Shariah, Fiqh
and the Sciences of Nature – Part 2
By Professor Nazeer
Ahmed
CA
If one had lived in the year
730 CE, one would witness with awe the extent
of the Islamic Empire. Arab armies had crossed
into France and were advancing towards Paris.
Constantinople (modern Istanbul), the seat of
the Byzantine Empire, had undergone multiple assaults.
Muslim merchants had met up with the Chinese in
Sinkiang along the ancient Silk Road and were
actively trading in the Indonesian islands and
eastern China. Caravans from North Africa had
crossed the Sahara desert into Western Africa
with the message of the Qur’an. The center
of Vedic culture in Sindh (in today’s Pakistan)
was under Muslim rule.
The vast and diverse Islamic community included
Arabs, Persians, Egyptians, Africans, Spaniards,
Afghans, Turks and Indians. With the influx of
new people came new ideas. Muslim society was
in a state of flux and the pent-up tensions brought
on by new people and new ideas were soon to erupt
like a volcano in the Abbasid revolution (750
CE). It was in this caldron of ideas that people
wanted answers to the issues that faced the vast
and diverse world of Islam.
It is a truism that great men and women create
history. It is also true that historic events
create great men and women. The tide of events
in the second century of Hijra gave birth to scholars
who systematized the science of Fiqh. Madina and
Kufa were two of the prime centers of learning
in the early years of Islam. Madina was the city
of the Prophet and the people of Madina had close
access to Prophetic traditions. However, Madina
as the heart of the Islamic Empire was insulated
from the challenge of ideas from neighboring civilizations.
Kufa, on the other hand, located at the confluence
of Arabia and Persia, was a melting pot and more
susceptible to foreign ideas. Kufa was the regional
capital from which the Umayyads ruled Iraq-e-Arab
(modern Iraq), Iraq-e-Ajam (western Persia), Pars
(central and southern Persia), Khorasan (in Azerbaijan)
and western India (today’s Pakistan). The
Kufans had somewhat less of an access to the traditions
of the Prophet, but they were at the front end
of the challenge of ideas from the neighboring
Greek, Persian, Indian and Chinese civilizations.
It was but natural that Madina and Kufa would
become the earliest centers of schools of jurisprudence.
Thus, the earliest developments in Fiqh, centered
around Madina and Kufa, were exposed to somewhat
different geographical and historical challenges.
These two schools were referred to as the Madinite
School and the Kufic School.
The first and foremost scholar of the Kufic School
was Imam Abu Haneefa. The first scholar of the
Madinite School was Imam Malik, and after him
it was Imam Shafi’i. There was a parallel
and simultaneous development of the Ja’afariya
School, named after Imam Ja’afar-as-Saadiq.
The Fiqh of Imam Ahmed ibn Hanbal was of a somewhat
later period and was a result of the political
and intellectual turmoil in the 9th century.
Imam Abu Haneefa (d. 768 CE) was at once a scholar
of the first rank and a man of action. Very few
sages have left as visible an imprint on Islamic
history, as has this savant. Born to Afghan parentage,
he knew first hand the issues confronting the
jurists in the newly conquered territories east
of Iraq. He was also well aware of the intellectual
challenge from the contemporary civilizations
of Greece, Persia, India and China. As a youth,
he settled in Kufa and studied under the great
scholars of the age. As a young man, he took positions
against the oppression of the Omayyads and the
haughtiness of Arab noblemen. For his refusal
to tow the official line, he suffered imprisonment
both from the Omayyads and the Abbasids. A famous
quotation attributed to him, “The belief
of a converted Turk is equal to that of a Muslim
from Hijaz”, speaks volumes about the egalitarian
temperament of the Imam.
The method of teaching in early Islam was the
halqa (study circle), wherein those who sought
knowledge from a master sat around him in a circle
and were recipients of his discourse and his baraka.
One such halqa was that of Imam Ja’afar
as Sadiq, who had received spiritual knowledge
of the Prophet transmitted through the lineage
of Ahl e Bait. Imam Abu Haneefa frequented the
circle of Imam Ja’afar as Saadiq and benefited
from it.
