Forseeing the magnitude of my professional commitment (which is ironically tangential to my intellectual indulgings) in next few months, I intend to blog about things which are comparatively less demanding for my (e/o)ver-occupied cranium.
Great books are not just about inducing intellectual pleasures, setting trends or moving large masses of readers in a particular direction. Not that books which seek to do all of the above are underachievers in some capacity, its just that these are not meant to be remembered as nonpareil in the history of text.
Whether a text circumscribes a tradition or transcribes it is a question that would keep inviting people to ponder till eternity. A far easier proposition is that a text when embodies a tradition becomes a paragon. It does not remain a mere text anymore but starts to breathe and lives through those who access it with purpose. Interacting with such texts is not just a modest experience we call reading but an intention to embody it in some capacity, to understand those who embodied it and embodied the tradition as well.
I intend to start a never ending series on such great texts of Islamic tradition. The primary motivation was Great Books of Islamic Civilisation which though lacking in some ways is an excellent reference putting up a cross-section of all the important areas of knowledge in which Muslims indulged themselves.
Filed under: Books & Reviews
In 1980, the Council of Islamic Ideology of Pakistan initiated the first comprehensive report comprising proposals for making the economy Shariah compliant with special emphasis on elimination of riba’a from the banking system. The report is considered by many as the first consensus-driven approach towards a combined ‘intrusion’ of pseudo-modernist and traditionalist scholarship into the realm of classical fiqh and far ahead (atleast in Pakistan). Though it is never taken as such by the religious circles, it can easily be understood as a valid conceptual attempt at exercising ijtihad in modern times.
This and many such attempts later cannot be circumscribed within the bounds of any traditionalist methodology. The content (which is coming up lately in copious amounts and would continue to expand quickly in future as well) do not belong to hanafi, shafii, maliki, hanbali, zaidi or ja’afri literature but equally belongs to a genre of ‘Islamic jurisprudence literature’. If these attempts are analysed in detail keeping traditional jurisprudential methodologies in perspective, it is not difficult to realize that though many opinions of the classical scholars pose difficulties to solve complex contemporary problems (especially in the fields of modern economics), there are as many opinions from the past which may lead us to smooth solutions as well.
One of the valid illustration of this inevitable as well as methodological ‘pick and choose’ approach is a comparison of opinions between Imam Abu Hanifa and Imam Malik in identifying bare minimum rights of people in relation to public law when they make promises among themselves and fail to keep those due to various reasons. The question in consideration is that how to quantify liability if a person promises to buy all the products of my factory and refuses when the products are manufactured. In pre-modern times it was considered impossible to assess minimum identifiable liabilities in such deals. Abu Hanifa held that such promises though considered binding by Shariah cannot be represented in a court of law in case one refuses to keep them. The justice will be served on the day of judgement as Allah has promised. Malik on the other hand asserts opposite and considered subjecting such a person to court of law with the condition that he completely understands the implications of his promise for instance an incurred financial loss to other party in case of dishonoring the terms decided.
It is needless to say that Abu Hanifa’s opinion doesn’t hold good as far as modern commerce & trade mechanisms are concerned. The process that begins from memorandum of association, continues through details of various forms of capitals that a firm requires and other nitty-gritties of corporate liabilities is a simple promise between two persons if we try to analyse it from the lens of a hanafi jurist. On the other hand Malik’s opinion, if considered in detail, may give us leads to exercise ijtihad in modern times when a usual promise may be one between a hundred thousand persons and a ‘fictitious person‘.
Filed under: Ilm al-Ikhtilaf, Islam & Modernity, Sociology of Religion, Traditional Islam
While traditionalists and reformists continue their indulgence in fiery encounters (all in good faith) and thabet wrapped it (and more) up concisely, haroon posted a comment worthy of deliberation and serious attention. The contents of this post are a result of some hasty thoughts that followed haroon’s cue but may not be directly linked to the problem he posed.
It would help if I reproduce the complete question here:
…is there a way to realize the traditionalist respect for the four madhahib and extend it to a legal framework that takes into account newer, serious developments in Islamic law and theology, including more modernist perspectives, Wahhabist perspectives, etc.
The question in a way presumes that the four orthodox legal schools derive their respect directly due to the legal consistency and historical strength of arguments behind their methodology. That may be true for a theoretic sake of traditionalist’s argument but historically speaking, people started practicing according to these four interpretations because of administrative reasons and by virtue of their being located in a particular setting where a methodology was formed up, evolved and subsequently presented later foundation for legal corpus. Thus for the sake of precision, it would be more accurate to say that development and evolution of fiqh (Islamic Jurisprudence) came about historically through conflicts rather than being a product of objective and tangible methods.
