In the making of Islam and its laws, a learned community of jurists, authors, teachers and ordinary people intertwined their contributions across geographical and chronological borders. By contesting or undercutting political entities, they asserted the centrality of divine law in the socio-religious lives of humans and advanced the ways in which the law was perceived, practised and discussed. From the formative stages on, texts stood at the forefront of the progress of discussions. For the Shāfiʿī school, diverse transregional stimuluses helped it to survive and spread and occasionally to decay and contract between the ninth and the twentieth centuries. This chapter analyses the pivotal historical elements that enabled the expansion of the Shāfiʿī school, and Islamic law at large, in the Indian Ocean and Mediterranean littorals with a focus on individual, collective and institutional circulations from circles of learning. The emphasis here is on the people who participated in and contributed to the circulatory regime from its formative lands to its eventual movements in the oceanic rims, while the next chapter focuses on the texts as such.

What do purist Salafis mean when they say everyone must follow the Qur'ān and Sunna? What level of knowledge must one have in order to do this? In the case of laypeople, are they to follow scripture directly or do they perform taqlīd? In this chapter, I answer these questions in order to shed light on the rhetorical strategies used by Salafis and Traditionalists. Salafis critiques of Traditionalism have brought forward a cluster of issues in which the texts seem to go against the position of the madhhabs. The legal theory of the madhhabs is often inaccessible to lay Muslims and is based on the global demands the positions of Traditionalists scholars have taken on various issues. On the other hand, independent Salafi thinkers like Albānī bring forward simple and easy-to-understand texts. This chapter focuses on how purist Salafis critiqued the madhhabs by portraying Traditionalists as ones that follow scholars instead of the authentic teachings of the Qur'ān and Sunna. I explain how the variant definitions Salafis and Traditionalists have of taqlīd and ijtihād often leads to confusion on their practical application of Islamic law and religious authority.

Chapter 2 presents a detailed analysis of what we mean by Islamic rationalism. It explains the emphasis Islamic rationalism places on adherence to a madhhab, rational theology, and deep mystical experience, and how this approach is credited to Al-Ghazali. The chapter shows how Islamic rationalism was the mainstream Sunni orthodoxy until colonial rule displaced traditional Islamic learning practices in most Muslim countries. The chapter also shows how understanding the approach of the scholars leading this network requires understanding not just these conceptual debates but also their actual method of teaching. Emphasis is placed on acting as a model for the student.