4: IJTIHAD IN THE LATER CENTURIES
The World of Islam and Islamic scholarship are by now familiar with the proposition that "the gate of Ijtihad (fresh thinking) in Islam was closed".
Nobody quite knows when the "gate of Ijtihad" was closed or who exactly closed it. There is no statement to be found anywhere by anyone about the desirability or the necessity of such a closure, or of the fact of actually closing the gate, although one finds judgments by later writers, that the "gate of Ijtihad has been closed'
. Such judgments are passed on earlier states of affairs and do not, so far as we can see, refer to any given statement about the closing of the gate of Ijtihad, It may, therefore, be safely concluded that whereas the gate of Ijtihad was never formally closed by anyone - that is to say, by any great authoity in Islam - nevertheless a state of affairs had gradually but surely come to prevail in the Muslim World where thinking on the whole, and as a general rule, ceased. In Chapters 1 and 2 we have described the rise and early growth of the methodology of Islamic thought and particularly the development that the concept "Sunnah of the Prophet" underwent through the Hadith movement; in Chapter 3 we outlined the facts of these developments on the spiritual and intellectual life of the Community and we particularly endeavoured to underline the facts as to how the development of Hadith helped the formulation of certain important politico-moral tenets of the orthodoxy which, in turn, affected directly the spiritual- and intellectual life of the Community. All these results had, in the final analysis, come to be sanctioned by Ijma or consensus of the Community. We shall now consider briely this methodology of Islamic thinking particularly the doctrine of Ijtihad, as it was finally formulated in and for the later Middle Ages of Islam under the impact of developments described in the foregoing pages and shall endeavour to outline its salient characteristics. We shall find, among other things, that, so far as jurisprudence is concerned, the gate of Ijtihad was never formally closed but that a gradual contraction of thinking occurred over a period of several centuries through various causes and that hence the treatment of Ijtihad in the juristic literature became rather formal even at the hands of liberal medieval thinkers.
(1) Indeed, the very first characteristic that a student of medieval Islamic juristic literature is impressed with is its formalism. To a larger extent, this formalism, as our argument in the preceding chapters has shown, is a result of the way this framework or methodology developed. We have shown that both the. Sunnah and the Ijma' were cut of from the process of Ijtihad which, therefore, became a formal afFair. But even more than this fact, the actual content that had developed within this methodological scheme but had been eternalized as the dogma of Islam under the prophetic authority, could not fail to affect, in turn, the nature of the methodology itself which had first given birth to this content. This content of Islam we briefly outlined in Chapter 3. Indeed, certain consequences of the dogmas and attitudes propounded and accepted by the orthodoxy reacted on the bases of law. Since, for example, the orthodoxy first rejected tbe position of the Mu'tazilah on the role of reason, this anti-rational theological position afected their attitude to legal thought- also and their standard works formally deny any role to reason in law- making.Even one of the most rational and liberal- minded representatives of the orthodoxy, the Shafi'i al-Amidi.
(d.631A.H.) states in his famous work on jurisprudence:
"You should know that there is no judge (or arbiter) except God and there is no judgment but His.
A necessary entailment of this (proposition) is that reason cannot declare things to be good or bad and that it cannot necessitate gratitude towards the bestower of bounties. There is, indeed, no rule (or judgment) before the revelation of the Shari'ah."
This is the most fundamental point en which dogmatic theology and its formulations have entered into jurisprudence. There are also other doctrines like the ineficacy of the human will which have done so. We shall return to these points in a diferent context later; here we wish to point out that the formalism of juristic thinking is, in no small measure, due also to the formalism of the Kalam. Actually, the attempt to integrate jurisprudence into the larger field of Islamic thought is in itself not to be derided but, on the contrary, to be commended and encouraged. Only in this manner can a synthetic whole be built of the total human mental endeavour. Indeed, if the Muslims had not brought their general world-view to bear on jurisprudence, this would have led to a basic incoherence. But the trouble is that the theological dogmas, as they were formulated and subsequently held with tenacity, were in themselves one-sided reactions rather than genuine syntheses as we have previously shown. Their integration with, or rather imposition upon, the legal theory was unfortunate.Since they were found in formal theology so they were installed formally in juristic thinking.
