بِسْمِ اللَّهِ الرَّحْمَنِ الرَّحِيم
A madhab (Arabic: مذهب maḏhab, Lit: “way to act”) is a school of thought within fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence).
The major Sunni madhabs are Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi’i and Hanbali. They emerged in the ninth and tenth centuries CE, and by the twelfth century, almost all jurists aligned themselves with a particular madhhab. These four schools of thought recognise each other’s validity, and they have interacted in a legal debate over the centuries. Rulings of these schools are followed across the Muslim world without exclusive regional restrictions, but they each came to dominate in different parts of the world.
For example, the Maliki school is predominant in North and West Africa; the Hanafi school in South and Central Asia; the Shafi’i school in East Africa and Southeast Asia; and the Hanbali school in North and Central Arabia.