PREFACE
THIS book largely represents a series of articles which appeared in
this Institute's Journal—Islamic Studies—from March, 1962 to June,
1963. Chapter 4, Ijtihad in the Later Centuries constitutes a new
addition. These articles were written under a. con- ceived plan to show
(a) the historical evolution of the application of the four basic
principles of Islamic thinking—which supply the framework for all
Islamic thought—viz., the Qur'an, the Sunnah, Ijtihad, Ijma and (b)
their actual working on the Islamic develop¬ meant itself. Hence
the title of the book: Islamic Methodology in History.
The fundamental importance of these four principles—which, it must be
re-emphasized, are not just the principles of Islamic jurisprudence but
of all Islamic thought—can hardly be over-estimated. Particularly
important is the way these principles may be combined and applied; this
difference can cause all the distance that exists between stagnation
and movement, between progress and petrifaction. This difference stands
revealed to us between the early and the later phases of the Islamic
developments and this great historic discovery—towards which the
Orientalist has contributed so much—can no longer be concealed behind
the conventional medieval theory about these principles. It
is obvious, therefore, that this work has not only a purely historical
value but can be of great practical consequence and can indicate the
way for further Islamic developments.
It must be fully recognized that much work still needs to be done to
bring the treatment of this subject to comprehensiveness. Particularly,
the principle of Ijma needs a full historical treatment, especially in
relation to the concept of Sunnah. For example what was the actual
state of the principle of Ijma when a whole wealth of opinions and
doctrines was being given Sunnah-form? Was it an alternative to Sunnah?
Why did some schools reject it? Although, however, much further
research has to be and, we hope, will be done, the author expects that
his basic convictions expressed in this book will be confirmed and that
in its major contentions this book is correct.
The traditionalist-minded Muslims are not likely to accept the findings
of this work easily. I can only plead with them that they should try to
study this important problem with historical fair-mindedness and
objectivity. I, for my part, am convinced, as a Muslim, that neither
Islam nor the Muslim Community will suffer from facing the facts of
history as they are; on the contrary, historical truth, like all truth,
shall invigorate Islam for—as the Qur'an tells us—God is in intimate
touch with history.
FOREWORD
A. S. BAZMEE ANSARI
ALONGSIDE of economic blueprints and five-year plans the Muslims all
over the world are now refresh¬ ingly devoting their attention to a
reinterpretation of Islam in the context of modern times. Generally
speaking, the desire for religious reconstruction and moral
regeneration in the light of fundamental principles of Islam has,
throughout their historical destiny, been deeply rooted among the
Muslims— progressivisms as well as traditionalists. Both the sections
seem conscious of the fact that the only way for the Muslims of today,
for an active and honorable participation in world affairs, is the
reformulation of positive lines of conduct suitable to contemporary
needs in the light of social and moral guidance offered by Islam. This,
however, entails a great and heavy responsibility for all those engaged
in the onerous task of reconstruction. Theirs is the endeavour to
strike a happy balance between the divergent views of the
traditionalists and the modernists, or in standard language, between
conservatism and progressivism.
It was indeed unfortunate that Muslims during the preceding centuries
closed the door of Ijtihad, resulting in stagnation and lack of
dynamism. Resurgence of the new spirit for a re-evaluation of their
religious and moral attitudes towards the ever-emerging problems of
life in a changing world has been spasmodic and relatively fruitless.
Though thwarted, the spirit remained alive and was never wholly stifled.
We find its periodic effulgence in the emergence of various reformist
movements that convulsed the world of Islam from time to time. The
Indo-Pakistan subcontinent was no exception. The lamp " lit by Shah
Waliy Allah al-Dihlawi continued to burn and shed its light. The
Central Institute of Islamic Research may be regarded as a link in that
long-drawn-out process. It was established by President Mohammad Ayub
Khan (who is also its Patron-in-Chief) with the specific purpose of
enabling the Muslims of Pakistan to lead their lives in accordance with
the dictates of the Qur'an and the Sunnah, in the light of modern
developments and commensurate with the challenge of the time. By its
very nature, however, the work of the Institute cannot remain confined
to the geographical limits of Pakistan but will serve the Ummah in
general. The people entrusted with this heavy responsibility are,
therefore, required to have a clear and well-defined conception of
their objectives with a view to their institutional implementation in
the wider fabric of state organization and national development. This
is exactly what the members of the Institute
are endeavoring to accomplish.
Conscious as we are of the fact that Islamic scholarship, during the
past few centuries, has been more or less mechanical and semantic
rather than interpretative or scientific, our efforts howsoever humble
and small, are directed towards breaking the thaw in Islamic
thinking—both religious and moral. With these objectives in view, the
Institute has decided to launch a series of publications, covering a
wide and diverse field of Islamic studies, prepared mostly by its own
members. The Institute has a definite direction and a cohesive
ideology, although honest and academic difference of opinion is
naturally allowed. We hope that the Muslims, living under the stress
and strain of modern times, will find enough food for thought in these
publications resulting ultimately in rekindling in them the burning
desire, nay the longing, for exercising Ijtihad, the only pre-requisite
for recapturing the pristine glory of Islam and for ensuring an
honorable place for the Muslim Ummah in the comity of progressive,
dynamic and living nations of the world. We also hope that these works
will equally provide sound and solid scholarship for the non-Muslim
Islamists.
