Men have always differed and because religion through the vehicle of revelation
has largely been an interpretative enterprise, lots of problems can arise. Early in the
history of Islam, caliph Uthman (the third leader after Prophet Muhammad)
appointed a commission whose sole task was to compile the Koran into a book.
Before this, the main method of transmitting the Koran had been oral, much as
the early Hebrew scriptures had been. The destruction of Jerusalem by
Nebuchadnezzar in 587 BCE and the subsequent deportation of many of its inhabitants to Babylon had made it necessary for the
early Jews to preserve their scriptures in the more or less permanent form of
writing. Caliph Uthman was faced with a different predicament, however. War and simply
time conspired to drain the Ummah (Muslim community) of its hafiz, or
those who memorized the Koran in its entirety. Furthermore, deviant readings of
the Koran were cropping up in various parts of the Muslim world.
Knowledge thus coalesced on the sacred text, and came to be known as ilm,
from which the term alim and the plural ulema (scholars) were derived. Even with
the Koran in book form, Muslims increasingly engaged in bitter debates on
matters of religious law. This problem arose mostly because of arbitrary interpretations
of the Koran and the existence of Hadiths that hopelessly contradicted one another. Scholars, worried that the dissension would
lead to schisms, attempted to establish methodologies from which they could alleviate the prevailing
confusion. From the outset, these methodologies would be rooted in deep study, an
exquisite memory, a profound understanding of the Koran's Arabic language and a
tireless patience to sieve through the millions of Hadiths that were in
circulation.
Here, the question of orthodoxy in the Islamic sense must be examined. Orthodoxy
means correctness in belief; and orthopraxy, the correct manner of practicing
and reaching the truth. Like Judaism, Islam emphasizes the importance of
orthopraxy over orthodoxy. The mantle of orthodoxy has generally been bestowed
on anyone who professes the principle of tawhid (divine unity) and the status of
Muhammad as Rasul (messenger), while the criterion for determining the
legitimacy of orthopraxy, or method, has been somewhat more rigorous.
Over time, these methodologies crystallized into four distinctive legal schools
of thought known as Madhhabs. The Madhhabs differed on many issues, but these
variations were on matters of detail rather than questions of principle. Imam Malik, Imam Shafi'i, Imam Hanifa and Imam Hanbal were the earliest
scholars to
codify their efforts, making it easier for later scholars to reuse and refine the respective
methodologies of the Four Imams.
| Imam |
Birth |
Death |
Age |
| Abu Hanifa |
699 |
767 |
70 |
| Malik |
713 |
795 |
84 |
| Shafi'i |
767 |
819 |
54 |
| Ibn Hanbal |
780 |
855 |
77 |
Scholars on their own do not necessarily create
history, but at certain times, they manage to set up institutions through which
historical changes are realized. In the Islamic context, this grants them a
power as great as that of rulers or their generals.
An orthodoxy eventually built up around these schools that became known as the
Ahle Sunnah Waal Jemaah.
Malise Ruthven (
Islam in the World) attests that,
...Without this accommodation of the different schools within a single
framework, it is difficult to see how, after the collapse of the caliphal state,
the divine law could have avoided falling into the kind of politico-religious
fragmentation which produced the wars of religion in Europe...
This tolerance over difference of opinion was such that according to Sir Hamilton Gibb
(
Mohammedanism-
An Historical Survey),
"...no body of religious sectarians has ever been excluded from the orthodox
community but those who desired such an exclusion and as it were excluded
themselves."
No other organized religion has managed to accomplish what the early scholars of Islam did
for their religion; that is, create a framework of unity amidst diversity. So
resilient has this idea been that for more than a thousand years of Islamic
history, there has been no significant sectarian split outside the Sunni-Shia
schism. Compare this with the Christian condition, in which three major
schisms use three different versions of the Bible. This was because the Fathers
of Catholicism, representing the first orthodoxy in Christianity, were more intent on imposing
the impossible ideal of uniformity rather than unity. You don't have to venture too far afield to find examples of such regimes in the Islamic world. The short-lived
Taliban in Afghanistan precisely mirrors early Catholicism's rabid fear of
diversity. A culture of uniformity that is taken to its logical conclusion ensures a totalitarian regime with an arm dedicated solely to theological inquisition.
