Shaykh Murabtal
Haaj’s Fatwa
on Following One of
the Four Accepted Madhhabs
Translated by Hamza Yusuf
Hanson
In the name of Allah, the Merciful,
the Compassionate.
Amongst the most important
replies that I have given, is my reply concerning the one who has deviated
to the point where he censures the importance of studying the branches
[furu'] of jurisprudence, and we seek refuge in Allah from the deviation
of such a wandering deviant. Would that he simply had claimed independent
reasoning (ijtihad) for himself only, and Allah is his reckoner,
but abandoned the call of Muslims to leave that which is incumbent upon
them. In our reply to such a one, we make mention what the scholars of
the methodological bases of Islamic jurisprudence (usuli’un) and
the Imams of jurisprudence themselves have said about such a matter. As
for my labelling him a deviant, it is only because he has desired to impose
upon common people the precious rank of absolute independent reasoning
[ijtihad], about which Muhammad an-Nabigha said,
And ijtihad
in the land of the Moroccans,
The western phoenix
has taken to flight with it.
I say in reply, that the
following of qualified scholarship (taqlid) is an obligation on
anyone other than an absolute mujtahid. I shall make mention of
all his prerequisites if Allah wills. [Sidi Abdullah Ould Hajj Ibrahim]
has said in his Maraqi as-Sa’ud:
“[taqlid]
is necessary for other than the one who has achieved the rank of absolute
ijtihad.
Even if he is a limited [mujtahid] who is unable [to perform absolute
ijtihad].”
Commenting on this line,
[Sidi Abdullah] said in
Nashru al-bunud,
“It means
that taqlid is an obligation on anyone who is not an absolute mujtahid,
even if he has achieved the limited rank of ijtihad muqayyad . .
. [until he says], ‘And ask the people of the reminder, if you yourselves
do not know.’”
By using the line of Muhammad
an-Nabigha above, I am in no way claiming that all ijtihad has been
severed in every land; how [could I say such a thing] when [Sidi Abdullah]
says in Maraqi as-sa’ud:
“The earth
will never be void of a mujtahid scholar until its very foundations
shake.” He also said,
“[Regarding] the necessity
of binding to a specific
madhhab, the [scholars] have mentioned
its obligation upon anyone falling short [of the conditions of ijtihad].”
He says in Nashru al-bunud,
“It means
that it is incumbent for whoever falls short of achieving the rank of absolute
ijtihad
to follow a particular madhhab.”
Again, in Maraqi as-Sa’ud,
Sidi Abdullah says,
“The consensus
today is on the four, and all have prohibited following [any] others.”
He says in Nashru al-bunud,
“This means
that the consensus of the scholars today is on the four schools of thought,
and I mean by the schools of Malik, Abu Hanifa, Shafi’i and Ahmad. Indeed,
all of the scholars have prohibited following any other school of an independent
and absolute mujtahid since the eighth century when the school of
Dawud adh-Dhahiri died out and until the 12th Century and all subsequent
ones.”
In the chapter concerning
inferential reasoning, from Maraqi as-sa’ud, [Sidi Abdullah] says,
“As for the
one who is not a mujtahid, then basing his actions on primary textual
evidence [Qur’an and hadith] is not permissible.”
He says in Nashru al-bunud,
“It means
that it is prohibited for other than a mujtahid to base his actions
upon a direct text from either the Book or the Sunna even if its transmission
was sound because of the sheer likelihood of there being other considerations
such as abrogation, limitations, specificity to certain situations, and
other such matters that none but the mujtahid fully comprehends
with precision. Thus, nothing can save him from Allah the Exalted excepted
following a mujtahid.
Imam
al-Qarafi1 says,
‘And beware
of doing what some students do when they reason directly from the hadith,
and yet they don’t know their soundness, let alone what has been mentioned
[by the Imams] concerning the subtleties involved in them; by doing this,
they went astray and led others astray. And whoever interprets a verse
or hadith in a manner that deviates from its intended meaning without proof
[dalil] is a kafir.’”
As for the conditions
of the absolute and independent
ijtihad, they are mentioned in the
Maraqi
as-sa’ud in the following line and what follows:
“And
that [word ‘faqih’2] is synonymous
with the [word] ‘mujtahid’ coupled with those things which bear
upon [him] the burden of responsibility,
Such as his being of extreme
intelligence by nature, and there is some debate about one who is known
to reject juristic analogy [qiyas]
He knows the [juristic]
responsibilities through intellectual proofs unless a clear transmitted
proof indicates otherwise.
[Sidi Abdullah] says
[in his commentary]
Nashru al-bunud,
“This means
that among the conditions of ijtihad is that [the mujtahid]
knows that he must adhere to the intellectual proof which is the foundational
condition [al-bara’atu al-asliyya3]
until a transmitted proof from a sacred law indicates otherwise.”
He then goes on to mention
the other conditions of a mujtahid:
[The sciences
of] grammar, prosody, philology, combined with those of usul and
rhetoric he must master.
According to the people
of precision, [he must know] where the judgements can be found without
the condition of having memorized the actual texts.
