To me, the situation is very confusing. It is so difficult to decide who is right and who is wrong. Each of the four scholars, who founded the schools of thought known after them, is simply a great scholar. He does not aspire to any higher position. None of them has added anything to the religion of Islam.
None has a special status.
None has made a claim to be followed. They are simply scholars of great eminence. They lived in the early period of Islam, with Imam Malik and Imam Abu Hanifah living toward the end of the first century and the first half of the second century, followed by Imam Al-Shaf'ie who lived in the second half of the second century and passed away in the year 204 H., and Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal being his contemporary and surviving him to live for some time. A school of thought is all about method of construction and deduction of rulings and verdicts from Qur'anic and Hadith statements. Those four imams did not have the same frame of knowledge available to each one of them.