One major result of this formalism is, therefore, the existence of blatant contradictions in the juistic doctrine.
(2) In the previous chapter we have referred to an inconsistency pointed out by Ibn Taymiyah between the natural assumptions of law which presumes man to be free and responsible and those of Sunni Kalam which considers man to be a divine automaton.
. there are also other inconsistencies. For example, the majority of the theologians even to this day hold that, in matters of belief, particularly in the case of the existence of God and Muhammad's Prophethood (and allied matters), authoity alone is insufficient and that these beliefs must be grounded by all Muslims in reason. But in the field of law they teach Taqlid (i.e. unquestioning acceptance of authoity) at least to the majority of Muslims and in practice to all Muslims. These contradictions become accentuated when Kalam-theology enters into juisprudence. Let us give an illustration. We have noted above a passage from al-Amidi to the effect tbat reason has no role in law since it cannot declare things to be good or bad. This is, of course, the unanimous verdict of Sunni jurists ever since the development of Kalam- theology. There is no trace of it in the earliest Schools of the Hijaz or 'Iraq whose reliance on reason we have dealt with in the first chapter. In Chapter 3 we had quoted al-Shatibl (d. 790 A.H.) witing in the same vein as al-Amidi.
Here is a much more ' explicit and categorical statement of al-Shatibi:
"This principle (that man's knowledge is Imperfect whereas Divine knowledge is perfect) includes the essences of things both as a whole and in detail and the attributes, states, actions and laws of things equally as a whole and in detail. For even one single thing out of the totality of things is known in its completeness only to God so that nothing whatever of it escapes His knowledge - its essence, its attributes,its
laws. Man's knowledge of the same thing, on the other hand, is defective and imperfect - whether man tries to comprehend its essence, attributes, states or laws. This is something man indubitably experiences within himself."
The conclusion which al-Shatibi obviously wishes to draw from the imperfection of human knowledge is that human knowledge based on reason and expeience cannot be trusted at all and, therefore, cannot lead to action. For unless this conclusion is drawn, his argument loses its force, since otherwise one might say- as, indeed, one normally does - that imperfection of knowledge does not necessaily entail its- utter inadequacy. This entire argument, therefore, rests on the obviously wrong assumption that if human knowledge is always imperfect, it must, for that reason, be absolutely inadequate and hence quite unreliable. Although al-Shatibi has given a general argument about "knowledge of things", his real purpose, however, is to prove the utter inadequacy of human reason to apprehend moral truths and hence its uselessness, indeed, dangerousness as an instrument for the formulation of law. Immediately after this general argument stated just now, al-Shatibi, therefore, puts forward another argument. According to this, there are certain truths of which man possesses necessary knowledge, others from whose knowledge he is equally necessarily debarred and thirdly there is the 'contingent (mumkin)' knowledge which he may or may not possess. This last division covers the entire field of human reasoning whether deductive or inductive. Now al-Shatibi holds that nothing or almost nothing in this field can be really and truly known to man - because of the ever-present possibility or actuality of diference of opinion among men - unless a sure and unfailing authority informs us. The laws of the Shari'ah, he maintains, fall into this category and hence must be based only on revealed authority.
The warp and woof of the above arguments rests on a patent denial of faith in the intellectual and moral powers of man. Man is incapable of knowing anything true or doing anything good without being commanded on authoity. This depreciation of human faculties, which is in such a palpable conflict with the recurrent invitation of the Qur'an to man to "think", "understand", "reflect" and "ponder", is unfortunately the standard dogma of Sunni theology. Its net result must be stark cynicism. But when this theological dogma becomes the prolegomenon of legal philosophy, its consequences for the Sunni view of human action and its value per se must be far-reaching, indeed. Let us hear al-Amidi again on the good and evil quality of acts. "Our companions (i.e. the Sunnis) and most of those who possess understanding ‘uqala) believe that acts in themselves cannot be described either as good or as bad because reason cannot declare acts to be either good or bad. They think that descriptions 'good' and 'bad' are applicable in three senses which are only relative and not real. The first is the application of the term 'good' to that which suits one's objective and the 'bad' is that which is opposed to it. Now this is not a real attribution because good and bad change with the Change of objectives the second is that the term 'Good' is applied to that whose doer the law-giver (Shari') has declared to be praiseworthy... while 'bad' is that the doer of which has been condemned by the Law-giver But this also varies according as the command of the law-giver varies regarding actions."