NOTE ON TRANSLITERATION
The system of transliteration of Arabic words adopted in this series is
the same as has been employed by the editors of the Encyclopedia of
Islam, new edition, with the following exceptions : q has been used for
k and j for dj, as these are more convenient to follow for
English-knowing readers than the international signs. The use of ch,
dh, gh, kh, sh, th, and zh with a subscript dash, although it may
appear pedantic, has been considered necessary for the sake of accuracy
and clearer pronunciation of letters peculiar to Arabic and Persian. As
against the Encyclopedia, ta marbutah has throughout been retained and
shown by the ending h or t, as the case may be. This was also found
necessary in order to avoid any confusion. In words of Persian origin
the retention of the final h is essential as it stands for ha-yi
mukhtafz, which should not be dispensed with.
References in the text to Qur'anic verses are from the English
translation of the Qur’an by Mohammed Marmaduke Picktball, The Meaning
of the Glorious Koran, New York, 1955 (a Mentor Book).
CONCEPTS SUNNAH, IJTIHAD AND IJMA' IN THE
EARLY PERIOD
SUNNAH is a behavioral concept—whether applied to physical or mental
acts—and, further, denotes not merely a single act as such but in so
far as this act is actually repeated or potentially repeatable. In
other words, a sunnah is a law of behavior whether instanced once or
often. And since, strictly speaking, the behavior in question is that
of conscious agents who can "own" their acts, a sunnah is not just a
law of behavior (as laws of natural objects) but a normative moral law:
the element of moral "ought" is an inseparable part of the meaning of
the concept Sunnah. According to the view dominant among more recent
Western scholars, Sunnah denotes the actual practice which, through
being long established over successive generations, gains the status of
norma-
tiveness and becomes "Sunnah". This theory seems to
make actual practice—over a period—not only temporarily but also
logically prior to the element of normativeness and to make the latter
rest on the former. It is obvious that this view derives its
plausibility from the fact that since Sunnah is a behavioral concept,
what is actually practiced by a society over a long period, is
considered not only its actual practice but also its normative
practice. This is especially true of strongly cohesive societies like
the tribal ones. But, surely, these practices could not have been
established in the first place unless abinitio they were considered
normative. Logically, therefore, the element of normativeness must be
prior. And although it must be admitted that the fact of a custom's
being long established adds a further element of normativeness to
it—especially in conservative societies—this factor is quite different
and must be radically disentangled from the initial normativeness.
That Sunnah essentially means "exemplary conduct" as such and that
actually being followed is not a part of its meaning (although the
fulfillment of the Sunnah necessarily consists in being followed) can
be demonstrated by numerous examples such as the following. Ibn Durayd,
in his Jamharah (and he is followed in this by other lexicographers),
gives the original meaning of the verb sannah as "sawwara (al-shay’a)",
i.e., to fashion a thing or produce it as a model. Next, it is applied
to behavior which is considered a model. Here (and this is the sense
relevant to us here) sannah would be best translated by "he set an
example". It is in this sense that Abu Yusuf admonishes Harun al-Rashid
(see his Kitab al-Kharaj, the chapter on Sadaqai) asking
the Caliph "to introduce (as distinguished from 'to follow') some good
sunnahs".1 In the same passage, Abu Yusuf quotes the Hadith, which may
be very early, "whoever introduces a good sunnah will be rewarded . .
and whoever introduces a bad sunnah . . . ", etc. If one asks how a
sunnah could be bad if its essential meaning is not to be actually
followed by others but to be morally normative, the answer (given by
the author of Lisan al- Arab, s.v.) is that those who set bad examples
wish, nevertheless, to be followed by others and in most cases (perhaps
in all cases) they do not think they are setting bad examples.
From the concept of normative or exemplary conduct there follows the
concept of standard or correct conduct as a necessary complement. If I
regard someone's behavior as being exemplary for me then, in so far as
I follow this example successfully, my behavior will be thus far up to
the standard or correct. There enters, therefore, an element of
"straightness" or correctness into this enlarged complemental sense of
the word "sunnah". It is in this sense that the expression
"sananal-tariq" is used which means "the path straight ahead" or "the
path without deviation".2 The prevalent view that in its primary sense
sunnah means "the trodden path" is not supported by any unique
evidence,3 although, of course, a straight path without deviation
implies that the path is already chalked out which it cannot be unless
it has been already trodden. Further, the sense in which sunnah is a
straight path without any deviation to the right or to the left also
gives the meaning of a "mean between extremes" of the "middle
way". In his letter to *Uthman al-Batti, Abu Hanifah, while explaining
his position with regard to a sinful Muslim, against the Kharijite
extremism, describes his own view as that of Ahl al-adl waUSunnah,
i.e., "people of the mean and the middle path". "As regards the
appellation' Murjite which you have mentioned (regarding my view), what
is the crime of a people who speak with balance (ladl = justice) and
are described by deviationists by this name ? On the contrary, these
people are (not Murjites but) people of balance and the middle path."4
We. shall show in the next chapter how the term "sunnah" actually
evolved into this sense and, further, that it was on this principle of
the "mean" that the Ahl al-Sunnah or the "orthodoxy" came into being.
