306 THE REASONING OF INDIVIDUAL IRAQIANS

changes of opinion show some uncertainty and immaturity in his legal thought. On the whole, Abū Yūsuf’s legal thought is of a lower standard than that of Abū Ḥanīfa. It is also less original and, as we have seen, thoroughly dependent on that of his master. Abū Yūsuf represents the beginning of the process by which the ancient school of the Kufian Iraqians was replaced by that of the followers of Abū Ḥanīfa.¹

D. SHAIBĀNĪ

Shaibānī depends even more on traditions than does Abū Yūsuf. This shows itself not only in changes of doctrine under the influence of traditions, but in his habit of duplicating his systematic reasoning by arguments taken from traditions,² in his introducing Medinese traditions and some of the corresponding doctrines, through his edition of Mālik’s Muwaṭṭaʾ, into the Iraqian and Ḥanafī school, and in the habitual formula 'We follow this' by which he almost invariably rounds off his references to traditions from the Prophet and from other authorities, even when he does not, in fact, follow them.

Muw. Shaib., 133 and Āthār Shaib., 23: We find here the same kind of clumsy, primitive, and unconvincing reasoning as in Mālik (Muw. i. 245 and Tr. III, 27); the Iraqians do not need this reasoning and have full traditional authority, to which Shāfiʿī refers pointedly, for their doctrine; Shaibānī presumably took the Medinese reasoning over from Mālik.

Muw. Shaib., 298: Shaibānī takes over a tradition from Mālik (Muw. iv. 21) and puts his own systematic reasoning beside it. Shāfiʿī (Tr. III, 74) adopts Shaibānī’s reasoning and finds a justification for it in the very wording of Mālik’s tradition; this was originally meant to express the Medinese doctrine, but Shāfiʿī succeeds in turning it into an argument in favour of his own.

Muw. Shaib., 326 (cf. Tr. III, 13): Shaibānī, differing from his Iraqian predecessors, adopts traditions and their interpretation from Mālik (Muw. iii. 102); he modifies the interpretation in order to achieve greater systematic consistency, although this goes against their outward meaning; but this doctrine did not prevail in the Ḥanafī school.

Muw. Shaib., 406: Shaibānī uses the parable of the labourers of the eleventh hour, in the form of a tradition from the Prophet, as a