The realization (above) though elusive brings along a lot of theoretical baggage. A rather concrete point that can follow from this is that the jurisprudential sources of one legal school are no more an intellectual property of jurists of that school. Therefore a jurist of sub-continent may consider (and will certainly be compelled to do so in future) Asad bin Furaat’s Mudawanaa, Shafii’s Kitab al-Umm and Ibn Qudama’s al-Mughanni as much a jurisprudential source as he considers any of the texts/commentaries of Hanafi school of law. I do have a fair idea of the magnitutde of intircacies invloved in exercising jurisprudential preference (Tarjih) and alleged lack of consistency in method if jurists move out of their respective methodologies but what I am suggesting here is not simply a wild game of pick and choose rather an originating mindset that juridic literature would be taken as a whole in times to come due to various inevitable and practical reasons.
I mean how can one neglect encyclopedic efforts like al-Muhalla of Ibn Hazm and Fatawa of Ibn Taymiah just because their respective schools were not developed, evolved and sustained the test of time or seen as a digression from the content of four schools. The degree of depth in Islamic legal methodology and the number of dimensions in which it provides foundational sources cannot be ascertained completely unless the complete Islamic legal material would be taken as a whole and studied as such.
I contend this because the development of any modern Islamic legal system (encompassing all the modern facets of law and not just the quantity of water one should consume when doing ablution – though latter can be a good ethical source for guiding regulatory laws of our modern day consumption habits) cannot remain bounded in a particular school’s legal framework and would tend to build upon the collective fabric of Islam’s legal base. This development would again be historical due to inevitable circumstances rather than a composed and objective deliberate effort. The signs of such developments are already obvious in the fiqh of trade, commerce and banking and the current period may be understood and remembered in history as formative phase in the development of a Cosmopolitan Fiqh [1]. There is no particular way to imbibe this realization purposefully as it is already being insinuated through various intangible agents. However future historian’s analysis would bring about the true character of this formation.
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1. I came across this pithy term in transcribed lectures of Dr. Mahmood Ahmed Ghazi on various dimensions of fiqh.
Filed under: Ilm al-Ikhtilaf, Islam & Modernity, Sociology of Religion, Traditional Islam
May 24, 2006 • 1:12 am 0
Whosoever changes his religion, kill him!
In a recently televised discussion, Javed Ahmed Ghamidi has clarified that his reliance on the principle of prescription of death penalty on only two occassions (al-Maidah 5:32) does not in anyway weakens any of the authentic ahadith ascribed to the Prophet(s). For instance this one narrated by Ikramah(r) and recorded by Bukhariy in his collection
The above hadith and few others are generally understood by classical Muslim scholars as adding a third instance invoking capital punishment (i.e killing apostates). Ghamidi opines that all of these should be revisited in the light of principles established in Quran rather than adding something explicitly to the body of these principles.
He asserted that there’s no doubt in the authenticity of the ahadith in question, per se. However the application of these traditions or deductions from them are redundant in modern times even if there’s an ideal Islamic state. No one except Prophet(s) can claim the removal of all the excuse in relation to accepting the revealed truth of God Almighty, a concept which is called Itmaam al-Hujjah and therefore no one except him could implement death penalty for apostates. As he is no more amongst us, the ultimate decision would be revealed by God on the day of judgement and should be postponed as such. This right cannot be claimed by anybody after Prophet no matter how much effort is put in to present the true message of Islam.
Ghamidi’s reiteration of his position has a multidimensional importance in the overall framework of contemporary Islamic scholarship and its methodology which is currently experiencing its formative period. Firstly first it establishes that the school of Ghamidi/Islahi has dropped the sheer skepticism towards the science of hadith in general though its not among the primary sources of understanding Islam, in principle. Secondly it raises many questions regarding the pre-formative history of Muslims. For instance the concept of Itmam al-Hujjah (as understood by Ghamidi) seems anachronic in light of coarse presentation of Islam that earliest of the Muslims used to extend during their expansions.
Before I start meandering I give these bleary thoughts some time to transform into meaningful questions.
Filed under: Criticism & Comments, Hadith & Sunnah, Sociology of Religion, Traditional Islam