The
Hanbali school is one of the four orthodox
Sunni Islamic schools of jurisprudence (
fiqh). It is named after the Iraqi scholar
Ahmad ibn Hanbal (d. 855), and was institutionalized by his students. The Hanbali
madhhab is the smallest of four major Sunni schools, the others being the
Hanafi,
Maliki and
Shafi'i.