Al-Amidi's third category is essentially identical with the second.
This is the utterest moral relativism imaginable. It has been resorted to by the upholders of the Sunnah in order to counteract the Mu'taziiite thesis of the power of human reason to know good and evil. So strong was the orthodox reaction against the Mu'tazilah that they were prepared to employ any arguments, sceptical, cynical, relativistic - indeed anything they could lay their hands on in the rich armoury of Greek philosophical ideas - no matter how obviously incompatible this might be with the fundamental teachings of the Qur'an and the actual Sunnah of the Prophet.Where does the Qur'an say and, indeed, how can it even tolerate that man can neither know anything nor act? How can any religion befriend scepticism? And, strangest of all, can any genuine moral system accepts this kind of relativism?
There is, however, an important diference between the positions of al-Amidi and al-Shatibi which we shall clarify later more fully in a diferent context but which may be pointed out here. Whereas al-Shatibi generally employs only sceptical arguments to show the powerlessness of the human reason "to declare things good and bad", al-Amidi uses arguments of moral relativism - of which, of course, scepticism will be a consequence, i.e. the doctrine, that there is nothing good or bad initself
. If there is nothing good or evil in itself, then neither human reason nor yet divine Revelation can declare anything to be either good or evil in it. This is an extreme position but it has also been adopted by the Sunni Kalam-theology. The question is asked: if things are neither good nor bad in themselves, then why should anyone follow the Revelation if he is not to follow his reason? The answer to this question given by the Sunni Kalam is that although things are neither good nor bad in themselves they become so by Divine declaration. The dificulty, however, remains unsolved for many reasons not the least being that if things become good or bad by a Divine declaration - although they are not so in themselves - why can they not become good or bad by a declaration of the human reason ?Al-Shatibi.
However, unlike al-Amidi, does not say that things are neither good nor bad in themselves; he merely asserts that the goodness and evil of things cannot be known to the human reason and must, therefore, be established only on Revealed authority.
(3) This is, however, one side of the picture. We have to see the other side in order to convince ourselves that the picture drawn above of the complete inanity of human reason is not true. The two pictures may be mutually contradictory; in fact, they are patently so and this is a result, as we stated earlier, of the starkly formal character of this juristic literature. However, in face of the evidence it is impossible to conclude that the "gate of Ijtihad was closed". On the subject of Ijtihad, al-Amidi is so emphatic that he insists that the Prophet was also duty-bound to exercise it just as anybody else although he was in a more favourable position with regard to the rectitude of his Ijtihad because he was the recipient of Revelation. Al-Amidi, however, makes it abundantly clear that the Prophet's Ijtihad was, nevertheless, fallible, although on this point once again he exhibits a contradictory position by making statements to the contrary as we shall see soon. We shall quote here one passage from him on this point although he has elaborated a very lengthy argument involving thesis and counter-thesis:
"The Book (of God) says, 'Think, O people of understanding!" Now God has given a general command to people of understanding to think; the Prophet, being the greatest of these, is included in this generality Again, God says (addressing the Prophet), 'Consult them in the afairs', but consultation can take place only in those things wherein a rule is arrived at through Ijtihad and not through Revelation. Again, God reprimands the Prophet concerning the war captives ofBadr .
