The Great Synthesis

The intellectual and legal history of Islam between 150 and 350 H (c. 770 and 960 AD) represents a dynamic competition among several forces that crystallized in the opposing movements of traditionalism [ahl al-hadith] and rationalism [ra'y], movements out of which emerged the Great Synthesis. [...] It was the mid-point between the two movements that constituted the normative position of the majority; and it was from this centrist position that Sunnism, the religious and legal ideology of the majority of Muslims, was to emerge. The middle point between rationalism and traditionalism was thus the happy synthesis that emerged and continued, for centuries thereafter, to represent the normative Sunnite position.

Wael Hallaq, Shari'a: Theory, Practice, Transformations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 57-58.