Ahl ar-Ra'y

Ahl ar-ra'y (Arabic: أهل الرأي‎‎ or aṣḥāb al-raʾy, advocates of ra'y, 'common sense' or 'rational discretion') were an early Islamic movement advocating the use of reasoning to arrive at legal decisions. Its proponents, which included many early jurists of the Hanafi and Maliki schools, used the term ra'y to refer to "sound" or "considered" reasoning, such as qiyas (analogical deduction). Their opponents from the ahl al-hadith movement held that the Quran and authentic hadith were the only admissible sources of Islamic law, and objected to any use of ra'y in jurisprudence, whether in the form of qiyas, istislah (consideration of public interest), or hiyal (legal subterfuges). Over time, Hanafi and Maliki jurists gradually came to accept the primacy of the Quran and hadith advocated by the ahl al-hadith movement, restricting the use of other forms of legal reasoning to interpretation of these scriptures. In turn, Hanbali jurists, who had led the ahl al-hadith movement, gradually came to accept the use of qiyas as long as its application was strictly founded on scriptural sources.

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