لطفا منتظر باشید ...
And in whatsoever ye differ, the verdict therein belongeth to God.(42:10)
This day We have perfected your religion for you and completed Our
favour unto you and have chosen for you as religion al‑islam...(5:3)
With the revelation of the last
verse, the Din of God attained its
perfect form in all aspects: political, ritual, social, economic and ethical.
Following that, the process of wahyconcluded. As such, it does not seem possible that the Prophet (S) of God
should have said to Mu'adh: "By what rule will you act, if you find no
direction in the Book of God and the Sunnah?" The verse affirming the
perfecting of the Din was revealed
approximately three months prior to the demise of the Prophet (S), during the
journey of the Last Pilgrimage. After that no other verses concerning ahkam were revealed to him.
During the span of the ten years
that the Prophet (S) resided in Madinah, all the ahkamof God were revealed by means of
approximately 500 verses‑the ayat
al‑'ahkam (the verses
containing the rules and laws of the Shari'ah) which make approximately one‑third
of the Quran (as to their volume) and were already communicated and expounded
by the Prophet (S). Not a single issue, small or big, was left without a hukm in any of the diverse spheres of
human life, not even the hukm regarding
the diyah of a scratch on the skin.
During his journey of the Last
Pilgrimage, the Prophet (S) had declared:
O people, whatsoever takes you
nearer to Paradise and away from Hellfire, I enjoined upon you. And whatever
brings you nearer to Hellfire and removes you away from Paradise, I forbade you
to do.
The following tradition has been
reported in Usul al‑Kafi (Ilmiyyah Islamiyyah, Tehran,
vol:1, p:80) from Sama'ah:
(Al‑Kulayni says): From a
number of our companions, from Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn Khalid, from Isma'il ibn
Mihran, from Sayf ibn Amirah, from Abu al‑Maghra, from Sama'ah from
(al-Imam al‑Kazim), Abu al‑Hasan Musa (A); (Sama'ah) said: "I
said to him: Is everything in the Book of God and the Sunnah of His Apostle
(S), or you have something to say (in addition)?' He said: (No); rather, everything
is in the Book of God and the Sunnah of His Apostle (S)'."
Also in Usul al‑Kafi
(op. cit. vol:l,p:77), the following tradition is reported on the authority of
Sulayman ibn Harun from al‑'Imam al Sadiq (A). There, the Imam (A)
states:
God has not created any halal (that which is permissible) or any
haram (that which is forbidden)
except that He has determined a boundary for it like the limits and boundaries
of a house. That which belongs to the limits of the road is reckoned as the
road, and whatever that comes within the boundaries of the house is considered
as a part of the house. [This is true] even of a scratch on the skin, a full
lash or half a lash.
The following tradition is
reported in Basa'ir al‑darajat (Qumm, 1404 H., p. 143) on the authority
of Muhammad ibn Muslim:
(Muhammad ibn al‑Hasan ibn
Farrukh al‑Saffar al‑Qummi says): Narrated to us Ahmad ibn Muhammad
(al‑Barqi), from al‑Husayn ibn Said (al‑'Ahwazi), from
Fadalah ibn Ayyub, from al‑Qasim, from Burayd ibn Mu'awiyah alIjli,
from Muhammad ibn Muslim, who said: "Abu Ja'far (the Fifth Imam) (A)
said:We have the Sahifah written by
Ali (A), whose length is seventy cubits. We study its contents, not going
beyond them'. I asked him about the inheritance of knowledge that had been
transferred (to the Imams), whether it consisted of generalities or of detailed
exposition of such things as the people talk about, such as divorce and
religious duties. He said: Ali (A) wrote down all knowledge, including all
judicial laws (al‑qada') and
duties (al-fara'id). When our
sovereignty is established, we will act according to it in regard to every
matter.' "
In Furu' al‑Kafi (Dar
al‑Kutub al‑'Islamiyyah, Tehran, vo1:7, Kitab al‑hudud,
Bab 1, hadith 12) a Riwayah is reported on the authority of Dawud ibn
Farqad from al‑'Imam al‑Sadiq (A). In it, the Prophet (S) is
reported as having said to Sa'd ibn Ubadah:
Verily, God Almighty has
determined a hadd (limit, punishment)
for every thing, and for whomsoever that crosses that hadd He has prescribed a certain hadd.
In another tradition of the same
volume (Bab 1, hadith 6), it is reported on the authority of a reliable
narrator, Sama'ah, that he heard this statement from al‑'Imam al‑Sadiq
(A):
Indeed there is a hadd for every thing, and whoever
transgresses it will be subjected to a certain hadd. And the Quran declares:
And whosoever transgresses the bounds of God‑‑those are the
evildoers. (2:229)
Therefore, Islamic law prescribes
punishment for those who violate the limits prescribed by God.
