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Chapter 6
The First DiscussionThe Genesis of
Two Main Currents During the Prophet's Lifetime
The two chief tendencies closely associated, from the start,
with the emergence of the Islamic Ummah during the Prophet's lifetime
are:
One, the current representing a belief in the devotional
acts of religion, its arbitral power and the unconditional acceptance of
religious stipulations for every aspect of life. [130]
The second is a current which sees religious faith as
eliciting devotional deed only within the special scope of overt and covert
acts of worship. It believes in the possibility of independent legal Judgement
(ijtihad) and free discretion for the amendment and improvement of religious
stipulations according to benefits (masalih) which might accrue in other
domains of life. [131]
The Companions, being foremost in faith and enlightenment,
were the best fit to create an apostolic community (Ummah risaliyyyah);
so much so that in all of human history no doctrinally-cohesive
generation has been nobler, more magnificent or unsullied than the one brought
up by the Prophet. Despite this, one must accept the existence of a wider
tendency - beginning while the Prophet was still alive - proffering
independent legal judgement as a way of determining "benefit" and
inferring it from the circumstances. It emphasized, on the other hand,
devotional acts in strict accordance with the letter, religiously stipulated.
The Prophet on many occasions suffered indignation on
account of this tendency, even in his last hours, as he lay on his deathbed (as
we shall see). [132] But there is the other tendency, which consists in a
belief in and acceptance of the arbitral power of religion, such that
devotional acts accord with both the religious stipulations and every aspect of
life.
One of the reasons behind the spread among Muslims of the
tendency toward independent legal judgement is that it seemed to cohere with
man's natural inclination to exercise his discretion, especially in view of a
perceived or valued benefit rather than of some resolution whose significance
he can hardly fathom.
This current counted several bold representatives from among
the more well-placed Companions. One case in point is Umar b. al-Khattab,
who used to argue with the Prophet and to exercise independent legal judgement
on a number of issues in a way that was at variance with the provisions of the
law. He believed this to be permissible so long as he thought his judgement did
not impugn "benefit." In this respect, one may note his position
regarding the Treaty of Hudaybiyyah and his protestations against it. [133] It
is observable in regard to several other issues, including the call to ritual
prayer (al-adhan), where he exercised his free discretion
by omitting the phrase, "Come to the best of deeds" (hayya ala khayr amal) [134]; his position concerning the Prophet's legalization of mut'at al-hajj ("marriage during the pilgrimage") [135] ;
and other positions on independent legal Judgement. [136]
These two currents were both reflected in the assembly
called by the Prophet on the last day of his life. Al-Bukhari related in
his Sahih the words of Ibn Abbas:
When death was upon God's Messenger, and at [his] house were
men who included Umar b. al-Khattab, the Prophet said, "Come! let
me write you an epistle by which you will never go astray..." Umar then
said, "The Prophet is overcome with pain, but we [still] have the Qur'an.
We count on God's Book." Those present at the house disagreed and
quarreled with each other. And one of them said, "Approach that the
Prophet may write you a letter by which you shall never go astray."
Another repeated what Umar had said. When the inanities and the disputing
persisted, the Prophet told them, "Leave!' [137]
This event alone suffices to show the chasm that separated
the two currents, the true extent of their incompatibility and rivalry. In
order to depict the deeprootedness of independent legal judgement as a current,
one may compare this event to the disagreement that erupted among the
Companions over Usamah b. Zayd's installation as army commander, despite the
Prophet's explicit ordinance to that effect. Ill, the Prophet finally stepped
outside to address the crowd: "O People! what is this talk surrounding my
appointment of Usamah as commander. You contest his appointment now just as you
previously did his father's. But by God, the latter was as fit to command then
as his son surely is now!" [138]
The two currents, whose rivalry began in earnest during the
Prophet's own lifetime, were reflected in the Muslims' position regarding the
thesis of the Imam's preeminence in the Mission after the Prophet. Those representing
the devotional tendency (as opposed to the one for independent legal judgement)
found in the Prophet's stipulation the reason for accepting this thesis without
hesitation or readjustment.
The advocacy of independent legal judgement was viewed as
offering the possibility of release from the pattern established by the
Prophet, whenever a judgement imagined to be more harmonious with the
circumstances was called for. By the same token, one observes that Shiites
arose immediately after the Prophet's death, representing the Muslims who
adhered in practice to the thesis of the Imam's preeminence and leadership, the
first steps of whose implementation the Prophet had declared obligatory right
after his departure. The Shi'ite current embodied, from the first, a
repudiation of the Saqifah Council's attempt to paralyze the thesis for Imam
Ali's preeminence and to transfer authority to someone else.
