ABSTRACT
The outstanding feature is the growth of a separate science of Traditions with a literature of its own. Specialist scholars devoted themselves to the process of collecting, documenting and classifying Traditions. They were not jurists in the full sense of the term but rather law reporters, who provided the raw material which it was the task of the lawyers then to evaluate and integrate within the wider scheme of jurisprudence. Muslim jurisprudence, however, accepted as authentic the corpus of Traditions which the activities of the specialist scholars in the ninth century had produced, and return to the question of the effect this had on legal development. By the end of the ninth century the sharp conflicts of principle which ash-Shafi's thesis had engendered had largely died away, and the place of the sunna or practice of the Prophet in Muslim jurisprudence was stabilised. This development, initiated by ash-Shafi, determined the whole future course of Islamic law.
