Ahl al-Hadith
In jurisprudence Ahl al-Hadith opposed many of their contemporary jurists who based their legal reasoning on informed opinion رَأْي ("raʼy") or living local practice عُرْف ("ʽurf"), who were referred to, often derogatorily, as Ahl ar-Ra'y. The "traditionalists" condemned the practice of "Taqlid" (blind-following scholarly opinions or "ra'y" without proofs) and advocated "Ittiba" ( adherence to scholarly traditions by asking Scriptural proofs). In turn, the "Ahl al-Hadith" upheld "Ijtihad" ( scholarly legal reasoning) by adhering to Scriptures. In matters of faith, they were pitted against the Mu'tazilites and other theological currents, condemning many points of their doctrines as well as the rationalistic methods they used in defending and justifying them. The most prominent leader of the movement was ʼAḥmād ibn Ḥanbal. Subsequently, other Islamic legal schools gradually came to accept the reliance on the Quran and hadith advocated by the Ahl al-Hadith movement as valid, while al-Ash'ari (874-936) used rationalistic argumentation favored by Mu'tazilites to defend most of the same tenets of the Ahl al-Hadith doctrine. In the following centuries the term "ahl al-hadith" came to refer to the scholars, mostly of the Hanbali madhhab, who rejected rationalistic theology ("kalam") and held on to the earlier Sunni creed. This theological school, which is also known as traditionalist theology, has been championed in recent times by the Salafi movement. The term "ahl al-hadith" is sometimes used in a more general sense to denote a particularly enthusiastic commitment to hadith and to the views and way of life of the Muhammad's contemporaries and the early generations of believers.