SUNNA, 'PRACTICE' AND 'LIVING TRADITION' 77

would be nothing to choose between two doctrines, each of which is represented by a tradition, 'if there were nothing to go by but the two traditions' (Ikh. 158 f.). It corresponds to the accepted doctrine of the school, and a scholar from Kufa, presumably Shaibānī himself, can comment on the fact that a well-authenticated tradition from the Prophet is not acted upon because 'all people' have abandoned it, saying: 'By "people" I mean the muftis in our own time or [immediately] before us, not the Successors'; he specifies the people of Hijaz and Iraq; for Iraq, he can only mention Abū Ḥanīfa and his companions, and he is aware that Ibn Abī Lailā holds a different opinion which, however, 'we do not share'; he knows nothing about the muftis in Basra (Ikh. 336 f.). The Iraqians, therefore, like the Medinese, take their doctrine 'from the lowest source'. The scholars of Kufa in particular find this doctrine expressed in the opinions ascribed to Ibrahim Nakha'ī.¹

E. Shāfi'ī

For Shāfi'ī, the sunna is established only by traditions going back to the Prophet, not by practice or consensus (Tr. III, 148, p. 249). Apart from a few traces of the old idea of sunna in his earlier writings, Shāfi'ī recognizes the 'sunna of the Prophet' only in so far as it is expressed in traditions going back to him. This is the idea of sunna which we find in the classical theory of Muhammadan law, and Shāfi'ī must be considered as its originator there.³

Sunna and traditions are of course not really synonymous.⁴ Keeping this in mind, we notice that Shāfi'ī restricts the meaning of sunna so much to the contents of traditions from the Prophet, that he is inclined to identify both terms more or less completely.⁵

In the preceding sections we had occasion to refer to Shāfi'ī's attacks against the old ideas of sunna, 'practice' and 'living