THE MEDINESE AND MECCANS 249

Prophet or from Companions, were opposed to the current doctrine of the school which they were meant to supersede.¹ This body of opposition doctrine is formally less easy to circumscribe in Medina than it is in Iraq, where most of it goes under the name of ʿAlī. The most important single group of legal traditions emanating from the Medinese opposition are those with the isnād Nāfiʿ—Ibn ʿUmar,² but other Companions of the Prophet are also well represented.

Materially, the traditions and opinions of the Medinese opposition are as little uniform as are those of the opposition in Iraq, but broadly speaking they represent the doctrine of the traditionists who endeavoured to modify the “living tradition” of the school of Medina. They were often, but by no means always, actuated by religious rigorism and scrupulousness, for instance, in introducing a refinement into fasting (above, p. 152 f.), in laying down strict conditions for the creation of foster-parentship (p. 216), in making the pregnant widow keep a longer waiting period (p. 225 f.). Less rigorous, for example, is their adoption of the practice of masḥ (below, p. 263 f.). Neutral from the point of view of strictness is the opinion on a point of ritual which the traditionists opposed to a doctrine based on a biographical tradition on the Prophet (p. 139, n. 6).

All these doctrines proposed by the traditionists remained unsuccessful in Medina; others, however, were adopted and became part of the teaching of the Medinese school.³ Numerous doctrines of the Medinese opposition, both successful and unsuccessful, derive from corresponding doctrines of the opposition in Iraq;⁴ these connexions confirm that there existed the same kind of opposition to both ancient schools of law.

F. THE MECCANS

The little that we know of the school of Mecca⁵ shows that it shared the main characteristics of the other ancient schools of law. The main authority of the Meccans among the Companions of the Prophet was Ibn ʿAbbās,⁶ and there are traditions which