Among the modern Western scholars, Ignaz Goldziher, the first great
perceptive student of the evolution, of the Muslim Tradition (although
occasionally uncritical of his own assumptions), had maintained that
immediately after the advent of the Prophet his practice and conduct
had come to constitute the Sunnah for the young Muslim community and
the ideality of the pre-Islamic Arab sunnah had come to cease. After
Goldziher, however, this picture imperceptibly changed. While the Dutch
scholar, Snouck Hurgronje, held that the Muslims themselves . added to
the Sunnah of the Prophet until almost all products of Muslim thought
and practice came to be justified as the Sunnah of the Prophet, certain
other notable authorities like Lammens and Margoliouth came to
regard the sunnah as being entirely the work of the Arabs, pre-Islamic
and post Islamic—the continuity between the two periods having been
stressed. The concept of the Sunnah of the Prophet was both explicitly
and implicitly rejected. Joseph Schacht has taken over this view from
Margoliouth and Lammens in his Origins of Muhammedan Jurisprudence
wherein he seeks to maintain that the concept "Sunnah of the Prophet"
is a relatively late concept and that for the early generations of the
Muslims sunnah meant the practice of the Muslims themselves.
We have criticized, elsewhere, the grounds of this development in
Western Islamic studies and have attempted to bring out the conceptual
confusion with regard to sunnah.5 The reason why these scholars have
rejected the concept of the Prophetic Sunnah is that they have found
(i) that a part of the content of Sunnah is a direct continuation of
the pre-Islamic customs and mores of the Arabs ; (ii) that by far the
greater part of the content of the Sunnah was the result of the
freethinking activity of the early legists of Islam who, by their
personal Ijtihad, had made deductions from the existing Sunnah or
practice and—most important of all—had incorporated new elements from
without, especially from the Jewish sources and Byzantine and Persian
administrative practices ; and, finally (iii) that later when the
Hadith develops into an overwhelming movement and becomes a mass-scale
phenomenon in the later second and, especially, in the third centuries,
this whole content of the early Sunnah comes to be verbally attributed
to the Prophet himself under the aegis of the concept of the "Sunnah Of
the Prophet".
Now, we shall show (1) that while the above story about the development
of the Sunnah is essentially correct, it is correct about the content
of the Sunnah only and not about the concept of the "Sunnah of the
Prophet", i.e., that the "Sunnah of the Prophet" was a valid and
operative concept from the very beginning of Islam and remained so
throughout;
(2) that the Sunnah-content left by the Prophet was not very large in
quantity and that it was not something meant to be absolutely specific ;
(3) that the concept Sunnah after the time of the Prophet covered
validly not only the Sunnah of the Prophet himself but also the
interpretations of the Prophetic Sunnah ;
(4) that the "Sunnah" in this last sense is co-extensive with the Ijma
of the Community, which is essentially an ever-expanding process ; and,
finally (5) that after the mass-scale Hadith movement the organic
relationship between the Sunnah, Ijtihad and Ijma was destroyed. In the
next chapter we shall show the real genius of the Hadith. and how the
Sunnah may be validly inferred from the Hadith-material and how Ijtihad
and Ijma may be made operative again.
It may be gathered from the foregoing that the theory that the concept
of the Prophetic Sunnah and even the content of the Prophetic Sunnah
did not exist (outside the Qur’anic pronouncements on legal and moral
issues) draws its force from two considerations, viz. (1) that in
actual fact most of the content of the Sunnah during the early
generations of Islam is either a continuation of the pre-Islamic Arab
practices or the result of assimilative-deductive thought-activity of
the early Muslims themselves, and (2) that the
Sunnah, in any case, implies a tradition, as distinguished from the
activity of one person. This latter statement itself both enforces and
is enforced by the first. In Sections I and II above we have advanced
evidence to refute this assumption and have shown that Sunnah really
means "the setting up of an example" with a view that it would or
should be followed. Indeed, the Qur'an speaks, in more than one place,
of the "Sunnah of God that is unalterable" in connexion with the moral
forces governing the rise and fall of communities and nations.6 Here it
is only the ideality of the action-pattern of one Being, viz., God,
that is involved. Now, the same Qur'an speaks of the "exemplary
conduct"' of the Prophet,—in spite of its occasional criticism of the
Prophet's conduct at certain points (and this latter point constitutes
a unique moral argument for the revealed character of the Qur'an); When
the Word of God calls the Prophet's character "exemplary" and "great",
is it conceivable that the Muslims, from the very beginning, should not
have accepted it as a concept?
We have analyzed in our work Islam (see n. 5) the letter8 of Hasan
al-Basri written to 'Abd al-Malik b. Marwan (65-85 A. H.). There, Hasan
speaks of the "Sunnah of the Prophet" with regard to the freedom of the
human will, although he admits that there exists no formal and verbal
tradition from the Prophet about this matter. This gives us a positive
clue to the understanding of the concept of the "Prophetic Sunnah" and
we shall revert to it later. Further, the pro-Hashimi poet of the first
and early second century of the Hijrah, al-Kumayt, says in one of his
famous poems
(Arabic sentence is here please see pdf for the Arabic sentence)
"On the basis of what Book or which sunnah do you regard my
love for them as a disgrace?"
