Some have argued that Shaykh Muḥammad Nāṣir al-Dīn al-Albānī falls into this category. They point to what they perceive as an excessive number of fringe opinions and contend that he repeatedly violated the scholarly consensus (ijmāʿ). But is this claim accurate? Are all of these examples genuine instances in which the Shaykh contradicted an established consensus?

One may concede that there are at least a few cases in which Shaykh al-Albānī departed from what many scholars regarded as a consensus, such as his following al-Shawkanī’s opinion on the ruling on the purity of human blood, his prohibition of voluntary fasting on Saturdays, and his position that praying more than eleven or thirteen rakʿahs during Tarāwīḥ is impermissible. Nevertheless, acknowledging a limited number of such cases does not justify expanding the list by attributing to him alleged violations of consensus that do not withstand careful scrutiny.

Let us examine some of the more commonly cited examples.

Fatwá on Making Up Missed Prayers

Shaykh al-Albānī maintained that a person who deliberately abandons the obligatory prayers and later repents is not required to make up the missed prayers. Critics have argued that this position contradicts the scholarly consensus. Ustādh ʿAlāʾ responds to this claim as follows:

Many Salafi scholars maintain that a person who deliberately abandons the prescribed prayers and subsequently repents is not required to make up the missed prayers. Rather, he should increase his performance of voluntary prayers (nawāfil). This differs from the majority opinion, which obligates him to make up the missed prayers.

The critic claimed that this position is contrary to consensus (ijmāʿ). This assertion is mistaken and reflects a limited familiarity with the range of scholarly opinions. In fact, this was the position of al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī, al-Ḥumaydī, and some of the early Shāfiʿī and Ḥanbalī scholars, such as Ibn Baṭṭah and al-Barbahārī. It was also adopted by Ibn Ḥazm and Ibn Taymiyyah, and inclined to by al-Ḥāfiẓ Ibn Rajab, as will be discussed.

Al-Mardāwī states:

“Whoever has missed prescribed prayers is required to make them up immediately. This is the established position of the Ḥanbalī school, explicitly stated in its authoritative texts. It is the view of the overwhelming majority of our scholars, and many of them affirmed it unequivocally. However, Shaykh Taqī al-Dīn [Ibn Taymiyyah] held that if one who deliberately abandoned the prayer repents, it is neither legislated for him to make up those prayers nor would such make-up prayers be valid. Rather, he should increase his performance of voluntary acts of worship. The same applies to fasting. Ibn Rajab said in his Sharḥ al-Bukhārī: ‘It appears in the statements of a number of our early companions that performing those prayers after deliberately abandoning them is not sufficient.’”^[1]

Al-Ḥāfiẓ Ibn Rajab states:

“The position of the Ẓāhirī school, or at least the majority of its adherents, is that there is no obligation to make up prayers deliberately abandoned. This view has also been attributed to ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, a companion of al-Shāfiʿī in Iraq, and to Ibn Bint al-Shāfiʿī. It was likewise the opinion of Abū Bakr al-Ḥumaydī regarding both fasting and prayer: that if they are deliberately abandoned, making them up afterward is of no benefit. He mentioned this in his creed at the end of his Musnad. Similar statements are also found among a number of our early Ḥanbalī scholars, including al-Jawzajānī, Abū Muḥammad al-Barbahārī, and Ibn Baṭṭah.

Ibn Baṭṭah states:

“Know that the prescribed prayers have appointed times. Whoever performs a prayer before its prescribed time has not fulfilled an obligatory prayer, whether he has an excuse or not. Likewise, whoever deliberately delays it beyond its prescribed time without a valid excuse has not fulfilled an obligatory prayer.”

He thus regarded a prayer performed after its prescribed time without a valid excuse as analogous to one performed before its prescribed time, saying of both that “it is not an obligatory prayer,” meaning that in both cases it is counted only as a voluntary prayer.

Al-Barbahārī likewise states:

“Allah accepts none of the prescribed prayers unless they are performed within their appointed times, except in the case of forgetfulness, for such a person is excused...”