''. . This shows that the Prophet's decision had come about on the basis of Ijtihad and not through Revelation. Similarly, God says, 'May God forgives you! Why did you permit these people (to stay at home During Jihad?) thus reproaching him and pointing Out his mistake "
Ijtihad, then, is a necessity not only for an ordinary Muslim but even for the Prophet himself. So far as the ordinary Muslim is concerned it will be of varying qualities due to the capacities of people but the important point to note is that everybody must "exert himself". There will be a very large number of people who are not able enough to do originalthinking ;
but these also are capable and must exercise this capacity - of reaching a broad judgment as to which of the two or more conflicting opinions is or is likely to be true. As for the Prophet, he is the Mujtahid par excellence since he is possessed of the greatest wisdom besides being the recipient of Revelation. But even so, far from being infallible, he was liable to commit errors of judgment. The efects of this view on al-Amidi's conception of the Prophetic Sunnah are obvious enough. No matter how great and perfect a human the Prophet in his non-Qur'anic pronouncements and acts be - which he undoubtedly is - he cannot be beyond error. And this, as we shall see presently, is what al-Amidi also maintains. But so strong is the hold of the disputative spirit which has generated the formalism that we have spoken of before, that al-Amidi contradicts his stated views on the Prophetic Ijtihad. While replying to the objection to his view that it will bring all results of Ijtihad into doubt with particularly serious consequences for the absolute authority of the Prophet's decisions, al-Amidi tells us: "We do not admit that all Ijtihad is exposed to error, our argument being that the Companions are agreed on (certain results of Ijtihad). Now, the Ijtihad of the Prophet cannot fall short of the Ijtihad of those who are competent to arrive at an agreement (Ijma'). Thus the Prophet was protected from error in his Ijtihad."
Whatis
the cause of this contradiction and the attribution of absolute infallibility to the Prophet? It is obviously the later orthodox doctrine of Ijma', which declares the agreement of the Community to be protected from error. For if the Community is eternally immune from error, i.e. if the particular decisions of the Community are eternally valid without reference to the spatio-temporal context within which they take place, why should the Prophet's particular decisions be denied this privilege? This is obvious from the preceding quotation from al-Amidi; it is brought out still more emphatically in his statement: "The Ijtihad of the Prophet cannot be inferior to that of the Community whose protection from error has been established by the Prophet's statements - if it is not weightier than the Community's Ijtihad."
We are not saying that there was no concept of the Prophet's immunity from error independent of the concept of the infallibility of the Community; in fact, historically speaking, the former is prior to the latter. But even granting the extreme position, never literally held by anyone among the orthodox with its consequence that the Sunnah of the Prophet is the result of a "silent revelation (wahy khafiy)," this immunity is rather a "macro-infallibility" rather than a "micro-infallibility", i.e. it asserts that the Prophet's behaviour is on the whole absolutely inerrant but not in detail. We shall discuss the orthodox views on this point shortly. But what largely rendered it infallible in details and in all the individual cases was not so much the doctine of the Prophetic infallibility but the doctine of the "micro-infallibility" of the Ijma' or agreement of the Community. It is also this doctrine which explains the contradiction in al-Amidi on the point.
Ijtihad, then, is the necessary duty of a Muslim - according to his capacity. It follows that a person will form views according as truth appears to him and on the basis of what he deems right. Al-Shatibi’s position on the subject is not essentially different and he categorically states that a "Mujtahid is to follow what his Ijtihad leads him to" provided this Ijtihad is not in conflict with the "objectives of the Law-Giver and is in harmony with the purposes of the Shari'ah"
Somewhat inconsistently, al-Shatibi goes on to say that in case of a conflict between his Ijtihad and the Shari'ah-proof, the Mujtahid must give up his Ijtihad. The question, however, arises as to how a Mujtahid will ever be in a position to be in conflict with Shari'ah such that he will be able to recognize this conflict?For Ijtihad is continuous process and in all such cases where a Mujtahid will be in a position to recognize the conflict, he will amend his present Ijtihad and arrive at a new one.
A still more fundamental question is: how can the "objectives of the law-giver" themselves be located and formulated without the operation of Ijtihad? In spite of al-Shatibi's cautious approach, however, he is of the view that even a man-in-the-street who is no Mujtahid should be able to make up his own mind as to whomto follow in case of difference of opinion. There is little doubt,, however, that al-Shatibi inclines more towards Taqlid (following of authority) than, does al-Amidi because the former advocates, for the man-in-the-street, Taqlid of persons and not of opinions for he thinks that it is easier for a simple person to identify people as "more learned" or "less learned]' than to assess opinions as better or worse,
The dangers in such an approach, which, however, is descriptively true, are obvious enough. It tends to degrade the intelligence of the simple man still futher and blunt his power of discernment. Far truer is al-Amidi’s statement that the Qur'anic summons to think and reflect are universal and include all humans.