Corrupt scholars
The complaint that frequently materializes is that Madhhabs are relics of an
obsolete past. The reason for their continued survival is thus demythologized
and reduced to a combination of luck and shrewd political maneuvering. After
all, there had not been four Maddhabs, but more that gradually died out. Key to
this line of reasoning is the implication that scholars had only managed to seal
their status and authority by colluding with what was considered to be the profane
world of politics.
This is a dangerous generalization that expediently buries the genuine ability
of the four Madhhabs to survive on their own merits. It is striking that where dynasties
and governments have gone, the Madhhabs have yet to follow. Even an accord as
recent as the
Jordan Initiative in 2005 places the four Madhhabs at the pinnacle of
a list that specifies "true Islam".
Taqlid makes no sense
On the surface, its seems contradictory that the four schools, with their
differing positions, could be reconciled into any kind of institution. It is a
question that bothers even contemporary Muslims, who sometimes use it to
highlight the so-called irrationality of taqlid, or the practice of adhering to the
jurisprudence of a single Madhhab. After all, if Imam Malik says that praying
with arms down is okay and Imam Shafi'i says it is not, both conclusions cannot
be correct at the same time.
The argument only makes sense if one conveniently forgets the basic fact about
revealed religions; that it is essentially interpretative. Variations in thought
must be a given and is borne out by the fact that Islamic scholarship has always
invested more attention on methodology rather than conclusions. If the methodology is
correct, there is a reliably high chance that the conclusion too is sound.
All Imams have a
specific set of rules for assessing whether a Hadith should be practiced upon
and this has greatly contributed to the difference of opinion amongst them. One
Hadith may be accepted because it fulfills the standards set by them, or it
might be dismissed because it falls short of standards set by other mujtahid
Imams. There is absolutely no reason to say that the Four Imams had acted
contrary to the Hadiths when all had based their conclusions on the same primary
sources of the Koran and the Hadiths. Because these conclusions may differ from
one another and it is dangerous to pick rulings based solely on
conclusions instead of methodology, taqlid plays an important role in
maintaining consistency.
Madhhab melting pot
An alternative that has been proposed is the mixing of conclusions between
different schools. After all, if it is an attribute of the Ahle Sunnah Waal
Jemaah to say that all four schools are valid, then a framework made up of
rulings drawn from Imam Malik, Imam Shafi'i, Imam Hanifa and Imam Hanbal is, by
extension, also valid. Again, such a proposal emerges from a fascination of
settling with conclusions rather than
methodologies. Both Isaac Newton's and Albert Einstein's theories on gravitation
deal with essentially the same phenomenon, yet the equations behind the two
theories possess critical incompatibilities. Combining both methods would result
in skewed solutions. Similarly, a pieced-together edifice with no methodology
outside the perception that such and such a ruling sounds about right would only
lead to inconsistencies.
MB Hooker (
Perspectives on Sharia and the
State: The Indonesian Debates) warns,
...the danger with talfiq, as the ulema widely recognized, is that it allows or
even encourages recourse to the lowest common denominator of that which is
socially and politically acceptable.
It is thus premature to accuse the dual framework of Madhhab and taqlid of being
irrational since rationalism is merely a method applied to get from principles
to conclusions. Even though the method in one school differs from that of
another school's, both methods can still be rational. Too many critics condemn the client side of Madhhabs without attempting to say what is
wrong with the methodology of the Madhhab in the first place.
The tawdriness of the argument against taqlid is best demonstrated by the
fact that the same people who dispute this practice promote instead a direct
approach to the Koran and Hadiths. As Sheikh Muhamad Zakariyya Kandhlawi (
The
Differences of the Imams) candidly explains,
...Today, after thirteen hundred years, it is not possible for us to determine
whether the narrations that we have before us have exactly the same chain of
narrators as the narrations of the people of the past. Nor is it possible for us
to verify whether the reasons for the rejection of a certain hadith which we are
aware of, or which Imam Bukhari or Imam Muslim mention, are the only reasons for
the rejection of that hadith...