"Them" here means the progeny of the Prophet and the Banu
Hashim in general. The "Book" here is, of course, the
Qur'an. What can the word "sunnah?"mean in this
context except the "Sunnah of. the Prophet"
? This is certainly not the use of the word "sunnah"
in the sense in which expressions like "the Sunnah of Madinah," etc.
are used by early legists. Nor can "Sunnah" here mean
the "middle path" for that nuance develops a little later—as in
the case of Abu Hanifah's letter
mentioned above—after the conflict of
theological opinion. The Qasidah in which the word occurs
is said by the author of al-Aghani to be among the earliest
compositions of al-Kumayt and was, therefore, probably written circa
100 A.H. or even before.8 Moreover, the use of the term
here does not suggest that it is a new one but assumes that this sense
is fully established. We cannot even read here any radical
Shi'ah theological complication into the word "sunnah" for
the poet is not an extreme dogmatic Shiah and
explicitly says in one place that he neither rejects Abu Bakr and 'Umar
nor calls them Kafir.10
In his Kitab al-Kharaj, Abu Yusuf relates that the second Caliph,
'Umar, once wrote that he appointed people in several places to "teach
people the Qur'an and the Sunnah of our Prophet".11 It may be said that
this reference is rather late (second half of the second century A.H.)
and that at that time the concept of the "Prophetic Sunnah" had been
formed. What is important here, however, is the circumstantial truth of
the statement itself. 'Umar had sent people, it is certain, to
different countries, especially to Iraq. He had emphasized, it is also
certain, the teaching of Arabic and Arabic literature. It goes without
saying that the Qur'an was taught as the nucleus of the new Teaching.
But the Qur'an is obviously not intelligible purely by itself—strictly
situational as its revelations are. It would be utterly irrational to
suppose that the Qur’an was taught without involving in fact the
activity of the Prophet as the central background activity which
included policy, commands, decisions, etc. Nothing can give coherence
to the Qur'anic teaching except the actual life of the Prophet and the
milieu in which he moved, and it would be a great childishness of the
twentieth century to suppose that people immediately around the Prophet
distinguished so radically between the Qur'an and its exemplification
in the Prophet that they retained the one but ignored the other, i.e.,
saw the one as divorced from the other. Did they never ask themselves
the question—even implicitly—"why did God choose this person as the
vehicle of His Message?" Completely nonsensical is that view of modern
scholarship which, gained no doubt from later Muslim theological
discussions themselves, makes the Prophet almost like a record in
relation to Divine Revelation. Quite a different picture emerges from
the Qur'an itself which assigns a unique status to the Prophet whom it
charges with a "heavy responsibility"12 and whom it invariably
represents as being excessively conscious of this responsibility.13
There was, therefore, undoubtedly the Sunnah of the Prophet. But what
was its content and its character? Was it something absolutely
specific laying down once and for all the details of rules about
all spheres of human life as Medieval Muslim Hadlth-Fiqh literature
suggests ?
Now, the overall picture of the Prophet's biography —if we look behind
the colouring supplied by the Medieval legal mass—has certainly no
tendency to suggest the impression of the Prophet as a pan-legist
neatly regulating the fine details of human life from administration to
those of ritual purity. The evidence, in fact, strongly suggests that
the Prophet was primarily a moral reformer of mankind and that, apart
from occasional decisions, which had the character of ad hoc cases, he
seldom resorted to general legislation as a means of furthering the
Islamic cause. In the Qur'an itself general legislation forms a very
tiny part of the Islamic teaching. But even the legal or quasi-legal
part of the Qur'an itself clearly displays a situational character.
Quite situational, for example, are the Qur'anic pronouncements on war
and peace between the Muslims and their opponents—pronouncements which
do express a certain general character about the ideal behavior of the
community vis-a-vis an enemy in a grim struggle but which are so
situational that they can be regarded only as quasi-legal and not
strictly and specifically legal.
A prophet is a person who is centrally and vitally interested in
swinging history and moulding it on the Divine pattern. As such,
neither the Prophetic Revelation nor the Prophetic behavior can neglect
the actual historical situation obtaining immediately and indulge in
purely abstract generalities; God speaks and the Prophet acts in,
although certainly not merely for, a given historical context. This is
what marks a prophet out from a visionary or
even a mystic. The Qur'an itself is replete with such evidence with
regard both to the history of the past and the then contemporary scene.
And yet the Message must—despite its being clothed in the flesh and
blood of a particular situation—outflow through and beyond that given
context of history. If we need a support besides an insight into the
actual unfolding of the Qur'an and the Sunnah, we have on our side Shah
Waliy Allah of Dihll and a historian like Ibn Khaldun.
To revert to the "Prophetic Sunnah". We have said that the early
Islamic literature strongly suggests that the Prophet was not a
pan-legist. For one thing, it can be concluded a priori that the
Prophet, who was, until his death, engaged in a grim moral and
political struggle against the Meccans and the Arabs and in organizing
his community-state, could hardly have found time to lay down rules for
the minutiae of life. Indeed, the Muslim community went about its
normal business and did its day-to-day transactions, settling their
normal business disputes by themselves in the light of commonsense and
on the basis of their customs which, after certain modifications, were
left intact by the Prophet. It was only in cases that became especially
acute that the Prophet was called upon to decide and in certain cases
the Qur'an had to intervene.14 mostly such cases were of an ad hoc
nature and were treated informally and in an ad hoc manner. Thus, these
cases could be taken as normative prophetic examples and
quasi-precedents but not strictly and literally. Indeed, there is
striking evidence18 that even in the case of times of formal prayers
and their detailed manner the Prophet had not left an inflexible and
rigid model. It was only on major policy decisions with
regard to religion and state and on moral principles that the Prophet
took formal action but even then the advice of his major Companions was
sought and given publicly or privately, "In the behavior of the
Prophet, religious authority and democracy were blended with a finesse
that defies description."14
That the Prophetic Sunnah was a general umbrella-concept rather than
filled with an absolutely specific content flows directly, at a
theoretical level, from the fact that the Sunnah is a behavioral term:
since no two cases, in practice, are ever exactly identical in their
situational setting—moral, psychological and material—Sunnah must, of
necessity, allow of interpretation and adaptation. But quite apart from
this theoretical analysis, there is abundant historical evidence to
show that this was actually the case. The letter of Hasan al-Basri
mentioned previously is a glaring instance of this. In this letter,
Hasan tells 'Abd al-Malik b. Marwan that although there is no Hadith
from the Prophet in favor of the freedom of the will and human
responsibility, nevertheless this is the Sunnah of the Prophet. What
this obviously means is that the Prophet (and his Companions) have
shown by their behavior that the doctrine of predetermination
contradicts the Prophet's implicit teaching. This passage of Hasan is
highly revelatory of the Prophetic Sunnah as being rather a pointer in
a direction than an exactly laid-out series of rules, and demonstrates
that it was precisely this notion of the "Ideal Sunnah" that was the
basis of the early thought activity of the Muslims, and that ijtihad
and ijma are its necessary complements and forward reaches in which
this Sunnah is progressively fulfilled.
