The Concept of Sunna in the Ibāḍī School

The Ib ādī school is one of the oldest surviving schools of Islamic law, claiming J ā bir b. Zayd (d. by the end of the first century H.—ca. 712) as one of its founding figures. He enjoyed enormous prestige as a man of learning and even orthodox Muslims acknowledged his importance as an authority on tradition.Apart from some features, Ib ādī law resembles that of the other schools in that they derived their legal system from the same principal sources, namely, the Qur ʾā n, the sunna , and the jurists’ legal opinions, cemented by ijm ā ʿ (consensus). The differences between the Ib ādī and the Sunn ī schools of law resulted either from instances in which the Ib ādi is based their doctrines on traditions narrated by authorities that the other schools did not recognize, or in which Ib ādī jurists arrived at different interpretations of the sources.