Accordingly, all the ahkamhave been described in the Book and the
Sunnah of the Prophet (S); the period of legislation closed with the demise of
the Prophet of God and nothing was omitted. Thus, we need not rely upon
practices like ijtihad by ray and
other conjectural instruments (such as qiyas,
istihsan, masalih mursalah, madhhab Sahabi, etc.) for deriving the ahkam for emergent issues (we have
discussed this matter in elaborate detail in another article).
It is true that the ahkam have not been laid down in a
uniform way in the Book and the Sunnah of the Prophet (S). Some of them have
been set forth as special cases, while some others have been stated in a
general way, in such a manner that by applying the general laws to particular
cases all the ahkamof the
Shari'ah regarding emergent issues and events can be derived. Therefore, those
who imagine that there are no ahkam in
the Shari'ah for modern issues and contemporary problems indeed commit a great
mistake; such a notion is contrary to the express statements of the Quran and
conclusive dicta. The conclusiveness of these proofs is so certain that if a
tradition attributed to the Prophet (S) counters their import, it should be
discarded in accordance with the criteria and standards of the science of
hadith and dirayah. This, because a
statement whose origin from the Prophet (S) is not certain can never contest
express texts of the Book, or reliable traditions of the Ma'qumun (A) whose authenticity of origin as well as import are
definite. This, undoubtedly, holds true in the case of the present tradition
which is of doubtful authenticity and is opposed to the express text of the
Quran.
c) Above all, this tradition
implies a confession on the part of the Prophet (S) of the insufficiency of law
regarding the religious and nonreligious needs of mankind. How can we accept
such a thing when the verse stating the perfection of the religion was revealed
to him?
6. This tradition also implies
that Mu'adh possessed the knowledge of all the ahkampresent in the Book of God and the Sunnah of the Prophet (S),
whereas neither the Shi'ah nor the Sunnis believe this. Nobody among the
Prophet's Companions was known to possess such a merit except Imam Ali (A); he
was the only person who had perfect knowledge of the Divine Law. It was for
this reason that the Holy Prophet (S) enjoined upon the Ummah to follow him and
to take their knowledge from the Ahl al‑Bayt (A). The Prophet instructed
them to consider the traditions of the Ahl al‑Bayt (A) as their guide and
to follow them as a model of practice and behaviour in all the modes of life.
No doubt, Amir al‑Mu'minin's source of knowledge and information was no
other than the wahyrevealed
to the Prophet (S) and taught to Ali (A) by himself. The leading and profound
thinkers among Sunni scholars acknowledge this distinction of Imam Ali (A).
7. This tradition implies that at
the time when Mu'adh was being sent to Yemen, the process of tashri was already complete and all the
Divine ahkamhad been set
forth. However, the verse pronouncing the perfection of the Din counters this presumption and
indicates that the perfection of the Din was
declared three months prior to the demise of the Prophet (S), on the occasion
of Hajjat al‑Wada.
8. If it is said that ijtihad (in the sense of exercising ra'y and personal judgement) was
permissible for Mu'adh alone and others should not follow him, it is evident
that nobody has held such an opinion.
And if it is presumed that this
style of ijtihadwas
permissible for everyone, it means that every mujtahid has a right to legislate laws by means of ray and personal judgement whenever he
fails to find a hukm in the text of
the Book and the Sunnah. Moreover, laws thus legislated should be accepted and
acknowledged as the real (waqi't) Divine
laws in accordance with the doctrine of taswib. This means that whenever mujtahidun express a number of
contradictory and conflicting opinions in a case, all of them should be
recognized and given the status of the real hukm.
Evidently, no one would be ready to accept this, as it will necessitate
that the real hukm be identified
simultaneously with a number of contradictory views and opinions, reducing
Islamic law to a mass of contradictions.
Here, it will be appropriate to
cite a tradition reported from Amir al‑Mu'minin in Bihar al‑'Anwar (vo1.2, chapter 34, p.284; also see Nahj al‑balaghah, Khutbah No.18):
When a case relating to one of
the ahkam is put before any one of
them he passes judgement on it according to his ray. Afterwards, when the same
problem is placed before another of them, he passes an opposite verdict. Then
these judges go to the chief who had appointed them and he confirms all the
verdicts, although their God is One, their prophet is one and the same and
their scripture is one and the same. Was it God‑subhanahu‑who enjoined them to differ
(while laying down the ahkam), and
they obeyed Him? Or He forbade them from it and they disobeyed Him? Or, did
God Almighty send His Din in a
defective and imperfect form and asked for their help and assistance in order
to make it perfect? Or, were they His partners and assistants (in performing
legislation) so that He has to concede to whatever judgement they pronounce? Or
is it that God Almighty made His Din perfect,
but the Prophet (S) fell short of communicating it (to the people)? The fact is
that God states in the Quran (
