Shariah, Fiqh
and the Sciences of Nature - Part 4
By Professor Nazeer
Ahmed
CA
The development of fiqh must be viewed in its
historical context. All five of the predominant
schools of fiqh were developed at a time when
the Muslim empire dominated the Eurasian landmass
and the Ijtihad of the great jurists reflected
the societal issues of the times. The influx of
different traditions and ideas during the eighth
and ninth centuries of the Common Era had a profound
impact on the development of jurisprudence. Specifically,
the emergence of the Hanbali School of fiqh was
a direct result of the convulsions caused by the
Mu’tazlites (Greek rationalists) in the
first half of the ninth century. These historical
facts must be kept in mind as we discuss the principle
of Ijtihad in modern times.
The Mu’tazilite School placed its anchor
on human reason and its capability to understand
the relationship of man to man and of man to God.
Necessarily, they based their arguments on the
Qur’an and the Sunnah of the Prophet. The
principles of the Mu’tazilah School were:
(1) The uniqueness of God or Tawhid (“Say!
He is God, the One; God, the Eternal, Absolute;
He begets not, nor is He begotten; and there is
none like unto Him”, Qur’an, 112:1-5),
(2) The free will of man (“If it had been
thy Lord’s Will, they would all have believed,
all who are on earth! Will you then compel mankind,
against their will, to believe!”, Qur’an,
10:99), (3) The principle of human responsibility
and of reward and punishment as a consequence
of human action (“On no soul does God place
a burden greater than it can bear”, Qur’an,
2:286), (4) The moral imperative to enjoin what
is right and forbid what is wrong (“You
are the most noble of people, evolved for mankind,
enjoining what is right, forbidding what is wrong
and believing in God”, Qur’an, 3:110)..
By placing man at the center of creation, the
Mu’tazalites sought to make him the architect
of his own fortunes and emphasized his moral imperative
to fashion the world in the image of God’s
command.
The Caliph al Mamun (d 833 CE) adopted the Mu’tazilite
School as the official dogma of the Empire. From
Caliph Mansur (d 775 CE) to Caliph Al Mutawakkil
(d 861 CE), the Mu’tazalites enjoyed official
patronage and they guided the intellectual ship
of Islam. It was during this period that the Darul
Hikmah (House of Wisdom) was established in Baghdad
and books of Greek philosophy, Indian mathematics
and Chinese technology were translated into Arabic.
Islamic civilization at the time was open to ideas
from the East and from the West. It integrated
these ideas and produced a uniquely Islamic amalgam.
Learning flourished and Baghdad became the intellectual
capital of the world. New disciplines such as
Algebra and Chemistry emerged. History and geography
received new dimensions. Science and civilization
advanced.
The undoing of the Mu’tazalites was their
excessive zeal and their inability to comprehend
the limitations of the methodology they championed.
They overextended their methodology to attributes
of God and of the Qur’an. God is unique
and there is none like unto Him. Therefore, the
Mu’tazalites argued, the Qur’an cannot
both be part of Him and apart from Him. To preserve
the uniqueness of God (Tawhid), and without sufficient
understanding of the nature of time itself, they
placed the Qur’an in the created space.
The issue of “createdness” caused
a great deal of division and confusion among Muslims.
Furthermore, by maintaining that reward and punishment
flowed mechanistically from human action, they
left their flank exposed for an intellectual attack
from the traditional schools. If humans are automatically
rewarded for their good deeds and automatically
punished for their evil, then where is the need
for Divine Grace? This deterministic approach
was repugnant to Muslims and a revolt was inevitable.
The challenge to the Mu’tazalites came from
the Usuli (meaning, based on principles) ulema,
the best known among whom was Imam Hanbal (d.
855 CE). A great scholar, he had mastered the
principles of Fiqh from all the Schools prevalent
in his generation, namely, Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi’i
and Ja’afariya, as well as the Kalam (philosophical)
Schools. Mu’tazilite ideas were causing
confusion among the masses. Stability was required
and innovation had to be curtailed. Imam Hanbal
argued for strict adherence to the Qur’an
and the verified Sunnah of the Prophet. Any principle,
legal or philosophical, not based on the Qur’an
and the Sunnah was to be considered bida’a
(innovation). Imam Hanbal took issue with the
principle of Ijma (unless it was sanctioned by
the Sunnah) and totally rejected Istihsan and
Qiyas as methodologies for Fiqh.
The position of Imam Hanbal was a direct challenge
to the Mu’tazalites who enjoyed official
patronage from the Caliphs. With official sanction,
they tried to silence all opposition t their ideas
and punished the ulema who disagreed with Mu’tazalite
doctrines. Imam Hanbal, along with many other
ulema, was punished and jailed for most of his
life. His sustained and determined opposition
galvanized those who fought the Mu’tazalites.
It was primarily through the efforts of Imam Hanbal
that the Caliph Al Mutawakkil abandoned the Mu’tazilite
School in 847 CE. In turn, when the traditionalists
gained the upper hand, the Mu’tazalites
were punished, jailed and their books confiscated.
Such is the fate that differing ideas have suffered
at times in Islamic history!
