[7] It is characterized by strict adherence to literalism and reliance on the outward (ẓāhir) meaning of expressions in the Quran and ḥadīth literature;[8] the consensus (ijmāʿ) of the first generation of Muhammad's closest companions (ṣaḥāba), for sources of Islamic law (sharīʿa); and rejection of analogical deduction (qiyās) and societal custom or knowledge (urf),[1] used by other schools of Islamic jurisprudence, although the anti-Hazm wing of Zahiris usually accept religious inference.
After a limited success and decline in the Middle East, the Ẓāhirī school flourished in the Caliphate of Córdoba and more broadly in Islamic Iberia, particularly under the leadership of the Andalusian Muslim jurist Ibn Hazm.
[10][11][12] Zahirism is characterized as a fifth school of thought (madhhab) within the Sunnī branch of Islam,[13][14][15] and still retains a measure of influence and is recognized by contemporary Muslim scholars.
[21][22][23][24][25] Indian Muslim reformist Chiragh Ali has suggested that Ẓāhirī's school was, like that of Ibn Ḥanbal, actually a direct reaction to the Ḥanafī system of jurisprudence.
[27] Unlike Abbasid lands, where the Ẓāhirī school developed in parallel and in opposition to other madhhabs (chiefly Hanafi, Shafi‘i, and Hanbali), in the West it only had to contend with its Maliki counterpart, which enjoyed official support of the Umayyad rulers.
[31][not specific enough to verify] Additionally, all Almohad leaders – both the religiously learned and the laymen – were extremely hostile toward the Malikis, giving the Ẓāhirīs and in a few cases the Shafi‘is free rein to author works and run the judiciary.
[37][38] With the Reconquista and the loss of Iberia to Christian rule, most works of Ẓāhirī law and legal theory were lost as well, with the school only being carried on by individual scholars, once again on the periphery.
[citation needed] Wael Hallaq has argued that the rejection of qiyas (analogical reasoning) in Ẓāhirī methodology led to exclusion of the school from the Sunni juridical consensus and ultimately its extinction in the pre-modern era.
[39] Christopher Melchert suggests that the association of the Ẓāhirī school with Mu'tazilite theology, its difficulty in attracting the right patronage, and its reliance on outmoded methods of teaching have all contributed to its decline.
[citation needed] In particular, adherents of the modern-day Ahl-i Hadith movement in India and Pakistan have self-consciously emulated the ideas of the Ẓāhirī school and identified themselves with it.
[10][11] Modernist revival of the general critique by Ibn Hazm – the school's most prominent representative – of Islamic legal theory among Muslim academics has seen several key moments in recent Arab intellectual history, including Ahmad Shakir's republishing of Al-Muhalla, Muhammad Abu Zahra's biography of Ibn Hazm, and the republishing of archived epistles on Ẓāhirī legal theory by Sa'id al-Afghani in 1960 and Ihsan Abbas between 1980 and 1983.
[45] Of the utmost importance to the school is an underlying principle attributed to the founder Dawud ibn 'Ali; who had robustly denounced the delicacies and ambiguities in Fiqh sciences.
[61] Due to their some so-called rejection of intellectual principles considered staples of other strains within Sunni Islam, adherents to the school have been described as displaying non-conformist attitudes.
[65] [66] [67] [68][69] Hanbali scholar Ibn al-Qayyim, while himself a critic of the Ẓāhirī outlook, defended the school's legitimacy in Islam, stating rhetorically that their only sin was "following the book of their Lord and example of their Prophet.
[74] Similarly, Muhammad ibn Jarir al-Tabari would include Ẓāhirī opinions when comparing differing views of Sunni Muslims, yet he founded a distinct school of his own.