(4) Consistently with his relativistic approach described earlier, al-Amidi, like several other Sunni jurists - -e.g. al-Qadi Aba Bakr al-Baqillani- enunciates the startling principle that, in the field open to Ijtihad, in view of the actual and possible diferences of opinion, one must conclude that truth is not one but many and that every Mujtahid is right in his findings. Here we must try to be very clear as to what exactly is being said and what its consequences are. The present doctrine, to begin with, is not identical with the doctrine accepted by the generality of the Sunnis and the Shi'ah but rejected by some of the Mu'tazilah and the Khawarij that a Mujtahid who hits the truth is rewarded by God twice but that a person whose Ijtihad is erroneous also deserves a reward from Him. The doctine stated and supported by al-Amidi does not and cannot talk of a failure of Ijtihad because the truth is that which the Mujtahid has concluded:
"As for Ijtihad, we maintain that every Mujtahid is right; thus the Prophet is even more entitled to being regarded as correct in his Ijtihad, (The doctine of) error in Ijtihad is based on the assumption that the rule (or law=hukm) according to God is in reality only one (among several alternatives) with regard to a single situation. But this is not the case, for the rule with God concerning every situation is that whither the thinking of a Mujtahid leads him."
Secondly, it is to be noted that this position is not the same as that which says that the truth is in reality only one in each case but that the differing Mujtahids may either not perceive it or that each may perceive in his own way and the complete truth may elude all. This last position has been adopted by the majority of the Sunnis. Thus al-Shatibi', while admitting that people will never actually agree in their Ijtihadresults, still maintains that the truth must be only one in each case. This position is, of course, prima facie the most acceptable one even on rational grounds. For, on the one hand, a thinker will naturally regard that as true which he has thought out - until he thinks better - and, on the other, he must concede that the truth is one which he is seeking to aim at progressively. Indeed, this last assumption is the very ground for his endeavour to think better and improve his Ijtihad. That no two Mujtahids will actually and absolutely agree on their findings is stated by al-Shatibi so emphatically that he thinks that even the Khawarij cannot be absolutely identified as being in error, despite the Hadith to the contrary. In this Connection al-Shatibi also points out that no two views (i.e. sights) will ever be the same.
The
truth, however, must be one for, "objects of knowledge do not differ with different ways of looking at them since they are realities-in-themselves. It is, therefore, impossible that the opinions of all Mujtahids concerning them be correct the correct one will be only one. This (correct one) will be known only through proofs but proofs contradict one another".
Al-Shatibi, of course, wants to draw the conclusion from these statements that human reason is utterly fallible and therefore cannot be relied upon. If so, then he has no grounds on which to assert Ijtihad but he does both in the same breath. Actually, the general Sunni position on the role of reason, which is also, the position of al-Shatibi, is, in its consequences, essentially the same as the Shi'i position, because from the premise of the inanity of human reason both conclude that there must be a source of sure knowledge. Now, as al-Shatibi points out,
the Shi'i position (Which asserts the continuance of such a source of sure knowledge in the form of the infallible Imam, and is, therefore, more consistent than that of the Sunnis who only treat the Qur'an and the Sunnah as the sure knowledge but then reject and accept human reason at the same time) is necessary for everyone to adopt who will not rely on the capability of human reasondespite its frailties and failures. The only cure for this contradiction and for a smooth, uninhibited development of Islamic law and thought in general is to evince a healthy faith in the fact that human faculties of reason and moral perception are adequate enough if exercised well although never beyond error.
But the position of al-Amidi which is the opposite extreme to the Shi'i position is a natural consequence of the rational moral relativism espoused also by the Sunni theology. If things are not good or bad in themselves, as the Sunni position asserts, and hence reason cannot declare them so, then what else can be Ijtihad than "I think so-and-so" and "he thinks such-and-such"? And since there is no truth there to be known, my Ijtihad must be as true and as false (actually, these categories do not strictly apply) as yours and, what is more, my Ijtihad now must be as true and as false as was previously even though the two may be diametrically opposed to one another and so on. This is an incurable relativism and cannot, by definition, talk of improvement of insight or progressive unfolding of the truth.
