ABSTRACT
The focal point of the law in Sunni Islam is the sunna, the concept of the practice of Muhammad as embodied in the hadith and transmitted faithfully by Muhammad's followers through the succeeding generations down to the present. From the early stages of developing the law in a pragmatic and authoritative way, various "schools," madhahib, emerged in which people sharing common positions derived from their own personal legal deductions gathered together. The major schools of law which have survived down until today have their development in the time of al-Shafii and after. The emergence of a fully enunciated theory of jurisprudence was not an instantaneous development of the law schools. Muslim understanding, the law has been determined by God in a manner that determines what is good and what is evil according to God's will. Food has always been considered one of the greatest pleasures of Muslim life, as medieval cookbooks from the Arab world make quite clear.