In his Ihtijaj, Tabarsi
related Aban b. Taghlab's words:
I told Jafar b. Muhammad al-Sadiq, "May I be offered
in sacrifice for you! Is there anyone among the Companions of God's Messenger
who disclaims Abu Bakr's action?" He replied "Indeed. Twelve men
repudiated it. Among the Muhajirin were Khalid b. Said, Ibn Abi alAsi,
Salman al-Farisi, Abu Dharr al-Ghifari al-Miqdad b. al-Aswad,
Ammar b. Yasir and Buraydah al-Aslami. Among the Ansar were Abu
al-Haytham b. al-Tayhan, Uthman b. Hanif, Khuzayma b. Thabit Dhu
al-Shahadatayn, Ubayy b. Ka'b, Abu Ayyub al-Ansari. [139]
It may be argued that the Shiite current stood for
religious devotion according to the text, while the tendency that opposed it
represented independent legal judgement, with the implication that the Shi'ites
had rejected independent legal judgement and did not allow themselves any right
to exercise it. Yet observably, Shi'ites do make use of it constantly in legal
practice.
The answer is that the kind of independent legal judgement
practised by Shiites, and which they deem permissible - indeed,
obligatory in a collective sense (wajiban
kifa'iyyan) - is the one
used to derive a juridical ruling from the legal text. It is not judgement
applied to the legal text by virtue of either an opinion held by the
practitioner or some conjectured benefit." That is not permissible. The
Shi'ite current disallowed the exercise of independent legal judgement in any
such sense. Whenever we speak of the rise of two currents at the beginning of
Islam, one often intends the following. One, where the devotion act is based on
the explicit text; two, a tendency toward independent legal judgement But by
independent legal judgement one could mean either the rejection or the
acceptance of the explicit text.
The rise of these two tendencies is natural to every mission
of comprehensive change seeking alteration at the root, where corruption
prevails. It can have various kinds of effects, depending on the surviving
vestiges of the past; and it may vary according to the extent to which the
individual becomes immersed in the moral values of the new Message and
according to his attachment to it.
Hence, we know that the current which stood for the
devotional act based on the explicit text represented the greatest degree of
adherence to, and the most complete acceptance of, the Divine Message. But it
did not reject independent legal judgment within the framework of the text nor
the effort to derive a legal ruling (hukm) there from. [141]
What is important to note in this regard also is that the
devotional act based on the explicit text does not imply a rigidity or
inflexibility incompatible with the exigencies of evolution or any kind of
initiative for renewal in the life of man. Devotion so based means, rather, as
we now know, devotion through religion. It means embracing it in its entirety
without leaving anything out. Such a religion carries within it all the
elements that make for resilience and the ability to adjust to the times. It
embraces all kinds of change and evolution. Devotion through religion based on
the stipulated text is devotion through all these elements, but with every
fiber of one's ability to create, invent and renew. [142]
These are general features aimed at expounding Shi'ism in
its definition as a "natural phenomenon" within the fold of the
Islamic Call and of its appearance as a (self-conscious) response to this
natural phenomenon.
[130] This is the tendency of the school of those who uphold
the rights of the Prophetic Household and of Shi ism.
[131] This is the tendency of the remaining, Sunni schools.
For details see al-'Allamah al-Sayyid Murtada al-Askari, Maallim al-madrasatayn; cf. Dr.
Muhammad Salam Madkur, Manahij al-ijtihad
(Kuwait: Matbaat jamiah).
[132] Sahih
al-Bukhari VIII:161 ("Kitab
al-itisam") Note the
situations where their devotional acts do not accord with the text. For example,
upon failing to send Usamah's detachment and their objection to it; or the time
when a letter was intended to be written, as the Prophet was uttering,
"Come! Let me write you a letter that you may never go astray after I am
gone..." Observe also the situation surrounding the Hudaybiyyah Treaty.
See the books in history and hadiths referred
to so far. For a more detailed discussion, see al-Sayyid al-Allamah
Abd al-Husayn Sharaf al-Din, al Muraja'at, edited and
annotated by Husayn al-Radi and introduced by Dr. Hamid al Hafni and
Shaykh Muhammad Fikri Abu al-Nasr (Mu'assasat Dar al-Kitab al-Islami)
[133] Cf. Ibn Hashim, al-Sirah
al-nabawiyyah, Second Part, ed. Mustafa al-Saqqa et al. (Beirut: Dar al-Kunuz al-Adabiyyah),
pp. 316-17. See also Tarikh al-Tabari
II:122.