(5) In practice, however, one salutory effect of the Sunni position is that it allows for and tolerates differences of opinion and even regards this phenomenon as of positive value. For this, it is not, of course, necessary to hold a relativistic doctrine about truth and contend that whatever a Mujtahid thinks, that is the truth for him, as some eminent Sunnis like al-Baqillani and al-Amidi have held.If, however, this view is regarded only as descriptive of facts rather than as an ideal, it is necessaily true.
For it is a factual necessity that every genuine Mujtahid, having arrived at a decision at a particular time, should regard his decision as true and these that more or less differ from his as being more or less false. It is, however, equally necessary from the ideal side that every genuine Mujtahid, no matter how "much finality he may come to attribute to any particular decision of his; should always be prepared to withdraw his claim to "know" in the light of fresh evidence and reasoning. It is this which constitutes the transcendental quality and unity of truth.
On the other extreme to this - relativity are the Shi'ah who believe that truth is one but can be known only- through the sinless and infallible Imam. This later conclusion is drawn from the premise which the Shi'ahhold
in common with the Sunnis that human reason is so fallible that it is unreliable. In the last Section, we have referred to al-Shatibi's statement made with perfect logic that the Sunnis and the Shi'ah are in basic agreement about the inanity of human reason. If the Sunnis had been more consistent they should also have relied on an infallible Imam; on the other hand, they necessarily chose to rely on human reason (Qiyas and Ijtihad) and are thus involved in a fundamental contradiction. The net result of their actual position is that human reason, although Fallible, is not unreliable - which is the only safe and acceptable way for humanity - but this is not what they actually say. The Shi'ah position is certainly consistent at least in its form but expresses no more than a pious wish. It is essentially an extreme form of wishful thinking projected into history.But even supposing that an infallible human - the Imam - does exist; only a Mujtahid can get into touch with him.
And who locates a genuine Mujtahid? And even if it were possible to locate a genuine Mujtahid, with unfailing certainty, is the contact of the Mujtahid with the Invisible Imam infallible? Is infallibility, indeed-, a communicable quality? These are all questions that are, to our mind, unanswerable although it must be admitted that the wish and search for certainty are extremely powerful motives in man. But certainty has not merely to be wished and then postulated, it has to be actively and positively searched for. It is one of the strange phenomena of the distibution and development of religious ideas in Islam that while Shi'ism had adopted so many tenets from the Mu'tazilite theology, it chose to reject the arch-doctrine of the Mu'tazilah that human reason could discover good and evil with some certainty. The reason is perhaps that the idea of the personal authority of the Imam had previously imposed itself as a consequence of the political developments and then the person of the Imam had also theologically to be invested with infallibility.
The majority of the Sunnis and the Mu'tazilah, however, while believing in the oneness of truth, allow diference of opinion. They say that although Truth is one; it can be reached through reasoning "by an accident". They believe that while the efort of reasoning is absolutely essential, there is no guarantee thatevery reasoning
will hit at the truth and, therefore, profoundly add that even after all human effort, it remains a matter of chance and accident." It is like a treasure-trove which one may search for and employ clues but its final discovery always hinges on "good luck". A similar conclusion is reached by al-Shatibi through a slightly different route. While discussing the question as to whether one can declare certain sects to be outside the pale of Islam and attribute Kufr to them, al-Shatibi categorically states that it is not possible to locate absolutely the capital errors of these sects so that they may be stigmatized as Kufr. This inability to condemn any sect which claims to be Muslim as being outside Islam, according to al-Shatibi, is because God does not want to expose anyone from among the Muslim Community but wants to put upon the entire Community' His mantle of protection. Al-Shatibi is quite clear that erroneous beliefs and practices can and must be exposed but it is impossible to locate absolutely the holders of these practices. He says that one cannot even condemn the Khawarij as complete kafirs even though there is a good deal of predictive Hadith about them. It follows that when we try to locate the "Right Path" through Ijtihad (which we must do) we cannot demand complete unity: "if we are to locate (the 'correct path'), through Ijtihad, Ijtihad does not require any unanimity with regard to its object. Do you not see that scholars have decisively held the view that no two views (of a thing) can be identical in the nature of things? If the heretical sects had been determined by a clear test there would have been no dificulty (in locating them). But even there, it is dificult to decide in the case of (even) the Khawarij with all their erroneousness and even though the Holy Prophet had foretold and specified their signs (If this be the case with regard to those- people about whom there is a textual indication), what about those about whom there is no indication whatsoever?”