The earliest extensive extant work on the Hadith and on the Sunnah is
the Muwatta of Malik b. Anas (d. 179 A.H.). Malik's wont is that at the
beginning of each legal topic he quotes a Hadith either from the
Prophet, if available, or from the Companions, especially the first
four Caliphs. This is usually followed by his remark: "And this is also
the Sunnah with us," or "But the Sunnah with us is ...” or, more
frequently, "our practice (amr or 'amal) is ...” or, still more
frequently, "our agreed practice (al-amr al-mujtama 'alayk) is...".
Again, with regard to the term "Sunnah", sometimes he simply says, "The
Sunnah with us is .., ", and sometimes, "The established Sunnah has
been (qad madat al-Sunnatuy) we shall now analyze the use of these
closely allied and legally equivalent but somewhat differing phrases.
Malik quotes a Hadith from the Prophet that the Prophet granted a
certain person the right of shufah, i.e., the right of prior claim to
purchase his partner's share of the property, which this partner wanted
to dispose of. Malik then observes, "And this is the Sunnah with us".
Then he says that the famous lawyer of Madinah, Sa'id b. al-Musayyib
(d. circa 90 A.H.) was once asked about shufah, "Is there any Sunnah
concerning it ?", whereupon Ibn al-Musayyib said, "yes ; shufah is
applicable only to houses and land.”
Now, it is a matter of importance to notice the obvious difference
between the two usages of the term "Sunnah" in "This is the Sunnah with
us" and "Is there any Sunnah with regard to shufai?" Whereas in the one
case it does mean "the practice" or "established practice in Madinah"
it cannot mean this in the second case, for one does not ask, in the
face of an agreed practice : "Is there any Sunnah with regard to this
?" In this case, then, Sunnah must mean an "authoritative" or
"normative" precedent. But whose normative precedent? Obviously in this
case the Sunnah is either the Sunnah of the Prophet or of any
subsequent authority under the general aegis of the Prophetic Sunnah,
for we have already adduced evidence that the pre-Islamic Arab practice
as such cannot be regarded as normative. But whereas it is clear that
the Sunnah is under the general aegis of the Prophetic model, it is
also clear that Ibn al-Musayyib does not mention the Prophet here. And
Malik quotes no Hadith, in this matter, from the Prophet on the
authority of Ibn al-Musayyib. It is thus obvious that the Sunnah in
question could have been set by any Companion or a subsequent authority
although it is not divorced from the general concept of the Prophetic
Sunnah. Further, what these two statements on Sunnah in this particular
case of shufah conjointly imply is that Sunnah in
sense
(1)—an exemplary precedent, becomes, in Malik's time, Sunnah in
sense (2)—an agreed practice.
The necessary instrument whereby the Prophetic model was progressively
developed into a definite and specific code of human behavior by the
early generations of Muslims was responsible personal free-thought
activity. This rational thinking, called "Ra'y" or "personal considered
opinion" produced an immense wealth of legal, religious and moral
ideas during the first century and a half approximately.
But with all its wealth, the product of this activity became rather
chaotic, i.e., the "Sunnah" of different religions—Hijaz, Iraq, Egypt,
etc.—became divergent on almost every issue of detail. It was in the
face of this interminable conflict of free opinion that Ibn al-Muqafa'
(d. 140 A.H.) declared that there was no agreed-upon Sunnah of the
Prophet and advised the Caliph to exercise his own Ijtihad'17' But the
intellectual and religious leaders of the Community thought otherwise.
Already, the individual free thought (Ra'y had given way to more
systematic reasoning on the already existing Sunnah and on the Qur'an.
This systematic reasoning was called "Qiyas". On the other hand, the
existing Sunnah— the result of earlier free opinion—was slowly reaching
a point where it resulted in a fairly uniform acceptance by the
Community—at least regional communities—like Hijaz, Iraq, etc. This is
why both the terms "Sunnah" and "Ijma” are applied by Malik to this
body of opinion, existing in Madinah, almost equivalently. But although
both these terms are applied to this material, there is an important
difference in the point of view inherent in each term. The "Sunnah"
goes backward and has its starting-point in the "Ideal Sunnah" of the
Prophet which has been progressively interpreted by Ra'y and Qiyas ;
the Ijma is this Sunnah-interpretation or simply "Sunnah" in our sense
(2) above, as it slowly came to be commonly accepted by the consent of
the Community.