[All of the above must
be known] according to a middle ranked mastery at least. He must also know
those matters upon which there is consensus.
[Moreover, he must
know] things such as the condition of single hadiths and what carries the
authority of great numbers of transmissions; also [knowledge of] what is
sound and what is weak is necessary.
Furthermore, what has
been abrogated and what abrogates, as well as the conditions under which
a verse was revealed or a hadith was transmitted is a condition that must
be met.
The states of the narrators
and the companions [must also be known]. Therefore, you may follow anyone
who fulfils these conditions mentioned above according to the soundest
opinion.
So, consider all of
the above-mentioned, and may Allah have mercy upon you, and [may you] see
for yourself whether your companion is characterized by such qualities
and fulfils these conditions—and I highly doubt it. More likely, he is
just pointing people to himself in his demands that the people of this
age take their judgements directly from the Book and Sunna. If, on the
other hand, he does not possess the necessary conditions, then further
discussion is useless.
In Muhammad ‘Illish’s,
Fath
al-‘Ali al-Malik, there are many strong rebukes for those who wish
to force people to abandon the study of the judicial branches and take
directly from the Book and the Sunna. The actual text of the question put
to him is as follows:
“What do you
say about someone who was following one of the four Imams, may Allah the
Exalted be pleased with them, and then left claiming that he could derive
his judgements directly form the Qur’an and the soundly transmitted hadiths,
thus leaving the books of jurisprudence and inclining towards the view
of Ahmad bin Idris? Moreover, he says to the one who clings to the speech
of the Imams and their followers, “I say to you ‘Allah and His Messenger
say’, and you reply ‘Malik said’ and ‘Ibn al-Qasim said’ or ‘Khalil said.’”
To this, Imam ‘Illish
replies:
“My answer
to this all this is as follows: Praise be to Allah, and Prayer and Safety
be upon our Master Muhammad, the Messenger of Allah. It is not permissible
for a common person to abandon following the four Imams and take directly
from the textual sources of the Qur’an and the hadiths for the simple reason
that this entails a great many conditions that have been clarified in the
books of usul. Moreover, these conditions are rarely met by the
great scholars, especially in these last days in which Islam has become
a stranger just as it began a stranger.”
Ibn ‘Uyyana, may Allah
be pleased with him, has said,
“The hadiths
are a source of error except for the jurists.”
What he means is that
people, other than the scholars, might interpret a tradition based on an
apparent meaning, and yet [the hadith may] have another interpretation
based on some other hadith that clarifies the meaning or some proof that
remains hidden [to the common people]. After a long discussion, he remarks,
“That as for
their saying, ‘How can you leave clear Qur’anic verses and sound hadiths
and follow the Imams in their ijtihads, which have a clear probability
of error,’”
His answer to them is
as follows:
“Surely the
following of our [rightly guided] Imams is not abandoning the Qur’anic
verses or the sound hadiths; it is the very essence of adhering to them
and taking our judgements from them. This is because the Qur’an has not
come down to us except by means of these very Imams [who are more worthy
of following] by virtue of being more knowledgeable than us in [the sciences
of] the abrogating and abrogated, the absolute and the conditional, the
equivocal and the clarifying, the probabilistic and the plain, the circumstances
surrounding revelation and their various meanings, as well as their possible
interpretations and various linguistic and philological considerations,
[not to mention] the various other ancillary sciences [involved in understanding
the Qur’an] needed.
“Also, they took all
of that from the students of the companions (tabi’in) who received
their instruction from the companions themselves, who received their instructions
from the Lawgiver himself, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, divinely
protected from every mistake, who bore witness that the first three generations
of Muslims would be ones of virtue and righteousness. Furthermore, the
prophetic traditions have also reached us through their means given that
they were also more knowledgeable than us through their means given that
they were also more knowledgeable than those who came after them concerning
the rigorously authenticated (sahih), the well authenticated (hasan),
and the weak (da’if) channels of transmission, as well as the marfu’u4,
mursal5,mutawatir6,
ahad7,
mu’dal8
and gharib9 transmissions.
“Thus, as
far as this little band of men is concerned, there is only one of two possibilities:
either they are attributing ignorance to Imams whose knowledge is considered
by consensus to have reached human perfection as witnessed in several traditions
of the truthful Lawgiver, upon him be prayers and peace, or they are actually
attributing misguidance and lack of din to Imams who are all from
the best of generations by the testimony of the magnificent Messenger himself,
may Allah bless him and grant him peace. Surely, it is not the eyes that
are blind, but blind are the hearts in our breasts.
As for their saying to
the one who imitates Malik, for example, “We say to you ‘Allah says’ or
‘the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, says’
and you reply, ‘Malik says’, or ‘Ibn al-Qasim says’, or ‘Khalil says’,
for example,” our response is that the follower who says, “Malik says .