The Hanbali School flourished in Arabia and western
Iraq until it was adopted by the Wahhabi movement
in the late 18th century. When the Saudis captured
Hijaz (1927 CE) the Hanbali Fiqh became the official
school of jurisprudence in Saudi Arabia. As practiced
in Arabia, the Hanbali Fiqh is known for its abhorrence,
indeed condemnation, of anything that is bida’a
(innovation). Because of their association with
the cities of Mecca and Madina, these ideas have
had an enormous impact on modern Islam.
The four schools of Sunnah Fiqh - Hanafi, Maliki,
Shafi’i and Hanbali - are mutually recognized.
However, there have been occasions when frictions
between them played an important part in the outcome
of historical events. Specifically, just before
the invasions of Genghiz Khan (1219 CE), one reads
of overt hostility between the followers of the
Hanafi, Shafi’i and Ja’afariya Fiqh
in Khorasan and Persia, a situation that played
to the advantage of Genghiz in his war against
Shah Muhammed of Khorasan..
The school of thought that had perhaps the most
pervasive impact on Islamic thinking was the Asharite.
Indeed, one may take the position that Asharite
ideas have been a primary driver of Islamic civilization
since the ninth century of the common era. The
vast majority of Muslims through the centuries
have followed one of five schools of fiqh (Hanafi,
Maliki, Shafi’i, Hanbali, and Ja’afariya)
plus the Asharite philosophy. The difference is
that the five schools of Fiqh are overtly discussed
whereas Asharite ideas have been absorbed into
Islamic culture like water in an oasis. The direction,
achievements and failures of Islamic civilization
have been influenced in no small measure by Asharite
thinking. From Al Gazzali of Baghdad (d. 1111
CE) to Muhammed Iqbal of Pakistan (d. 1938 CE),
Asharite ideas have burst out on the Islamic landscape
like an ebullient fountain and have influenced
the direction of collective Muslim struggles.
Named after its architect, al Ashari (d. 935 CE),
it was the Asharite School that finally expelled
the Mu’tazalites from Muslim body politic.
Al Ashari was initially a Mu’tazilite. The
Mu’tazilite School had placed reason above
revelation and had come to the erroneous conclusion
that the Qur’an was created in time. Such
views were repugnant to Muslims. Al Ashari turned
the argument around and placed revelation ahead
of reason. Reason is time bound. It requires a-priori
assumptions about before and after. Revelation
is transcendent. By definition, it is not subject
to our understanding of time and our assumptions
of before and after. It is revelation, not reason,
that tells us what is right and wrong, helps us
differentiate between moral and immoral, enlightens
us of the attributes of God and gives us certainty
about heaven and hell. Reason is a tool bestowed
by God upon humans so that they may sort out the
relationships in the created world and reinforce
their belief.
The crux of the Asharite argument lies in its
definition of the phenomenon of time. Al Ashari
was well aware of the Greek view that matter may
be divided into atoms. He extended this argument
to time and postulated that time moves in discrete
steps, a view not far off from modern views of
quantum mechanics. At each discrete step and at
all times in between, the power and Grace of God
intervenes to determine the outcome of events.
This conceptual breakthrough enabled the Asharites
to preserve the omnipotence of God. Whereas the
Mu’tazalites had failed on this score precisely
because they assumed (much as Newtonian Mechanics
does today) that time is continuous so that a
given action automatically and mechanistically,
leads to a reaction. If the outcome of an event
is completely determined by the action that causes
it, then there is no room for the intervention
of God and the world becomes secular. This is
precisely what happened to the Western (and now
global) civilization a thousand years later. We
may summarize the Asharite pyramid of knowledge
as follows: Atoms and the physical world are at
the lowest rung of the ladder. The physical world
is subject to reason. But reason itself is subject
to and superseded by revelation. By contrast,
the model presented by the Mu’tazalites
(as well as the Greeks and the modern secular
civilization) places both the physical world and
revelation subject to understanding by reason.
Two other important elements of the Asharite philosophy
need to be stated. The Asharites asserted that
only God is the owner of all action (Qur’an,
10:100). Man has no independent capacity to act
but is merely an agent who has acquired this capacity
as a gift from God. This doctrine, known as the
doctrine of Kasab, was misunderstood and misinterpreted
by later generations of Muslims as predestination.
Secondly, the Asharites held that there is a divine
pattern in nature but no causality. The cause
and effect that we perceive is only apparent and
is only a reflection of the attributes that are
inherent in nature. This doctrine was a central
argument in Al Ghazzali’s famous treatise,
Tahaffuz al Filasafa (The Repudiation of the Philosophers,
written circa 1100 CE) that provided the death-knell
for philosophy in Islam and fundamentally changed
the course of Islamic history. Ibn Rushd (1198
CE), perhaps the greatest philosopher the world
has produced since Aristotle, provided a counter-argument
to this doctrine in his famous treatise, Tahaffuz
al Tahaffuz (Repudiation of Repudiation, circa
1190 CE). The Muslims adopted Al Gazzali, whereas
the West adopted Ibn Rushd and the two civilizations
went in different directions. The consequences
for the unfolding of global history were enormous.
(To be continued)
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