How, then, can consensus (ijmāʿ) be claimed when al-Ḥasan [al-Baṣrī]—despite his immense stature, distinction, vast knowledge, asceticism, and piety—held a contrary opinion? Indeed, there is no known report from any of the Companions stating that one who deliberately abandons the prayer is obligated to make it up. Nor have I found any explicit statement from the Tābiʿūn on this issue, except from al-Nakhaʿī. Numerous reports have been transmitted from the early generations stating that the prayer of one who deliberately abandons the prescribed prayer is not accepted. Among them is the report from al-Ṣiddīq, may Allah be pleased with him, who said to ʿUmar in his final counsel:

“Indeed, Allah has a right due during the night that He does not accept during the day, and a right due during the day that He does not accept during the night.”

By this, he was referring to the prescribed prayers of the night and the day.^[2]

The following may be inferred from Ibn Rajab’s discussion:

The view that one who deliberately abandons the prayer is not required to make up the missed prayers was held by al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī, certain companions of al-Shāfiʿī, and a number of the early Ḥanbalī scholars, including al-Barbahārī, Ibn Baṭṭah, and al-Jawzajānī. Where, then, is the alleged consensus (ijmāʿ)?

For this reason, Ibn Rajab rejected this supposed consensus, saying: “How can consensus be established when al-Ḥasan—despite his immense stature, distinction, virtue, and vast knowledge—held a contrary opinion?!”

In summary, we do not dispute that the four Sunni legal schools are agreed that a person who deliberately abandons the prescribed prayers is obligated to make them up. Rather, what we dispute is the claim that this agreement constitutes a binding scholarly consensus (ijmāʿ). As has already been demonstrated, Ibn Rajab’s own statements establish the invalidity of that claim.

Fatwá on the Prohibition of Gold Jewelry for Women

Shaykh al-Albānī held that it is impermissible for women to wear gold jewelry. This position drew criticism not only from his usual detractors but also from Salafī scholars, who argued that he had violated the scholarly consensus on the issue. Among those who took this position were Shaykh Ibn Bāz^[3] and Shaykh ʿAbdullāh ibn Ṣāliḥ al-Fawzān,^[4] among others.

In defense of his position, however, Shaykh al-Albānī argued^[5] that Imām al-Baghawī explicitly acknowledged a classical disagreement on the issue in the form of karāhah taḥrīmiyyah (prohibitive dislike). Al-Baghawī writes in Sharḥ al-Sunnah:

قَالَ الإِمَامُ: وَلُبْسُ خَاتَمِ الذَّهَبِ حَرَامٌ عَلَى الرِّجَالِ، فَأَمَّا النِّسَاءُ فَمُبَاحٌ لَهُنَّ لُبْسُهُ، وَالتَّحَلِّي بِالذَّهَبِ عِنْدَ الأَكْثَرِينَ، لِمَا رُوِيَ عَنْ أَبِي مُوسَى الأَشْعَرِيِّ، أَنَّ النَّبِيَّ ﷺ، قَالَ: «أُحِلَّ الذَّهَبُ وَالْحَرِيرُ لِلإِنَاثِ مِنْ أُمَّتِي».

وَرُوِيَ عَنْ نَافِعٍ، «أَنَّ ابْنَ عُمَرَ كَانَ يُحَلِّي بَنَاتِهِ الذَّهَبَ، وَيُلْبِسُ نِسَاءَهُ الإِبْرِيسَمَ وَأَكْسِيَةَ الْخَزِّ».

وَكَرِهَ ذَلِكَ قَوْمٌ، لِمَا رُوِيَ عَنْ أَسْمَاءَ بِنْتِ يَزِيدَ بْنِ السَّكَنِ، أَنَّ رَسُولَ اللَّهِ ﷺ، قَالَ: «أَيُّمَا امْرَأَةٍ تَقَلَّدَتْ قِلادَةً مِنْ ذَهَبٍ، قُلِّدَتْ فِي عُنُقِهَا مِثْلَهُ مِنَ النَّارِ يَوْمَ الْقِيَامَةِ، وَأَيُّمَا امْرَأةٍ جَعَلَتْ فِي أُذُنِهَا خُرْصًا مِنْ ذَهَبٍ، جَعَلَ اللَّهُ فِي أُذنِهَا مِثْلَهُ مِنَ النَّارِ».

وَرَوَى ابْنُ سِيرِينَ، أَنَّ أَبَا هُرَيْرَةَ كَانَ يَقُولُ لابْنَتِهِ: لَا تَلْبَسِي الذَّهَبَ، فَإِنِّي أَخَافُ عَلَيْكِ اللَّهَبَ.

وَالأَكْثَرُونَ عَلَى إِبَاحَتِهِ لِلنِّسَاءِ.

