Shadhili Tariqa - Islam & Fiqh (Jurisprudence)

Islam & Fiqh (Jurisprudence)

The work of the mujtahid Imams of Sacred Law, those who deduce shari‘a rulings from Qur’an and hadith, has been the object of my research for some years now, during which I have sometimes heard the question: “Who needs the Imams of Sacred Law when we have the Qur’an and hadith? Why can’t we take our Islam from the word of Allah and His Messenger (Allah bless him and give him peace), which are divinely protected from error, instead of taking it from the madhhabs or “schools of jurisprudence” of the mujtahid Imams such as Abu Hanifa, Malik, Shafi‘i, and Ahmad, which are not?”

What is a Madhhab (School of Thought) ?

The word madhhab is derived from an Arabic word meaning "to go" or "to take as a way", and refers to a mujtahid's choice in regard to a number of interpretive possibilities in deriving the rule of Allah from the primary texts of the Qur'an and hadith on a particular question. In a larger sense, a madhhab represents the entire school of thought of a particular mujtahid Imam, such as Abu Hanifa, Malik, Shafi'i, or Ahmad--together with many first-rank scholars that came after each of these in their respective schools, who checked their evidences and refined and upgraded their work.

Studying Bukhari or Muslim on One's Own

Any Muslim can benefit from reading hadiths from al-Bukhari and Muslim, whether on his own or with others. As for studying hadith, Sheikh Shuayb al-Arnaut, with whom my wife and I are currently reading Imam al-Suyuti's Tadrib al-rawi [The training of the hadith narrator], emphasizes that the science of hadith deals with a vast and complex literature, a tremendous sea of information that requires a pilot to help one navigate, without which one is bound to run up on the rocks.

On Bid'a

There are few topics that generate as much controversy today in Islam as what is sunna and what is bida or reprehensible innovation, perhaps because of the times Muslims live in today and the challenges they face. Without a doubt, one of the greatest events in impact upon Muslims in the last thousand years is the end of the Islamic caliphate at the first of this century, an event that marked not only the passing of temporal, political authority, but in many respects the passing of the consensus of orthodox Sunni Islam as well.

Hadiths Imams Lacked

Because the many of the considerations we have detailed above ("Why Muslims Follow Madhhabs") are no longer generally understood, some Muslims in our times say that whoever follows the four schools is following them blindly, as the Imams of them did not have all the hadiths that we have today. For example, the great hadith collections of Bukhari or Muslim were not yet compiled in the times of the Imams, who were thus unable incorporate their hadiths into their schools of thought. What should one say to such an objection?

Distinction Between Hadith and Sunna

The word sunna has three separate meanings that are often mixed up by Muslims when the term arises in discussions.
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