Background
Imam Sufyan ath-Thawri was born in Kufa, Iraq, and in his youth supported the Shi'ites against the dying Umayyad caliphate.
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Sufyan al-Thawri
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He was also a hadith compiler, of whom a great number of anecdotes are recorded. By 748 he had moved to Basra, "where he met ibn 'Awn and Ayyub. He then abandoned his Shi'i view." It is said that the Umayyads offered him high office positions but that he consistently declined.
He even refused to give to the Caliphs moral and religious advice and when asked why, he responded "When the sea overflows, who can dam it up?". Do not be deceived by being told that you can drive inequity away. All this is the deceit of the devil, which the wicked qurra' have taken as a ladder ."
Ath-Thawri's jurisprudential thought (usul al-fiqh), after his move to Basra, became more closely aligned to that of the Umayyads and of al-Awza'i.
He is reported to have regarded the jihad as an obligation only as a defensive war. He spent the last year of his life hiding after a dispute between him and the caliph al-Mahdi. On his death the Thawri madhhab was taken up by his students, including Yahya al-Qattan.
His school did not survive, but his juridical thought and especially hadith transmission are highly regarded in Islam, and have influenced all the major schools.