وَقِيلَ فِي حَدِيثِ أَسْمَاءَ: إِنَّهُ وَعِيدٌ جَاءَ فِيمَنْ لَا يُؤَدِّي زَكَاتَهُ، وَقِيلَ: كَانَ هَذَا فِي الزَّمَانِ الأَوَّلِ، ثُمَّ نُسِخَ بِدَلِيلِ حَدِيثِ أَبِي مُوسَى، وَاللَّهُ أَعْلَمُ

“The Imām said: Wearing a gold ring is prohibited for men. As for women, the majority of scholars permit them to wear gold and adorn themselves with it. This is based on the narration from Abū Mūsā al-Ashʿarī that the Prophet ﷺ said:

“Gold and silk have been made lawful for the women of my Ummah.”

It is also narrated from Nāfiʿ that Ibn ʿUmar used to adorn his daughters with gold and clothe his wives in silk and garments made from khazz.

However, a group of scholars considered this disliked because of the narration from Asmāʾ bint Yazīd ibn al-Sakan that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said:

“Any woman who wears a necklace of gold will be made to wear a similar necklace of Fire around her neck on the Day of Resurrection. Likewise, any woman who wears gold earrings will have similar earrings of Fire placed in her ears.”

Ibn Sīrīn also narrated that Abū Hurayrah used to say to his daughter, “Do not wear gold, for I fear the Fire for you.”

Nevertheless, the majority of scholars held that wearing gold is permissible for women.

It has also been said regarding the ḥadīth of Asmāʾ that its warning applies to those who fail to pay the zakāh due on their gold. Others maintained that this ruling belonged to the early period of Islam and was later abrogated by the ḥadīth of Abū Mūsá. And Allah knows best.”

Fatwá on the Sutrah During Prayer

Shaykh al-Albānī held that using a sutrah during prayer is obligatory. Several scholars criticized this view, arguing that it contradicted the scholarly consensus, which holds that using a sutrah is merely recommended. However, a closer examination of the classical works reveals that this issue was, in fact, the subject of scholarly disagreement.

Al-Mardāwī states in al-Inṣāf:

قوله: ويستحَبُّ أنْ يُصَلِّيَ إلى سُتْرَةٍ، مثلِ آخِرَةِ الرَّحْلِ. هذا المذهبُ، وعليه جماهيرُ الأصحابِ، وقطَع به أكثرهم. وأطْلَقَ في «الواضِحِ» الوُجوبَ.

“His statement, ‘It is recommended that one pray facing a sutrah, such as the rear of a saddle,’ represents the established position of the madhhab. This is the view of the overwhelming majority of our scholars, and most of them stated it unequivocally. However, the author of al-Wāḍiḥ^[6] held that it is obligatory.“

Whether this opinion is actually traceable to Imām Aḥmad himself is ultimately beside the point. What matters for the present discussion is that the issue was recognized as one over which there was a classical disagreement. Consequently, it cannot be categorically asserted that Shaykh al-Albānī violated an established scholarly consensus merely by adopting the view that the use of a sutrah is obligatory.

Conclusion

None of the foregoing should be understood as an attempt to prove that Shaykh al-Albānī was correct in every one of these rulings. Nor is it to deny that he occasionally adopted positions that departed from what many scholars regarded as the consensus. Rather, the purpose of this article has been far more modest: to examine whether certain frequently cited examples genuinely constitute violations of an established ijmāʿ. As we have seen, a number of these claims do not withstand careful scrutiny.

This highlights an important distinction that is often overlooked. The agreement of the four Sunni legal schools, or even the overwhelming majority of scholars, does not necessarily amount to a binding consensus (ijmāʿ). While such agreement undoubtedly carries immense legal weight, the existence of an earlier recognized disagreement precludes claiming that a true consensus had been established. Consequently, attributing a “violation of consensus” to a later scholar requires considerably more than demonstrating that he opposed the majority position.

None of this obligates the reader to accept Shaykh al-Albānī’s conclusions. One may still believe that he erred in these issues and that the majority opinion is the stronger one. However, intellectual honesty requires precision in our criticism. If a classical disagreement genuinely existed, then it is more accurate to say that Shaykh al-Albānī adopted a minority/weak opinion than to accuse him of violating the consensus of the scholars. Those are two very different claims and conflating them obscures rather than clarifies the record.

Recommended Reading:

Have Salafis Adopted Opinions That Contradict Scholarly Consensus?

