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| Nadia Yassine, 2007-07-25 |
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| The absurdity of blind taqlid appears clearer when the notion of ijtihād is well assimilated. Tariq Ramadan defines ijtihād as being the “effort performed by a jurist either to derive a law or a prescription from less explicit scriptuary sources, or to formulate a detailed juridical opinion in the absence of reference texts,” Michel Jobert proposes a further detailed definition of ijtihād that renders it a continuation of Revelation: |
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| Revelation is thus not a moment in history. It is continued in our efforts to find “the right path,” and to make our own progress intelligible. This effort is ijtihād. It is to be performed in uncertainty and humility. Because its success has no guarantees, its validity is assured. Contingency is our challenge. We must in no way yield to it: it is our duty to resolve it. |
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| Jobert’s reflection is interesting insofar as it brings up the subtle relationship of the Muslim with contingency. Ijtihād is a means for gathering the heaven and earth of the Muslim. Thanks to this effort, heaven is joined to earth and the absolute is wedded to contingency. |
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| Contingency in the light of the Islamic teaching is called fitna. This word comes from the verb fatana, which literally means to put a noble metal in the furnace to rid it of dross. In its general sense, fitna refers to a period of unrest and instability. The real sense to draw first from Revelation, and then from history, is that life on earth is a perpetual fitna—that is to say, an ordeal, a daily trial. |
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| Life on earth is a permanent adaptation and a continuous struggle to remain on the right path. The earth turns, and night and day conspire to prevent man from having a moment of respite. The day dispatches him to the night, the night releases him to the next day. Life is a stormy sea. Revelation is a lighthouse to which we have recourse so as to avoid ending up on a reef. Life is an incessant struggle to safeguard our spiritual energy and our humanity, and to win each day a battle against moments of meaninglessness. |
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| Ijtihād is precisely that unremitting effort of reorientation and readaptation: a safe navigation on the waves of our passage in this life on earth. It is a constant mobilization whose aim is not to lose sight of the Light of the Message, not to give oneself up to the absurd of contingency, not to forget God. |
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| Such effort, intending to overcome the vagaries of history and to avoid sinking completely into contingency, springs in fact from the stirrings occasioned by the latter. It is important to point out that it is the fear of the Muslims to find themselves cut off from their sources that produced this extraordinary science of adaptation. |
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| In the Prophet’s lifetime, the Companions made ijtihād without having to indicate its bases. They made it naturally either by imitating the Prophet or under his supervision, or by intuitive and profound comprehension of Islamic Law, internalized thanks to their frequent contact with the Messenger (grace and peace upon him). Ijtihād was part of their education and their approach of the faith. They did not have to be reminded of it. Let us recall in this regard the dialog between Muhammad (grace and peace upon him) and Muad. The Prophet was testing his disciple to ascertain that the effort of reflection was a teaching assimilated like that of confidence in God, submission to God in the domain where the mind cannot—and will never be able to—reach or delimit. |
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| Only later would ijtihād be structured and become the subject of a methodology. Because they were confronted to constantly new situations engendered by the expansion of islam and the changing nature of power, the ulemas found themselves forced to establish a science of ijtihād. At the time of Imam Mālik (717–801),—that is, one century after the death of the Prophet (grace and peace upon him),—ijtihād was more of a practice than an art with well-established rules. In his excellent book, Tariq Ramadan states: |
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| For such first scholars as Abu Hanifa, al-Awza‘ī and Mālik, the distinction between the different sciences was not very clear. The famous compilation of the latter’s al-Muwatta’ (the beaten track) is still a mixture of decisions and opinions of the Companions and their disciples. Historical circumstances . . . were to considerably modify the scholars’ way of thinking and presenting the results of their researches. |
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| Our Islamologist cites four symptomatic events that had awakened in the ulemas the desire to safeguard the faith. They thus established intelligible rules to enable them to found a basis for the practice of ijtihād. The symptoms commence with the reign of Muawiya, the Companion38 of the Prophet (grace and peace upon him) who usurped power based on popular sovereignty and consultation. Democratic39 in its origins, power then became despotic and hereditary. The warning signs of the threats to the Islamic faith can be summed up in these four: |
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| 1. The introduction of new practices in the affairs of state.2. The dispersal of the ulemas, and the high risk of losing important pieces of information because of a tradition more oral than written.3. The appearance of a manifest determination to instigate doubt within the community through the circulation of false hadīths.4. The appearance of conflicts that seriously divided the community and reached the stage of confrontation in the name of different convictions. |
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| With his customary moderation, Tariq Ramadan reveals these historical circumstances as being all equal, and perfectly relativizes the break at the level of power. In fact, it is more just to consider the break at this level a decisive one. The change in the nature of power had the sole positive effect of stimulating the spirit of general approach that acts as instinct of self-preservation. But the distortion of power, despite its initially beneficial effect, ended up getting the better of this same spirit of innovation in a slow movement of withdrawal. |
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| * From the Book "Full Sails Ahead" (available online at www.jspublishing.net). |
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