According to the traditional Muslim view, the major precepts of Sharia were passed down directly from the Islamic prophet Muhammad without "historical development," and the emergence of Islamic jurisprudence ("fiqh") also goes back to the lifetime of Muhammad. In this view, his companions and followers took what he did and approved of as a model (sunnah) and transmitted this information to the succeeding generations in the form of hadith. These reports led first to informal discussion and then systematic legal thought, articulated with greatest success in the eighth and ninth centuries by the master jurists Abu Hanifah, Malik ibn Anas, Al-Shafi‘i, and Ahmad ibn Hanbal, who are viewed as the founders of the Hanafi, Maliki, Shafiʿi, and Hanbali legal schools ("madhhabs") of Sunni jurisprudence.