The Alleged Consensus Against Departing from the Four Madhhabs: A Critical Study

Was Ibn Ḥazm Alone in Restricting Ijmāʿ to the Consensus of the Companions?

^[1] Al-Inṣāf (1/443).

^[2] Fatḥ al-Bārī (3/350–360).

^[3] See Majmūʿ Fatāwā wa-Maqālāt Mutanawwiʿah, vol. 6, pp. 348 ff.

^[4] He said in his commentary on Bulūgh al-Marām:

وقد استمر الإجماع على ذلك حتى جاء الشيخ المحدث محمد ناصر الدين الألباني رحمه الله وقال: (إنه يحرم على النساء لبس الذهب المحلق خاصة)، ولم ينسب ذلك لأحد من السلف أو الخلف، وأنكر دعوى النسخ، بحجة أن شروطه غير متحققة، وأن الجمع ممكن، والصواب القول بالنسخ، كما حكاه البيهقي وابن شاهين والنووي وغيرهم، والله تعالى أعلم.

“The consensus on this ruling remained firmly established until the ḥadīth scholar Shaykh Muḥammad Nāṣir al-Dīn al-Albānī, may Allah have mercy on him, came and said, ‘It is specifically prohibited for women to wear circular gold jewelry.’ He did not attribute this opinion to anyone among the early or later scholars. He also rejected the claim of abrogation, arguing that its conditions had not been fulfilled and that reconciliation between the reports was possible. The correct position, however, is that the relevant narrations were abrogated, as was related by al-Bayhaqī, Ibn Shāhīn, al-Nawawī, and others. And Allah knows best.”

^[5] See Ādāb al-Zafāf fi al-Sunnah al-Muṭahharah, p. 244

^[6] al-Wāḍiḥ was authored by the Hanbalī scholar, Ibn al-Zāghūnī (d. 527 A.H.)

Taken from Dr. Ḥumaid ʿAṭwān Ṣāliḥ al-ʿAlwānī’s article, Al-Khilāf al-Uṣūlī bayna Ibn Ḥazm al-Ẓāhirī wa-Jumhūr al-Uṣūliyyīn fī Imkān Inʿiqād al-Ijmāʿ, pp. 288-289:

The second opinion is that ijmāʿ is restricted to the consensus of the Companions alone, and that the consensus of those after them does not constitute a binding proof. This was the view of Ibn Ḥazm, who attributed it to all of the Ẓāhirīs. It was also held by some Shāfiʿī scholars, and it is the apparent view of Ibn Ḥibbān in his Ṣaḥīḥ.

• Ibn al-Najjār said in Sharḥ al-Kawkab al-Munīr: “It is the view chosen by al-Khallāl and al-Ḥalwānī.”^[1]

• Abū al-Walīd al-Bājī related this view from Ismāʿīl ibn ʿUlayyah and from Ibn Khuwāz Mindād among the Mālikīs.^[2]

• Al-Muwaffaq (Ibn Qudāmah) attributed it to al-Qāḍī al-Bāqillānī, Ibn Burhān, and some of the Shāfiʿīs.^[3]

• Ibn Ḥazm said in al-Iḥkām: “Abū Sulaymān and many of our companions said: there is no consensus except the consensus of the Companions (may Allah be pleased with them).”^[4]

• He also said in al-Nubadh al-Kāfiyah: “The consensus whose acceptance is obligatory upon us is only the consensus of the Companions.”^[5]

• Ibn Ḥibbān said: “The consensus that is authoritative for us is the consensus of the Companions who witnessed the descent of revelation and the sending down of the Qurʾān, and who were protected from alteration and substitution.”^[6]

^[1] See: Mukhtaṣar al-Taḥrīr Sharḥ al-Kawkab al-Munīr, 2/234.

^[2] See: Aḥkām al-Fuṣūl, p. 486.

^[3] Rawḍat al-Nāẓir wa-Junnat al-Munāẓir, 1/397.

^[4] Al-Iḥkām fī Uṣūl al-Aḥkām, 4/147.

^[5] Al-Nubadh al-Kāfiyah, p. 33.

^[6] Ṣaḥīḥ Ibn Ḥibbān, 5/471.

