Sooner or later you will meet a Muslim who does something differently from what this site taught you. They will wipe a different amount of their head in wudu. They will hold their hands somewhere else when they stand to pray. They will tell you the afternoon prayer starts an hour later than your app says.
When that happens, most new Muslims think one of two things: I have been taught wrongly, or that person is wrong. Usually neither is true, and this page is here so that you know that before it happens rather than afterwards.
Fiqh, in one paragraph
Fiqh means the understanding of Islamic law — the working out of what the Qur'an and the practice of the Prophet ﷺ require in a particular situation. The sources are agreed. The reading of them, on points of detail, sometimes is not.
Where the texts are explicit, there is no disagreement: five prayers, the fast of Ramadan, the prohibition of intoxicants. Where a text is brief, or two reports differ in wording, scholars have reasoned carefully and reached different conclusions. That reasoning is fiqh.
The four schools
Over the first centuries, that reasoning settled into schools of law — madhhabs — each named for the scholar whose method it follows.
- Hanafi — common in Turkey, the Balkans, Central and South Asia.
- Maliki — common in North and West Africa.
- Shafiʿi — common in East Africa, Egypt, and Southeast Asia.
- Hanbali — common in the Arabian peninsula.
These are not sects, and they are not rival religions. They are four careful readings of the same sources, all considered valid, and Muslims have prayed side by side across them for over a thousand years. A Hanafi and a Shafiʿi standing in the same row are not compromising.
The differences are almost always about detail. Nobody disagrees about whether to pray, or how many times, or what the shahadah means.
One thing worth knowing early. This site teaches according to Sunni Islam, which is what the great majority of Muslims follow and what your local masjid in Canada is almost certainly aligned with. There is another major tradition, Shia Islam, which differs on more than points of law. You will meet the terms eventually; better to hear them here first than to be surprised by them.
Why this site teaches one path
A site that gave you every position on every point would be honest and useless. Standing at a sink in your first week, "the schools differ on how much of the head to wipe" does not tell you what to do with your hands.
So this site teaches one clear method, described plainly enough to follow the first time. That is a teaching decision, not a claim that other methods are wrong.
The "Scholars differ" notes
Where a difference genuinely matters — where you will see other people doing something else, or where the choice affects whether your worship is valid — you will find a note like this:
◇ Scholars differ
This is what one looks like. It names the difference, tells you that the positions are all held by qualified scholars, and where possible gives you an option that is valid whichever school you eventually follow.
It then sends you to the imam at your masjid, because he knows what your community practises and this site does not.
They are collapsed rather than displayed because you do not need them on day one. Open them when you are ready, or when someone tells you that you are doing something wrong.
Which school does this site follow?
This is being settled. The site is currently under review by a qualified scholar, and the default it teaches will follow his guidance. When that review is complete, this page will name him, name the masjid, and state plainly which positions the site takes.
Until then, every page carries a draft notice, and the method described is drawn from what is agreed upon or held by the majority, with differences flagged.
Do you have to choose a school?
Not now, and possibly not ever explicitly. Most Muslims in the world follow the practice of their community without being able to name the school it belongs to, and there is nothing deficient about that.
What is worth avoiding is assembling a private position by taking the easiest opinion from each school on each question. Scholars have written about this at length and the consensus is unenthusiastic. Follow the practice of the community you actually pray with. That is the simplest sound answer, and it also means you will not feel out of step in the row.
﴿ فَاسْأَلُوا أَهْلَ الذِّكْرِ إِن كُنتُمْ لَا تَعْلَمُونَ ﴾
Fas'alū ahla-dh-dhikri in kuntum lā taʿlamūn
So ask the people of knowledge, if you do not know.
When someone online tells you this site is wrong
This will happen, and it is worth being ready for.
Arguments between Muslims about points of fiqh are unusually fierce online, and new Muslims get drawn into them early — often by someone very confident who found them in a comment section. Some of it is sincere. Some of it is people who have read a great deal and studied under nobody.
Three things worth holding onto:
- Confidence is not knowledge. The people most certain that everyone else is wrong are rarely the ones who have studied longest.
- A scholar of one school describing another’s position will do so with respect. Someone who cannot is telling you about themselves.
- Take it to your imam. A real person, who knows you, in a building you can walk into. That is worth more than any amount of reading online, and it is the whole point of the verse above.
And do not let this become your subject. A new Muslim who spends their first year learning which school holds what, instead of learning to pray properly, has spent the year badly. Learn the prayer. Learn the Qur'an. The differences will still be there in five years, and you will understand them far better then.
What this site is not
- It is not scholarship. It is written by a Muslim for other Muslims, and checked, but written by someone who is not a scholar.
- It does not give rulings. It cannot tell you whether your ghusl counted or whether your job is permissible. Those need a person who can ask you questions.
- It is not a substitute for a masjid. It is meant to get you into one.