[134] See al-Qawshaji, Sharh al-tajrid, towards the end of the discussion on the "imamah," where he contends
that "Me tasks of those in charge were devoted to spreading the Call of
Islam, and triumph over East and West. But triumphing over kingdoms cannot be
done without motivating the soldiery to endure peril on the way, that they
might drink deep of the struggle for Islam, until they believe that theirs is
that best of deeds they shall look to on the Day of Judgement. The omission of
this part of the adhan [i.e. "hayyaala khayr al-amal], in their view, had to do with giving
priority to the benefit of those tasks over and above devotion in the manner
foreseen by the Holiest Law. The second Caliph thus declared from his minbar that Three things existed at the
time of the Prophet which I interdicted, forbade and punished: temporary
marriage [mutat al-nisa],
marriage during the pilgrimage [mutat
al-hajj] and Come to
the best of deeds!'."
[135] See al-Tajj
al-jami lil-usul fi ahadith al-Rasul by Shaykh Mansur 'Ali Nasif (a noted alim from al-Azhar University)
II:124, "Kit-al hajj" on
Abi jamrah al-Dabi, who said: "I entered a temporary marriage but
was forbidden by some people. And so I asked Ibn Abbas, who sanctioned it. I
went to the Kabah to sleep, whereupon a protagonist came to me. He said, May
the minor pilgrimage [umrah] be accepted and the greater one [hajj]
valid' [Abu Jamrah al-Dab'!] went on: So I went to Ibn Abbas to
inform him about what I had dreamed. God is Great! God is Great! ' he said,
It is the practice of Abu al-Qasim's [i.e. the Prophet]."' It is
equally narrated by Muslim and Bukhari. It is said of Umran b. Husayn that he
stated, "A verse [ayah] on the temporary marriage was sent down
in God's Book, and so we acted upon it with His Messenger. The Qur'an
did not prohibit it, and the [Messenger] did not forbid it to the day he died.
Likewise with the two Shaykhs: Shaykh Nasif says on the margins that "The mutah was interdicted by Umar, Uthman
and Muawiyah."
[136] For more details, see al Allamah Abd al-Husayn
Sharaf al-Din, al-Nass wal ijtihad,
pp. 169, 243.
[137] Cf Sahih al-Bukhari ("Kirab al-ilm") I:37 (Beirut: Dar al-Fikr,1981); cf.
also Ibn Sad, al-Tabaqat al-
al-kubra II:242.
[138] Cf. Ibn Sa'd, al-Tabaqat
al-kubra II:248; see also Ibn Athir, al-Kamil fi al-ta'rikh II:318-19.
[139] Tabarsi, al-Ihtijaj
I:75 (Beirut: Nashr Mu assasah al-Alami, 1983) - Imam. Cf.
Tarikh al-Yaqub'i II:103.
[140] Cf Imam Sayyid Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr, al-Ma'alim al jadidah lil-usul, p.
23ff. It contains ample details concerning the evolution of the master concept
of independent legal judgement. The latter had been avoided because it used to
mean: "Mat principle of jurisprudence which takes individual reasoning as
one of the sources for arriving at judgements. But there was a concerted drive
against this jurisprudential principle at the phase when traditions were being
collected in the time of the Imams and those who transmitted their deeds (to
posterity)..." The kind of independent legal judgement enunciated by many
Sunni schools of jurisprudence (like that of Abu Hanifah) regarded as one of
the jurist's proofs and sources for inferences where there is not plenty of
textual support, stands rejected. As Tusi said: "Neither the syllogism nor
independent legal judgment for me is a proof. In fact, they are not to be used
in legal matters." Nevertheless, as the concept of independent legal
judgement developed and came to consist in the inference of a juridical
decision (al-hukm) from the text - that is,
synonymously with the inferential operation - it was accepted and put to
use. For the divisions, types and scope of independent legal judgement, see
Allamah Muhammad Taqi al-Haki's al-Usul al-ammah lil-fiqh al-muqaran, p. 56ff
[141] Muhammad Taqi al-Hakim, al-Usul al-ammah lil-fiqh al-muqaran, p. 563.
[142] Cf. al-Ma'alim al jadidah lil-usul, p. 40.