The genius of Imam Abu Haneefa lies in his vision
of fiqh as a dynamic vehicle available to all
people in all ages. He saw Islam as a universal
idea accessible to all races in space and time.
Fiqh was not to be a static code applicable to
one situation in one location, but a mechanism
that would at once provide stable underpinnings
to the Islamic civilization and would also serve
as a cutting edge in its debate with other civilizations.
He saw that the rigorous and exacting methodology
of the Madinite School might suffocate the ability
of jurists to cope with unforeseen challenges
presented by new situations. Therefore, he expanded
the base on which sound legal opinions stand.
According to Imam Abu Haneefa, the sources of
Fiqh are: (1)The Qur’an, (2) Sunnah of the
Prophet, (3) Ijma (consensus) of some, not necessarily
all of the Companions, (4) Qiyas (deduction by
analogy to similar cases which had been decided
on the basis of the first three principles) and,
(5) Istihsan (creative juridical opinion based
on sound principles). With the acceptance of Istihsan
as a legitimate methodology, Imam Abu Haneefa
provided a creative process for the continual
evolution of Fiqh. No Muslim jurist would be left
without a tool to cope with new situations and
fresh challenges from as-yet unknown future civilizations.
One other term needs clarification here, that
is ijtihad (root word j-h-d, meaning struggle).
Ijtihad is the disciplined and focused intellectual
activity whose end result is ijma or qiyas or
istihsan. Ijtihad is a process. The Hanafi and
Ja’afariya Schools provide the greatest
latitude for ijtihad. However, there are differences
in emphasis. In the Ja’afariya School, emphasis
is on the ijtihad of the Imams. In the Hanafi
School, emphasis is on the ijtihad of the Companions
of the Prophet, but the ijtihad of the learned
jurists is also acceptable. There are also differences
between the Kufic Schools of Fiqh (such as that
of Imam Abu Haneefa) and the Madinite Schools
of Fiqh (such as that of Imam Malik) in the latitude
allowed for ijtihad. The ijma or consensus of
the Madinite School is primarily through evidence
(from the Qur’an) or correlation with the
Sunnah of the Prophet. The requirements for ijma
or consensus in the Kufic Schools are somewhat
more liberal and include not only evidence from
the Qur’an and the Sunnah of the Prophet,
but also ijtihad of the Companions or of learned
jurists.
Imam Abu Haneefa did not establish the school
of Fiqh named after him, nor did he personally
document his methodology. Writing was not common
at that time and the spoken word was still the
queen of discourse. Oration was the primary vehicle
for instruction and teaching. Arabic language,
syntax and grammar were learned through memorization.
Like the qaris of earlier years, well-known scholars
taught through their lectures. Documentation was
left to students and disciples of later generations.
Specifically, it was not until the 11th century
that the Hanafi School was fully elucidated and
documented. Greatest among the Hanafi scholars
were Abdullah Omar al Dabbusi (d. 1038 CE), Ahmed
Hussain al Bayhaqi (d. 1065 CE), Ali Muhammad
al Bazdawi (d. 1089 CE) and Abu Bakr al Sarakhsi
(d. 1096 CE).
From the 10th century onwards, the Hanafi School
received patronage from the Abbasids in Baghdad
who enjoyed the protection of Seljuk Turks. The
Turks loved the egalitarian disposition of Imam
Abu Haneefa, as well as the creative aspects of
the Hanafi Fiqh. When they embraced Islam, they
became Hanafis and its arch defenders. The Turkish
dynasties in the 11th and 12th centuries as well
as the Ottomans endorsed the Hanafi Fiqh. The
Timurids, Turkomans as well as the Great Moghuls
of India were its champions as well. For these
historical reasons, the Hanafi School is the most
widely accepted of the various schools of Fiqh
in the Muslim world today. Most of the Muslims
of Pakistan, India, Afghanistan, Central Asian
Republics, Persia (until the 16th century), Turkey,
northern Iraq, Bosnia, Albania, Skopje, Russia
and Chechnya follow the Hanafi Fiqh. A large number
of Egyptians, Sudanese, Eritreans and Syrians
are also Hanafis, although as we shall elaborate
later, for reasons rooted in geography, the Maliki
and Shafi’i Schools are also well established
there. (To be continued)
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