has safeguarded his religion and his honour; and the only one kept free from error is the one whom Allah protects.
Those whom it is legitimate to emulate are, first, the Companions of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ—provided that the chain of transmission to them is sound—then the leading Successors such as ʿAlqamah, Masrūq, ʿUbaydah al-Salmānī, Saʿīd ibn al-Musayyib, Abū al-Shaʿthāʾ, Saʿīd ibn Jubayr, ʿUbayd Allāh ibn ʿAbd Allāh, ʿUrwah, al-Qāsim, al-Shaʿbī, al-Hasan, Ibn Sīrīn, and Ibrāhīm al-Nakhaʿī.
Next come al-Zuhrī, Abū al-Zinād, Ayyūb al-Sakhtiyānī, Rabīʿah, and their generation.
After them are Abū Ḥanīfah, Mālik, al-Awzāʿī, Ibn Jurayj, Maʿmar, Ibn Abī ʿArūbah, Sufyān al-Thawrī, the two Ḥammāds, Shuʿbah, al-Layth, Ibn al-Mājishūn, and Ibn Abī Dhiʾb.
Then come Ibn al-Mubārak, Muslim al-Zinjī, the judge Abū Yūsuf, al-Hikl ibn Ziyād, Wakīʿ, al-Walīd ibn Muslim, and their contemporaries.
After them stand al-Shāfiʿī, Abū ʿUbayd, Aḥmad, Isḥāq, Abū Thawr, al-Buwayṭī, and Abū Bakr ibn Abī Shaybah.
Next are al-Muzanī, Abū Bakr al-Athram, al-Bukhārī, Dāwūd ibn ʿAlī, Muḥammad ibn Naṣr al-Marwazī, Ibrāhīm al-Ḥarbī, and Ismāʿīl al-Qāḍī.
Then follow Muḥammad ibn Jarīr al-Ṭabarī, Abū Bakr ibn Khuzaymah, Abū ʿAbbās ibn Surayj, Abū Bakr ibn al-Mundhir, Abū Jaʿfar al-Ṭaḥāwī, and Abū Bakr al-Khallāl.
After this cadre, independent reasoning waned, abridged manuals were produced, and jurists grew content with imitation—without considering who was the most learned, acting instead according to chance, personal preference, reverence, custom, or the practice of their locale.
Thus, were a student in today’s Maghrib to wish to follow the school of Abū Ḥanīfah, he would find it arduous; the same would be true were he to attempt to adopt the school of Ibn Ḥanbal.