In short, when we quote Hadiths, we already surrender the fact that they possess a
sound chain of transmission that has already been accredited by either the Four
Imams, or the two most famous hadith-compilers, Imam Bukhari (809-869 ACE) and Imam Muslim
(819-874 ACE).
Accreditation, however, entails a method, and different Imams used different methods to
categorize Hadiths. Muslims today have little choice but to trust that these
methods were correct, and that the Imams had traveled widely enough to gather
the most statistically objective number of Hadiths. When we say Hadiths, we
refer not to the almost entire corpus of literature that confronted the early
Imams, but a series that has been considerably tidied by human hands. Using a
present compendium of Hadiths to derive any kind of rulings hence already
entails a trust very much akin to the process of taqlid.
Does taqlid to a particular school necessarily mean that Muslims are giving
Madhhabs an absolute character? The question assumes several problematic notions which
should be dealt with. First is the fact that Madhhabs are not the opinions of a
single Imam, but of several who work within the "agreed-upon" framework of that
school, including the use of established methodologies to derive laws for new
circumstances. Nevertheless, I have heard arguments that,
...While it is true to say that a majority of wise men should be correct, it is
just as true to say that they could also be incorrect.
Sounds good, but it puts forth a dishonest comparison.
The likelihood of a majority of wise men
being correct is NOT equal to the likelihood of them being incorrect. Also, given
the extremely complex nature of Islamic studies and the highly interpretative
nature of religion, any kind of consensus that is reached by the majority should
not be so underrated and dismissed.
From here, it is easy to ascertain that Madhhabs are not
primarily "opinions", or even "absolute opinions", but rigorous methodologies
that are best insulated from error and the need for innovation, which though
permitted under exceptional circumstances, are generally discouraged.
Detox the orthodox
What then is orthodoxy? To the traditional ulema who accept the classical
definition of Ahle Sunnah Waal Jemaah, it is the group collectivity and its
acceptance that all four methods, while occasionally arriving at different
conclusions, are all valid. Orthodoxy in Ahle Sunnah Waal Jemaah is the macro
view incorporating macro-principles. The principle of tolerance, for example,
revolts against the idea of "blind following"- which is the pet definition of
taqlid that opponents of taqlid subscribe to.
The result of blind following is however exceedingly clear, enjoining as it does
fanatical devotion to the opinions of a particular stream or individual, with the
almost perverse exclusion of other streams. Albert Hourani (
A
History of the Arab Peoples) comments,
...relations between followers of the different Madhhabs had been stormy at
times; in Baghdad during the Abbasid period, Shafi'ism and Hanifism had given
their names to urban factions which fought one another.
But it is important to understand that 'exclusivism'
has seldom, if ever, been an industry standard in orthodox Islam, anymore than it is within
individual Madhhabs.
The best example of this is found in the words of the eighteenth-century Sheikh
Muhammad Ibn Sulayman Effendi who
responded to
Muhammad ibn Abdul Wahhab's charge
that the majority of the Ummah were apostates,
It is more correct to call you, a single person, kafir, than
calling millions of Muslims kuffar."
Sheikh
Muhammad Ibn Sulayman Effendi was not defending his own particular Madhhab but
the macro-ideal that continues to be Ahle Sunnah Waal Jemaah.
From here, it is easy to argue against trusting whims and desires when
approaching religious law, no matter how well adorned it is in intellectual
dress. The paradigm of the Madhhabs offers a path of consistency that is hard to
overcome. This is evidenced by the proliferation of extremist movements whose origins
can often be
traced to the core principles of a particularly modern movement. From
the outset, it eschews the very authority of the Madhhabs and assumes a
self-proclaimed right to regulate how ordinary Muslims should regard them.
