Umar, you are probably right and I am also understanding my limitations as far as good writing is concerned. But you do keep visiting and insha’allah your inputs would help me articulate my thoughts in a better way.

wassalam

Specifically, the two main types of Ijma’ being al-ijma’ al-sarih (الإجماع الصريح), which is explicit and positive, when every mujtahid of an age gives their opinion on an issue and it is decided. But as anyone who delves in to Islamic history knows, this is very, very rare, and mostly from the ijma’ of the Sahaba (radi allahu ‘anhum). The most common one used, and the one most people talk about when they say that “there is ijma’ on this issue” is actually al-ijma’ al-sukuti (الإجماع السكوتي), which is known as implied consensus, and is looking backwards. This is when we look back through the scholars work, and can say “there is no known disagreement (ikhtilaf – الإختلاف) on this issue.” How many times have we come across this kind of statement in the books?

I like how `Abd al-Razzaq al-Sanhuri (the famous Qanuni/Shari’a scholar from early 20th century Egypt) expressed his ideas on ijma’ as a tool for legal reform and application: “What is more democratic than to affirm that the will of the nation is the expression of the will of God Himself?” Of course, this is moving beyond mere rhetoric, and involving more than simply the `ulama’ in the process.

Kamali discusses contemporary issues relating to ijma’ quite thoroughly in his primer on Islamic Jurisprudence. I specifically like the idea of the late Shah Wali Allah, who seemed to perceive ijma’ as having a more regional and local flavour rather than being binding on the whole of the Muslim community at one time. That is, apart from universal matters, ijma’ being used in a practical sense.

Very profound and interesting stuff.

My take on Ijma is a bit like that of the oft cited construct of the “Judeo-Christian Tradition”: It’s appropriate for many (perhaps most) matters, but on some very important topics it’s a huge oversimplification that in practice papers over complexities we’re uncomfortable grappling with.

In the way it’s *popularly* understood, it’s an ahistorical myth that projects contemporary norms of rationality and science into the premodern past. That’s not to say there isn’t something to the construct–a higher unity in the process that transcends soemtimes mutually exclusive positions–but that’s not what most people mean when they invoke the concept.

I think the incredible diversity of opinion that has existed among the ulama on tassawuf goes beyond “ikhtilaf” into the realm of *paradox*, at least so long as one is stuck with this simplistic, binary understanding of ijma. If ijma means consensus in the sense that it can be said to demonstrably exist and develop in science or modern law, then we DON’T HAVE IT in Islam, for all our fondness of medical imagery and legal metaphors when describing the workings of Islamic thought.

If we mean it in a more fluid (and IMO far more interesting and ultimately useful) sense, we’re still in business. But I don’t think most Muslims today are ready to face these complexities (witness the abysmal intellectual level of mainstream debate over “shariah law” in places like Nigeria despite the presence and involvement of ostensibly qualified traditional scholars), being too entranced by binary Western norms of modernity.