(6) Al-Amidi's position on the Holy Prophet's Sunnah is intimately connected with his statements on the problem of Ijtihad, We have seen in the foregoing that despite his occasional statements to the contrary al-Amidi is a strong champion of the view that it was possible for the Prophet to make errors of judgment, although he states that this question is a controversial one among the Community and that it is not possible to reach any absolute decision.
While discussing the specific question of the fallibility or otherwise of the Sunnah, al-Amidi states that while the entire Community is agreed that a Prophet cannot deliberately err in those questions which are evidenced by definite miracles, there is no agreement with regard to points where a Prophet may involuntarily and nondeliberately make a mistake. Al-Amidi himself agrees with Abu Bakr al-Baqillani in holding that it is possible for a Prophet to commit an error unknowingly.
It is clear from these statements that while the Prophet's judgments, decisions, sayings and actions are, taken as a whole, free from fundamental mistakes and errors, it is possible that, in details, the Prophet's conduct is not beyond fallibility. This view, wherein both the Sunnis and the Mu'tazilah largely agree, viz., that the Prophet's Sunnah is, as a whole, infallible and correct but may not be so in details, is, nevertheless, grounded differently by the Mu'tazilah and the Sunnis. The Mu'tazilah base their doctrine on rational argument and say that the Prophet must be regarded as immune from fundamental errors and as infallible on the whole because it would be irrational to believe that a person capable of committing large-scale errors should be the recipient of the Divine Revelation, viz., the Qur'an; on the other hand, to believe that the Prophet is beyond all errors would put him beyond the pale of humanity which is also absolutely irrational. The Sunnis, on the other hand, refuse to have recourse to such rational argumentation and base themselves squarely on authority. But in their authority they find the exact counterparts of the Mu'tazilah rationality for the Holy Qur'an also calls the Prophet's conduct "great"
and describes it as a "model" for mankind
but the same Qur'an also describes the Prophet as human and asks the Prophet to pray, "O God ! Increase me in knowledge".
(7) The question has been discussed by all witers on Ijtihad as to the qualifications which a person must possess before he becomes a Mujtahid. The earlier authorities among these medieval writers talk of an absolute Ijtihad (Ijtihad Mutlaq) and a partial Ijtihad exercised only in certain matters. Later, this division becomes threefold and Ijtihad is divided into Ijtihad Mutlaq, i.e. an absolute Ijtihad, Ijtihad Muqayyad, i.e. a limited Ijtihad and Ijtihad i'l-Madhhab, i.e. Ijtihad within a given school of Islamic law. This division is undoubtedly formalistic and rather artificial. Only two among the writers on this subject, namely al-Ghazali and Fakhr- al-DIn al-Razi, say that what is first of all and most essentially required, even before Islamic scholarship, is the intellectual capacity to make deductions; the rest merely talk of scholarly equipment by way of knowledge of the materials of the Qur'an and the Sunnah, of the historical knowledge about the transmitters of the Traditions, about the Nasikh and Mansukh, etc. Al-Ghazali says, "Arguments (valid in law) are of three kinds: rational which prove the case by themselves ; arguments from the Shari'ah which are valid in law because the Shariah has laid them down and thirdly, conventional arguments by which we mean linguistic usages".
On this al-Shawkani comments that Ijtihad is based exclusively on the arguments of the Shari'ah and not on rational arguments and since reason is not the source of legislation it is not necessary to be learned in rational sciences in order to be a Mujtahid.
But while the late medieval jurists do not generally include a training in rational disciplines among the pre-requisites of Ijtihad and al-Gh.azaIi and al-Razi are the lonely exceptions, the list of other subjects becomes large, heavy and rather formal and artificial as we proceed.
