Abstract: The thirtenth and fourteenth centuries CE saw the development of scholasticism in Sunni Muslim education and law. However, this move was protested by more conservative and traditionalist elements. In Damascus, this debate was largely played out within the Shafi’ite madhhab (legal school). The debate was not merely intellectual; in addition to the obvious arguments over the role of rationalism in the traditional Muslim curriculum and particular disciplines such as theology, it also reflected a dispute over the very tenor of Sunnism as a community. The effects of the ultimate triumph of scholasticism would influence developments in Muslim law, theology, and institutions of Muslim society well into the pre-modern period.