Under the shariah, our own laws are the Quran and Sunnah. Whatever argument an Islamic scholar want to bring forth must spring from those two sources of shariah. Just as it is in the case of the conventional courts, any argument, interpretation or legal reasoning that cannot be tied with at least a provision from either the Quran and Sunnah or both would be fruitless. This is a simple logic that any reasonable person should understand and work with. Whenever I see a Muslim lawyer participating in acts of innovation, I feel bad for such a person because his knowledge of law is useless. His knowledge of law ought to have aided him in knowing that since he cannot go to a conventional court to merely quote his learned seniors on points of law, it is more dangerous and criminal for him to be quoting his Bidiah Sheikh on matters of great concern in the religion. A lawyer cannot stand before a Judge and prove ilmul baatin (hidden knowledge). But he would have the gut to prove same before his ignorant followers. We all need to know that the shariah is what Allah says; what the Prophet, sollaLohu alaihi wasallam says and what the Sohaabah and the scholars who follow their footsteps say. Even in shariah courts in Nigeria, a lawyer must rely on the provisions of Kitab wa Sunnah and not hidden knowledge. In fact these Sufi people who take their knowledge from dreams and fabrications are causing so much confusion. Our prayer is that Allah guides them to the proper path. Meanwhile, the first thing we need to note is that the shariah cannot be amended, altered or repealed by any means. Its provisions are divine, comprehensive, indivisible and perfect. As Muslims, we are the ones to submit ourselves to the provisions of the Quran and Sunnah and not the other way round. The scholars of Usul Al-fiqh have warn against the attitude of hiding under the secondary sources of the shariah to alter the provisions of Quran and Sunnah. Our major problem is how to identify the real scholars of the deen and direct our affairs to them. We also need to know the fake scholars in our society so that we can report their cases to the righteous scholars for proper refutation. The work of ijtihaad is not the work of everybody. It is the work of set of qualified individuals. You cant just say because you understand Arabic language and think you have automatically become a mujtahid. Being a scholar is far beyond that. We need to respect professionalism and give regards to whom it is due. The right to use qiyas (reasoning or analogical deduction), ijmaa (consensus opinion) or any other secondary cannons of interpretation to determine the step to be taken in a particular circumstance or to deduce Islamic injunctions is exclusively that of the scholars who have deep knowledge of the deen. It is not proper to guess the true position of the shariah on any matter. However, what constitute scholar has been misunderstood by many Muslim today. That is why we must be careful with the kind of people we consult for answers on matters of the deen. You must know the scholars antecedents in the areas of fiqh, aqeedah and manhaj before refering any question to him because there are many mischievous people who parade themselves as scholars today.
Posted on: Mon, 18 Nov 2013 17:47:13 +0000