This totality in all its dimensions was understood, absorbed and put into practice by genuine Muslims.
And if we observe that the same Islam lost its effectiveness in the social arena after the passage of some centuries, that was because those who were entrusted with the duty to safeguard its intellectual and ideological frontiers had come to forget its totality and comprehensiveness, thus depriving Islam of its real power and efficiency. The biggest factor in this crisis was the existence of the unwholesome dominance of the tyrannical and despotic regimes that had captured the leadership of Islamic society in the name of the Prophet's khilBfah and produced rulers who in the impious state of ignorance and intoxication stood up in the mihrab to lead Muslims in congregational prayers. These rulers promoted. mercenary scholars and pseudo‑fuqaha' devoid of taqwa who served their interest and sent into exile the committed, aware and authentic fuqaha' who strove to awaken the people or often subjected them to martyrdom.
Elsewhere, while discussing the ninefold eras of the development of fiqh that followed the period of legislation, the sevenfold eras in the history of ijtihad, and the sixfold eras in respect of the exposition of fiqh, we have shown the real faces of these pseudo‑fuqaha' and pseudomujtahids, pointing out their nefarious views in every period, and revealed the havoc that has been wrought on the body of fiqh and faqahah by these mercenaries in the garb of fuqaha' in their pursuit of worldly gain. The harm done by them to fiqh was so serious that they made fiqh, with its spring of ijtihad and all its effusive vigour and dynamism, loose its relevance and withdraw into isolation in front of the expansion of human knowledge and civilization, to the extent that the people of the world came to believe that Islamic law has no solution to the multifaceted problems of life.
Although in the early eras there did exist great fuqaha' and pious and aware mujtahidun, but none of them had the free hand ‑ which the wali‑e faqih does at the present ‑ to take punitive measures against such elements. But that which is certain is that they have been and shall remain the object of history's censure. This is because they have made the shining face of progressive Islamic fiqh to appear dark and clouded and have distorted its features.
In any case, if we really intend to revive authentic fiqh and true faqahah and if we have concern for the genuine life of Islam and the Islamic Ummah and revival of the past glory and sublimity of the word of tawhid, we should direct our understanding to the totality of the human and the comprehensiveness of Islam in all its dimensions: devotional, economic, political, legal and cultural in the spheres of social and individual life. Only then can we use this invaluable source which is a great Divine trust and the al‑thaql al‑'akbar, for the benefit of humanity in the contemporary era.