Between, therefore, the Qur'an and the "Ideal Sunnah" on the one hand
and the Ijma or Sunnah in sense (2) on the other, there lies the
inevitable activity of Qiyas or Ijtihad. Malik, in
his Muwatta, fills continuous paragraphs by his own Ijtihad
despite his ceaseless invocation of the "general practice at Madinah".
But there is perhaps nothing more revealing of the Ijtihad activity in
the existing literature of even the second century—when a fairly
general common opinion was crystallizing throughout the Muslim world
through the stabilization of the Sunnah in sense (2) and through the
growing number of new Hadith (the role of which shall be portrayed in
the next chapter) than the Kitab al-Siyar al-Kabir of Muhammad
al-Shaybani, the younger of the two illustrious pupils of Abu Hanifah.
Al-Shaybani died in 189 A.H., and his great commentator al-Sarakhsi (d.
483 A.H.) tells us18 that this work is the last one written by
al-Shaybani. The bulk of the book consists of al-Shaybani's own
Ijtihad, arising out of his criticism of early opinion. Quite apart
from Qiyas, i.e., analogical reasoning, al-Shaybani has often recourse
to Istihsan in opposition to earlier precedents and exercises absolute
reasoning.
The number of Hadith from the Prophet quoted by al-Shaybani is, indeed,
extremely small. He quotes Hadiths frequently from the Companions and
still more frequently from the "Successors" (Tabi’un—the generation
after the Companion’s). But he criticizes and rejects sometimes a
Companion's opinions as well. One illustration will suffice here. The
question under discussion is: What can an individual Muslim soldier
appropriate for himself from the territory of a defeated enemy in view
of the fact that the property of the fallen enemy does not belong to
any individual Muslim but to the conquering Muslims as a whole? "It has
been related from (the Companion) Abu'l Darda'," says al-Shaybani,
"that he said that there is no harm if Muslim soldiers take food (from
the enemy's territory), bring it back to their family, eat it and also
make presents of it (to others),
Provided they do not sell it. Now, ABu'l-Darda' seems to have included
making food-presents among the necessities like eating (for the
soldiers themselves are allowed to eat the food in order to keep
themselves alive which is a necessity). But we do not accept this for
whereas eating is a basic necessity . . . making food-presents is
not."19 In connection with this, al-Shaybani says, "We accept on this
point the Hadith of the 'Successor' Makhal (d. circa 114 A.H.). A
(Muslim) man slaughtered a camel in the territory of the Byzantines and
invited others to share it. Makhal said to someone from the Ghassanids:
'Won't you get up and bring us some meat from this slaughtered camel?'
The man replied, 'this is plunder (i.e. has not been properly
distributed according to the rules of ghanimah)’. Makhal said, 'There
is no plunder in what is permissible (i.e. food is allowed to be
eaten)'."
Al-Shaybani goes on, "It is also related from Makhal that he said that
anybody who brings back home something from the enemy territory that
has no value there but which may be of use to him, is allowed to do so.
But this would hold well, according to us, only in regard to those
things which have no special value in our territory either. Things
(which may be valueless in the enemy territory but) which become
valuable in our territory must be returned to the mal al-ghanimah, for,
by mere transportation the essence of a thing is not transformed.
Makhal regarded the fact of transportation as having become a
constitutive quality of a thing—like a craft'20 Al-Shaybani, after this
criticism, proceeds to confirm Makhal's ijtihad that if a Muslim finds
some petty object in the enemy territory, say a piece of wood, and by
his own work transforms it into, say, a bowl, he is entitled to it. But
he is not entitled to possess things which had been manufactured before
he found them.
Examples of this type could be given almost endlessly but I have chosen
one lengthy illustration of Ijtihad to give a peep to the reader into
the actual working of the mind of early mujtahid Muslims. It should be
abundantly clear by now that the actual content of the Sunnah of the
early generations of Muslims was largely the product of Ijtihad when
this Ijtihad, through an incessant interaction of opinion, developed
the character of general acceptance or consensus of the Community, i.e.
Ijma. This is why the term "Sunnah" in our sense (2), i.e. the actual
practice, is used equivalently by Malik with the term "al-amr
al-mujtama 'alayhi", i.e. Ijma', Thus, we see that the Sunnah and the
Ijma literally merge into one another and are, in actual fact,
materially identical. Even later, in the post-Shafi period, when the
two concepts are separated, something of the intimate relationship
between the two remains. For, in the later period, when Sunnah came to
designate only the Sunnah of the Prophet and this not only conceptually
and, as it were, as an umbrella-idea—even then the agreed practice of
the Companions still continued to be called Sunnah—Sunnat at-Sakabah.
But where Sunnah ceases, Ijma takes over. Thus, the agreement Of the
Companions is both Sunnat al-Sahabah and Ijma* al-Sakabah.
This in itself was not a harmful change, provided the important status
of Ijma were not affected and its right to continue to assimilate and
create new fresh ideas and elements were not jeopar- dized. But what
happened, unfortunately, in the post-Shafi period was precisely this
and in the next section we shall portray this development.