Introduction

All praise is due to Allah, Lord of the worlds. May blessings and peace be upon the one sent as a mercy to the worlds, and upon his family and all of his Companions. To proceed:

The proper method for dealing with disagreements among the scholars has been clarified by Allah, the Exalted, in His statement:

{O you who believe! Obey Allah and obey the Messenger and those in authority among you. Then if you disagree over anything, refer it to Allah and the Messenger, if you truly believe in Allah and the Last Day. That is best and most conducive to the finest outcome.} [Qurʾān 4:59]

Shaykh ʿIzz al-Dīn Ibn ʿAbd al-Salām (may Allah have mercy on him) said:

“If it is authentically established that one of the Companions held a [legal] position regarding a particular ruling, then it is not permissible to depart from it except based on evidence that is clearer than the evidence upon which he relied. However, independent jurists (mujtahids) are not obligated to practice taqlīd of the Companions in matters of disagreement.^[1] Rather, it is impermissible for them to do so when their own evidence is manifestly stronger than that of the Companions, because Allah, the Exalted, has commanded adherence to the evidence that establishes His rulings. He has only made taqlīd obligatory upon the laypeople, who do not know the evidence of the legal rulings.”^[2]Ibn Taymiyyah likewise said:

“If someone who is not among the followers of the [four] imams—such as Sufyān al-Thawrī, al-Awzāʿī, al-Layth ibn Saʿd, those who preceded them, those who came after them, and other mujtahids—holds a view that differs from that of the four imams, then the matter over which they disagreed must be referred back to Allah and His Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him). The preponderant opinion is the one supported by the evidence.”^[3]

He also said:

“If there is sufficient guidance in the Book of Allah, the Exalted, and the Sunnah of His Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him)—both of which Allah, the Mighty and Majestic, has guaranteed to preserve—then they suffice in place of every madhhab and render every individual’s opinion unnecessary. Since this is the case, no opinion can be considered true unless it accords with the Qurʾān and the Sunnah. Every infallible consensus (ijmāʿ) is necessarily in agreement with the Qurʾān and the Sunnah, and whatever contradicts the Qurʾān and the Sunnah cannot possibly constitute a valid consensus. Thus, the criterion is the Qurʾān and the Sunnah.”^[4]

However, some later scholars did not adhere to this Sunnī methodology of referring disputes back to Allah and His Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) whenever disagreement arose. Instead, they claimed there was a consensus that the truth was confined exclusively to the four madhhabs, declared those who departed from them in favor of the schools of other mujtahid imams—from among the Companions, the Tābiʿūn, and those who came after them—to be misguided, and publicly condemned them.

Among the most alarming statements in this regard is that of al-Ṣāwī al-Mālikī in his marginal commentary on Tafsīr al-Jalālayn:

“It is impermissible to practice taqlīd of any school other than the four madhhabs, even if the alternative view agrees with the opinion of the Companions, an authentic ḥadīth, or a Qurʾānic verse. Whoever departs from the four madhhabs is astray and leads others astray, and this may even lead him to disbelief, because adopting the apparent meanings of the Qurʾān and the Sunnah is among the foundations of disbelief.”^[5]

Reflect on how he passed such severe judgments upon anyone who practiced taqlīd outside the four madhhabs, building this position upon the innovation introduced by al-Sanūsī that adopting the apparent meanings of the Qurʾānic and Sunnah texts is among the foundations of disbelief.

As a result, countless individuals who identify themselves as al-Ṣāwī’s statement on this matter misled students of knowledge.^[6]

Shaykh Muḥammad al-Amīn al-Shanqīṭī said:

“As for his claim that it is impermissible to depart from the four madhhabs, even when their opinions conflict with the Qurʾān, the Sunnah, and the views of the Companions, this is a false statement according to the Qurʾān, the Sunnah, the consensus of the Companions (may Allah be pleased with them), and the consensus of the four imams themselves. Therefore, the one who advocates such a position is the one who is astray and leads others astray.”^[7]

Among the other dangerous formulations on this issue, which are built upon the superstitions of certain Ṣūfīs and which also contain extreme excess in judging those who disagree, is a statement by the Shāfiʿī scholar Muslim al-ʿArādī al-Dāghistānī. In it, he responds to someone who issued a fatwá in accordance with Shaykh al-Islām’s opinion regarding the issue of the threefold divorce pronounced at once. He writes:

“They have said that it is impermissible, by consensus, to practice taqlīd of anyone other than the four imams, even if that other person is a Companion of immense stature, because the madhhabs of the four were systematically codified, whereas the madhhabs of others were not.^[8]

They also maintained that consensus takes precedence over a textual proof whenever the two conflict in matters of legal theory. