Some of the most damaging things for a student of Hanafi Fiqh, that I can now say in hindsight, having formally studied it over a decade ago, can be summarised as follows in 21 points: 1. A complete lack of exposure to non-Hanafi texts and their modus operandi 2. A lack of exposure to the plethora of non-taught texts within the school 3. Constantly having to deal with strawman arguments and bashing them until one is convinced there is nothing greater than Hanafi Fiqh 4. A complete absence of mention of Hanbali Fiqh, and Maliki Fiqh to a large extent 5. An absence of discussion of the nuances between the classical and contemporary sub-schools within the Madhhab 6. An over-reliance of study on middle and later scholars, and an abandonment of the early Imams 7. A lack of exposure to the Tariqat l-Jam` in Usul l-Fiqh, and an over-exposure to Tariqat l-Fuqaha 8. The arbitrary and superficial distinction between Fiqh and Ifta in terms of student development 9. A lack of training in Ijtihad methodology as per the Usul of the Madhhab 10. A lack of appreciation and study of those personalities who did Ijtihad as Hanafis, like al-Laknawi, Ibn l-Humam, al-Tahawi, etc. 11. A lack of study and implementation of al-Qawa`id al-Fiqhiyyah 12. A complete absence of study of Hanafi Fiqh in practice, in contemporary society and in classical societies (for God sake we ruled half the world for a 1000 years) 13. An over-reliance on Transoxianan texts in the second, third and fourth stage of the Hanafi Fiqh curriculum (al-Kanz, al-Wiqayah, al-Hidayah) 14. A total absence of discussion in the classroom about the personal views of contemporary Hanafis vis-a-vis ancients positions inside the Madhhab, such as al-Kashmiri and his personal opinion on `Amm - is it Qat`i or Zanni? Why did he adopt that position? etc. 15. A misprioritisation between the Madhhab and the Quran and Sunnah in the later stages of education, to the extent that the Madhhab per se subconsciously takes precedence in the discourses, whereas the Quran and Sunnah are relegated to second place in terms of importance; a mentality of wanting to know what the response would be to other Madhhabs 16. The development of a completely distorted view of Usul l-Fiqh by having as its first text an opaque work like Usul l-Shashi 17. A total absence of discussion of the connection between Hanafi Fiqh and Usul l-Hadith, apart from the little that discussed in passing in the books, and context, of Usul l-Fiqh 18. A total absence of the study of Fiqh l-Waqi` and how Hanafi Fiqh needs to be applied, reformatted and/or adopt from other schools 19. Outside Arab classrooms, a lack of arabicisation of the subject - everything is filtered either into English or Urdu, even at the higher levels 20. An overemphasis on `Ibadat, and a dilution of non-`Ibadat chapters, relatively 21. An almost absolute lack of an expansionist academic mentality for the school: the lack of heritage revival, editing and publishing manuscripts, re-editing poorly edited works, poor editions of new books all contribute to an image that is highly damaging to the Madhhab Let us Hanafis get off our high horses and admit that, pedagogically, we are nowhere near where we should be. No excuses. Students going in to or currently inside their studies should be aware of the limitations; for us graduates, we should be devising for our later generations what we were lacking when we were studying.
Posted on: Wed, 30 Jul 2014 14:29:06 +0000
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