The four juristic schools which the Muslim nation has approved, generation after generation, have provided a pivotal role in Islamic Law across Muslim lands. They have been the reference point of arbitration in the courts of Islamic Law and the curricula at Islamic institutes of learning and circles of knowledge. It is upon the principles of these various schools that many graduated to scholarship in their specialties, and to these schools, they fervently ascribed themselves, to the extent that it became imperative for them to be identified as belonging to a particular school, especially in the written works of Islamic history, biographies, hagiographies and encyclopedias.

It is hoped that this book will present to the respectable reader, a focused and academic insight of each of the four schools that have survived and found their unique place within this nation while other schools became extinct with the passing of time. These schools were served by their followers, and their legal methodology had been established, the opinions of their scholars recorded, and their positions redacted, thereby distinguishing the dominant position of the school from the weak and anomalous.

This book dedicates a section to each of the four schools and introduces the founders of each school, their principles in deriving rulings, as well as the nomenclature of the schools - which provides the key to understanding the context of the words and symbols used in each school.