222 COMMON ANCIENT DOCTRINE

This was in fact the doctrine of Mālik and of the other Medinese of his time. The particular decision on the mūḍiḥa wound was projected back, certainly fictitiously, to Ibn Musaiyib and Sulaimān b. Yasār, as Mālik states without an isnād. Shāfiʿī relates with the isnāds Ibn ʿUyayna—Zuhrī and “a reliable man,” identified as Yaḥyā b. Ḥassān—Laith b. Saʿd—Zuhrī, that Ibn Musaiyib followed a doctrine identical with that of the Iraqians; to this is added a remark ascribed to Zuhrī that “some” held an opinion which corresponded with the original Medinese doctrine. All this is spurious and was abstracted from the statement as related by Mālik.

C. LATER POLEMICS AND INFLUENCES

Essentially the same conditions prevailed in the early literary period. A statement of Shāfi‘ī’s on the polemics between the several schools of law¹ refers roughly to this time. Examples of polemics are numerous, particularly in Tr. VIII and Tr. IX. In this period, too, the traditions which were originally particular to an individual school, began to spread to a greater extent than before and had to be harmonized with the doctrines of those schools into which they penetrated; the most conspicuous document of this process is the Muwaṭṭa’ of Shaibānī.² Apart from this particular case, material influences causing changes in the doctrines of other schools continued to proceed almost exclusively from Iraq.³ We had occasion to discuss a question on which Mālik diverged from the traditional Medinese doctrine under the influence of Iraqian thought;⁴ and, on a point not decided by Mālik, Ibn Qāsim’s decision seems influenced by an objection made by Shaibānī.⁵

D. CONCLUSIONS

The existence of a common body of ancient doctrine in the earliest period of Muhammadan law and its later diversification in the ancient schools of law show that Muhammadan jurisprudence started from a single centre. It does not of course imply that Muhammadan jurisprudence was cultivated exclusively in one place, but that one place was the intellectual centre of the first theorizing and systematizing activities which