Baber Johansen

8
Secondly, the impersonal character of the law. This suggestion may
seem surprising. Nurit Tsafrir has convincingly demonstrated that from
the second half of the eighth century on, the Íanafī law school was
defined as a personal law school, a school that ascribes its doctrine to
Abū Íanīfa (d. 767). 34 Other schools followed this example. From the
end of the ninth century on, the Sunnī law schools are known as ÍanafÐ,
MÁlikÐ, ShÁfiÝÐ, or ÍanbalÐ schools in reference to the major scholars who
are treated as if they were the authors of the school doctrines. But that
does not mean that the doctrine of a school of law is understood as being
restricted to one scholar’s teaching. The discussions and conflicts among
the scholars of each law school as well as between the scholars of
different schools of law are well known and their dissent is accepted. The
personal authority of the eponym of the school is invoked to stress the
historical continuity of the school’s doctrine from its beginnings to its
present state. In other words, the authority of the law schools transcends
that of the scholars who are referred to as school founders. Its authority is
normative authority, based on the doctrine of the school, not on one
scholar. In this sense, and in this sense only, does Wael Hallaq’s attack
on the notion of the personal school makes sense. 35
Not persons, but norms fulfill the function of religious guidance
according to the fiqh. The interpretation of these norms is incumbent
upon the individuals who apply them. Only if conflicting interpretations
of these norms require a decision by a qualified scholar or official, are
the norms subject to a judge’s verdict or a scholar’s opinion. The
appropriation and internalization of legal norms by the members of a
community or a society allows them to base their behavior on the
expectation that everybody will, under defined conditions, choose to act
in the specific way that the norm prescribes for such a situation. The
norm thus reduces the complexity and contingency of a situation through
rendering the act of each participant in it calculable. 36 In other words, the
law’s impersonal rule enables the members of a society to orient their
acts according to common normative standards. The rules of fiqh denote
the common standard of expected normative behavior. The validity of
such a standard can extend over the life of many generations and is,