing as evidence. He also deals with the lawful and unlawful, food and drink, usury, acts of worship and other matters, and compares the school of the people of Madina regarding all these things with the other schools, making it clear that the Madinan school is the soundest of all of them and the closest to the Sunna and the practice of the Salaf.