followers of an Islamic legal and theological school that insisted on strict adherence to the literal text (ẓāhir) of the Qurʾān and Ḥadīth (sayings and actions of the Prophet Muḥammad (Muhammad)) as the only source of Muslim law. It rejected practices in law (fiqh) such as analogical reasoning ( qiyas) and pure reason (raʾy) as sources of jurisprudence and looked askance at consensus (ijmāʾ (ijmāʿ)). Theologically, the school formed the extreme rejection of anthropomorphism (tashbih (tashbīh)), attributing to God only those essential elements and qualities set forth clearly in the Qurʾān.

This approach to the Islamic tradition was apparently pioneered in Iraq in the 9th century by one Dāwūd ibn Khalaf, though nothing of his work has survived. From Iraq, it spread to Iran, North Africa, and Muslim Spain, where the philosopher Ibn Ḥazm was its chief exponent; much of what is known of early Ẓāhirī theory comes through him. Although it was strongly attacked by orthodox theologians, the Ẓāhirī school nevertheless survived for about 500 years in various forms and seems finally to have merged with the Ḥanbalī (Ḥanābilah) school.