Al-Amidi states that a Mujtahid should know the fundamentals of faith as set out in the creed, viz., that God exists with His attributes, that God is the Giver of Commands, that the Prophet was true in his mission and that this mission has reached us, although it is not necessary for the Mujtahid to go into the philosophic details of all these problems like an expert theologian. Further, the Mujtahid should know how to deduce laws from the bases of the Shari'ah and should be able to state and set out these deductions clearly. For this, it is necessary that he should know the materials of the Sunnah, the criticism of Hadith on the basis of its transmitters, the occasions of revelations, the Nasikh and the Mansukh and that he should know fairly well the Arabic language although, again, it is not necessary that a person should be an expert in the philological sciences. These are the conditions for the Mujtahid Mutlaq. As for the partial Mujtahid, concerned only with certain problems, it is not necessary for him to possess all this knowledge but only to know suficiently about the problems that are under consideration before him.
The question as to whether partial Ijtihad is possible at all without the capacity to perform absolute Ijtihad is a matter of controversy among the jurists of Islam and although the majority seems to have decided in favour of such a division, there are undoubtedly voices against it. The arguments for and against the possibility of partial Ijtihad are set out by al-Iji (d. 756 A.H.) in his commentary on the famous juristic work of Ibn al-Hajib (d. 646 A.H.). To us, this kind of a basic division into partial and total Ijtihad seems rather artificial as we have pointed out before. It is, of course, true that one person may be an expert, say, in the law of contract and is not a towering mind in the whole range of law, but this is, surely, a nonessential consideration for, given the proper application, he can equally become expert in other branches of law. What is more fundamentally important is his intellectual calibre (to which al-Ghazali also adds a moral calibre if the findings of a jurist are to have a weight in the eyes of the public) about which our juristic literature says relatively little.
The list of the traditional disciplines given, viz., Hadith, Tafslr, the historical criticism of the transmitters, the questions on which Ijma' has occurred (For those jurists who believe in Ijma') is no doubt seemingly imposing and, at first glance, seems difficult to fulfil. But when one closely examines this list and its contents, it does not seem to us an over-requirement. Of course, for the earliest Mujtahids in Islam these disciplines do not exist; there were very few materials that they had to study because these materials did not exist in their days and, in fact, it is they and their successors who have created these materials.
As history progresses and as the Muslims recede from the original sources, their task in one sense becomes weightier, because in addition to possessing the essential intellectual equipment, the historical materials that they have to study increase everyday ;
but this is natural. When, therefore, Iqbal, says, "the theoretical possibility of this degree of Ijtihad (i.e., Ijtihad Mutlaq) is admitted by the Sunnis, but in practice it has always been denied ever since the establishment of the schools, inasmuch as the idea of complete Ijtihad is hedged round by conditions which are well-nigh impossible of realisation in a single individual",
he cannot be referring to any stated conditions by jurists but simply to their unwillingness to perform Ijtihad or to allow it to be performed. Theoretically speaking, the conditions of Ijtihad are not, after all, too dificult of attainment. The essential point, however, is that, in actual practice, as Iqbal tells us, this Ijtihad has been denied. The reasons subsequently enumerated by Iqbal for the actual stoppage of Ijtihad are undoubtedly correct. The denial of Ijtihad in practice has been the result not of externally over-strenuous qualifications but because of a deep desire to give permanence to the legal structure, once it was formulated and elaborated, in order to bring about and ensure unity and cohesiveness of the Muslim Ummah. We have pointed out recurrently in the earlier part of this work that the Hadith movement launched by al-Shafi in the domain of law was itself a bid for uniformity amidst what threatened to be legal and dogmatic chaos. Subsequently, as Iqbal tells us, after the destruction of the Baghdad Caliphate and the break-up of the political unity of the Muslim World, the religious leadership concentrated all the more on ensuring the unity of the Ummah through law and other institutions. Such unity has, no doubt, reigned in the Muslim World but at the cost of inner growth as the Muslim World suddenly discovered under the impact of the foreign powers during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. But at the theoretical level the door of Ijtihad has always remained open and no jurist has ever closed it. To the causes enumerated by Iqbal must also be added the gradual deterioration of intellectual standards and the impoverishment of the intelligentsia of Islam over the years through a gradual narrowing down of the educational system which we have also described in the preceding chapter.
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Author: Dr. Fazlur Rahman