We have, so far, established: (1) that the Sunnah of the early Muslims
was, conceptually and in a more or less general way, closely attached
to the Sunnah of the Prophet and that the view that the early practice
of the Muslims was something divorced from the concept of the Prophetic
Sunnah cannot hold water ;
(2) That the actual specific content of this early Muslim Sunnah was,
nevertheless, very largely the product of the Muslims themselves;
(3) that the creative agency of this content was the personal Ijtihad,
crystallizing into Ijma, under the general direction of the Prophetic
Sunnah which was not considered as being something very specific ;
and (4) that the content of the Sunnah or Sunnah in sense (2) was
identical with Ijma. This shows that the community as a whole had
assumed the necessary prerogative of creating and recreating the
content of the Prophetic Sunnah and that Ijma' was the guarantee for
the rectitude, i.e. for the working infallibility (as opposed to
absolute or theoretical infallibility, such as assumed by the Christian
Church) of the new content.
With this background in view, we can understand the real force of the
famous second-century aphorism: "The Sunnah decides upon the Qur’an;
the Qur'an does
not decide upon the Sunnah",
which, without this background, sounds not only, shocking but outight
blasphemous. What the aphorism means is that the Community, under the
direction, of the spirit (not the absolute letter) in which the Prophet
acted in a given historical situation, shall authoritatively interpret
and assign meaning to Revelation. Let us give a concrete example of
this. The Qur'an provides that for a decision in most cases (other than
adultery, etc.) the evidence of two males or one male and two females
is required. In the established actual practice, however, civil cases
were decided on the basis of one witness plus an oath. Some people
objected to this practice and argued from the Qur'an. Malik (Muwatta’
the chapter "al-Yamin ma al-Shahid") confirms this established practice
which had most probably arisen out of the exigencies of the judicial
procedure. Malik also quotes a Hadith in this connexion but ultimately
relies on the established practice.
An important feature of this Sunnah-Ijma phenomenon must be noticed at
this stage. It is that this informal Ijma' did not rule out differences
of opinion. Not only was this Ijma regional the Sunnah-Ijma of Madinah,
e.g. differed from that of Iraq but even within each region differences
existed although an opinio generalis was crystallizing. This itself
reveals the nature of the process whereby Ijma was being arrived at,
i.e. through differences in local usage and through different
interpretations a general opinio publica was emerging, although at the
same time the process of fresh thinking and interpretation was going
on. This procedure of reaching Ijma or a common public opinion was
utterly democratic in its temper. But at this juncture also a powerful
movement had gained momentum to achieve standardization and uniformity
throughout the Muslim world, The need for uniformity was pressing in
the interests of administrative and legal procedures and tasks and that
is why, as we have remarked earlier, Ibn al-Muqafa' had advised the
'Abbasid Caliph to impose his own decision in the absence of a
universal agreement. This movement for uniformity, impatient with the
slow-moving but democratic Ijma'-process, recommended the substitution
of the Hadith for the twin principles of Ijtihad and Ijma and relegated
these to the lowest position and, further, severed the organic
relationship between the two, This seemed to put an end to the creative
process but for the fact that Hadith itself began to be created.
The mass-scale Hadith movement, which we shall deal with in the next
chapter had already started towards the turn of the first century but
gained a strong impetus during the second century in the name of a
uniform authority -the Prophet- and in the sphere of jurisprudence was
spearheaded by al-Shafi whose decisive and successful intervention in
the freely-
moving Islamic thought-stream resulted in the fundamental formulation
of the principles of Islamic jurisprudence as the succeeding ages have
known and accepted them. Especially, in our present context, his
arguments concerning the nature of Ijma have been truly momentous. He
ceaselessly argued that the claims of his opponents—the representatives
of the older schools—to have arrived at a state of general
Ijma* were quite unacceptable;
that, apart from certain basic facts, like the number of prayers, etc.,
in fact not Ijma' but difference prevailed on almost all issues, and
that no formal council of Muslim representatives to reach agreements
had been ever convened nor was such a step feasible21 He noncommittally
states the opponents' view—and on occasions only reluctantly allows it,
viz. that the early Caliphs, especially Abu Bakr and 'Umar, used to
make public appeals for people to come forward with information about
the Prophetic Sunnah when specific issues arose about which the Caliphs
themselves were not in possession of such information.22 Actually, this
argument of al-Shafi's opponents was part of a larger argument that the
Prophet's Companions had seen him behave in all sorts of situations and
had acted in his spirit; that the succeeding generation had, in their
turn, witnessed the behavior of the Companions ; and that through this
process—involving mutual advice and criticism—by the third generation,
the Prophetic Sunnah can be assumed to have been established in
practice in the Community and, therefore, the vehicle of mass-scale
Hadith—beset with dangers of lack of verifiability was not needed to
support this Sunnah.2' This argument was disallowed resolutely by
al-Shafi. The argument about the public appeals of the Caliphs seems to
be an artifice introduced by the Ahl al-Ijma as a defense against the
Ahl al-Hadith, and the proof of its artificial character is al-Shafi’s
scepticism towards it. But the larger argument had a great potentiality
and apparently much truth. What weakened it in the eyes of al-Shafi’i?
However, were the differences of opinion prevailing among the
schools, "You do not possess.agreement
(ijma) but disagreement (iftiraq)"., he
insistently pointed out.