. . etc.,” means that, “Malik says based on his deep understanding of the
Word of Allah, or of the words of the Messenger, or of those firmly adhering
to the actions of the companions, or of the tabi’in who understood
clearly the Word of Allah and the word of the Messenger of Allah or took
their example from the actions of His Messenger.” And the meaning of [a
follower] saying “Ibn al-Qasim said . . .” is that he has [faithfully]
transmitted what Malik said based on his understanding of the Word of Allah
or of what Ibn al-Qasim himself understood from the word of Allah the Most
Exalted. And the meaning of him saying, “Khalil said . . . .”, for example,
is that he is transmitting only from those [Imams] aforementioned. As for
Malik and Ibn al-Qasim, they are both Imams whose spiritual and judicial
authority is agreed upon by unanimous consensus of this Umma; and they
are both from the best of generations.
As for the one who
leaves their leadership and says, “Allah said and His Messenger said .
. . ”, he has relied solely on his own understanding despite the fact that
he is incapable of having any precision in the verses and hadiths that
he quotes since he is unable even to provide chains of transmission [with
any authority], let alone that he lacks knowledge concerning the abrogated,
the absolute and the conditional, the ambiguous and the clarifying, the
apparent and the textual, the general and the specific, the dimensions
of the Arabic and the cause for revelation, the various linguistic considerations,
and other various ancillary sciences needed. So, consider for yourself
which is preferable: the word of a follower who simply quotes the understanding
of Malik, an Imam by consensus—or the word of this ignoramus who said “Allah
said and His Messenger said . . . ” But it is not the sight that goes blind,
but rather the hearts in our breasts.
Furthermore, know that
the origin of this deviation is from the Dhahiriyya10
who appeared in Andalucia [Muslim Spain] and whose power waxed from a period
until Allah obliterated all traces of them until this little band of men
set about to revive their beliefs. Imam al-Barzuli said, “The first one
ever to attack the Mudawwana11 was
Sa’id bin al-Haddad .”
If you consider carefully
the above-mentioned texts, you will realize that the one who censures you
from following [the Imams] is truly a deviant. And I am using the word
“deviant” to describe them only because the scholars [before me] have labelled
this little band and their view (madhhab) as deviant. Moreover,
you should know that those who condemn your adherence to the Imams have
been fully refuted by Muhammad al-Khadir bin Mayyaba with the most
piercing of refutations, and he himself called them, in his book, “the
people of deviation and heterodoxy.” He called his book, Refuting the people
of deviation of heterodoxy who attack the following [taqlid] of
the Imams of independent reasoning, and I used to have a copy but no longer
do. So, my brother, I seriously warn you from following the madhhab of
these people and even from sitting in their company, unless there is an
absolute necessity, and certainly from listening to anything they have
to say, because the scholars have declared their ideas deviant. Ibn al-Hajj
says in his book, al-Madkhal,
“Umar ibn
al-‘Aziz said, ‘Never give one whose heart is deviant access to your two
ears, for surely you never know what may find fixity in you.’”
I ask Allah to
make you and me from those who listen to matters and follow the best of
them.
Murabtal Haaj, Mauritania
Footnotes
-
Ahmad
ibn Idris Shihabudin as-Sanhaji al-Qarafi al-Maliki was born in Egypt
in the seventh Century, and died there in the year 684. He was one of the
greatest Maliki scholars who ever lived and is especially known for his
work in methodology and law (usul al-fiqh). He was a master of the
Arabic language and has remarkable works in grammar. His book adh-Dhakhira
is a magisterial 14 volume work recently published in the Emirates, that
looks at Maliki fiqh with proofs from usuli sources. He is
buried in Qarafi in Egypt near Imam as-Shafi’i. May Allah have mercy on
them both. [BACK]
-
Sidi
Abdullah says in his commentary on this line that the faqih
is synonymous with mujtahid in the science of usul. There
are different types of faqih. A faqih according to the scholars
of usul is anyone who has achieved the rank of ijtihad. According
to the scholars of furu’u, a faqih is anyone who has reached
the level of knowledge in which he can give valid juristic opinion. This
latter definition is important considering endowments that are given to
fuqaha.
See Nashur al-bunud `ala maraqi as-sa’ud, kitab al-ijtihad fi
al-furu’u (1409 Hijrah. Beirut: Maktabat al-Kutub. p.309)
[BACK]
-
The
foundational condition is that a human being is not asked by Allah
to do anything other than those things which have a firm proof through
the transmission of the prophets, peace be upon them, and that the human
being is only accountable for those things in which there is clear responsibility.
All other matters are considered permissible because of the lack of a proof
indicating their impermissibility.
[BACK]
-
The
transmission (sanad)
goes to the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) the hadith came
from the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace). [BACK]
-
A
tabi’i
related it
from the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace); a companion (sahabah)
is missing from the line of the transmission. [BACK]
-
The
hadith comes from so many sources that it is an absolute proof. [BACK]
-
A
hadith, that at some point in the line of transmission, has only one
narrator. [BACK]
-
Two
people in a row are missing in the chain of narrators. [BACK]
-
The
narrator of the hadith is trustworthy, but no one else related the
hadith. [BACK]
-
The
Dhahiriyya
followed Daw’ud ad-Dhahiri’s madhhab. [BACK]
Mudawwana:
Imam Malik’s work of fiqh. [BACK]
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