It is clear that al-Shafi's notion of Ijma was radically different from
that of the early schools. His idea of Ijma was that of a
formal and a total one;
He demanded an agreement which left no room for disagreement. He was
undoubtedly responding to the exigencies of the time and was but a
monumental representative of a trend that had long set in, working
towards equilibrium and uniformity. But the notion of Ijma
exhibited by the early schools was very
different. For them, Ijma was not an imposed or
manufactured static fact but an ongoing democratic process; it was not
a formal state but an informal, natural growth which at each step
tolerates and, indeed, demands fresh and new thought and therefore must
live not only with but also upon a certain amount of
disagreement. We must exercise Ijtihad, they contended, and
progressively the area of agreement would widen ; the remaining
questions must be turned over to fresh Ijtihad or Qiyas so
that a new Ijma could be arrived
at24 But it is precisely the living and organic
relationship between Ijtihad and Ijma that was severed in
the successful formulation of al-Shafi. The place of the living
Sunnah-Ijtihad-Ijma* he gives to the Prophetic Sunnah which, for him,
does not serve as a general directive but as something
absolutely literal and specific and whose only vehicle is
the transmission of the Hadith. The next place he assigns to the
Sunnah of the Companions, especially of the first four
Caliphs. In the third place he puts Ijma' and, lastly, he
accepts Ijtihad.25
Thus, by reversing the natural order, Ijtihad-Ijma into
Ijma-Ijtihad, their organic relationship was severed,
Ijma', instead of being a process and something forward-looking,—coming
at the end of free Ijtihad — came to be something static and backward
looking. It is that which, instead of having to be accomplished, is
already accomplished in the past. Al-Shafi's genius provided a
mechanism that gave stability to our medieval socio-religious fabric
but at the cost, in the long run, of creativity and originality. There
is no doubt that even in later times Islam did assimilate new currents
of spiritual and intellectual life—for, a living society can never
stand quite still, but this Islam did not do so much as an active
force, master of itself, but rather as a passive entity with whom these
currents of life played. An important instance is point is Sufism.
NOTES
Khalid b. 'Atabah al-Hudhalisays (Tajal-'Arus, a.v.) :
(Arabic sentence is here please see pdf for the Arabic sentence)
''Do not be hesitant about a sunnah which you have introduced, for the
first person to be satisfied with a sunnah is the one who has
introduced it (i.e. has performed it first of all)."
2. Vide all the major dictionaries. S.v.
3. Taj al-'Arus refers it only to Shimr, although even there it is
not absolutely clear whether sunnah is to be taken in a
purely physical sense in its primitive connotation. There
seems to be a widespread prejudice that the Arabs, in building
abstract concepts, always used words which primarily denoted
physical phenomena.
4. Published in the collection Kitab al-'Alim wa'l-Mut'allim,
Cairo 1949, page 38. The major part of this letter has been
translated into English in Islam by John Williams, (Great
Religious Series). Washington D. C., 1961
5. In the volume Islam, Chapter III. to be published by George
Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London, in their series History of
Religion.
6. Qur'an, XXXIII: 62 - XXXV : 43.
7. Qur'an XXXIII: 21 ; LX : 4. 6.
8. This letter was published by H. Ritter in Der Islam, Band,
XXI, 67 ff.
9. Al-Aghani. XV: 124; the HUshimiydt of
al-Kumayt were
critically edited by J. Horovitz in 1904.
10. Hashimlyat. poem no. 8, verse i ff.
11. AbTJ YHsuf. Kitab al-Kharaj. Cairo, 1302 A.H., p. 8, line 22.
12. Qur'an, LXXIII: 5.
13. Qur'an. XVIII: 6 ; XX : 1.
14. e.g. Qur'an, IV : 64.
15. For times of prayers, see the Muwatta' of MSlik, Hadith no.
1: "... 'Umar ibn -Abd al-'Aziz one day delayed a prayer.
'Urwah ibn al-Zubayr entered upon him and informed him that al-Mugh[rah
ibn Sh_u'bah, while in Kufah, once delayed a prayer, but AbU Mas'Od
al-Ansart came to him
and said: What is this, O Mughirah I Did you not know
that Gabiel came down and prayed and the Prophet prayed (with him) ;
then (again) Gabriel
prayed (i.e. the next prayer)
and the
Prophet prayed (with him); then (again) Gabriel
prayed
(i.e.
the third prayer) and the Prophet did likewise ; then
(again)
Gabriel prayed (i.e. the fourth prayer) and
likewise did the
Prophet; and then (again) Gabriel prayed (i.e. the fifth prayer) and so
did the Prophet?' The Prophet then said, 'Have I been commanded this?'
(On hearing this) "Umar ibn 'Abd
al-'Aziz exclaimed, 'Mind what you are relating, O 'Urwah.' Is it the
case that Gabriel it was who appointed the times of prayer for the
Prophet?' 'Urwah replied, 'So was Bashir. son of Abu Mas'nd al-Ansai in
the habit of relating from his father'." Henceforward, whenever prayers
are emphasized in the Hadith. the word "Salah" is almost invariably
accompanied by the phrase " 'ala miqatiha—[prayers] at their proper
times". This seems to point to a campaign for the fixing of standard
times for prayers.
16. Quoted from
the manuscript of my above-mentioned work.
Islam.
17. Ibn al-Muqaffa', "RisSlah
fi '1- Sahabah" in RasZ'il a].
Bulagha'. Cairo 1930.
18. Haydarabad edition. 1335 A.H.. 1: 2.
19. Ibid.. 11:260.
20. Ibid., II: 259.
31. KitSb al-Umm, VII : 240 ff., 248. 256, 258.
22. Ibid.. VII: 242, 246.
23. Ibid., VII: 242. Etc.
24. See especially ibid..
VII:
255. 8 lines from the bottom
if.
25. Especially ibid, 246, line 15.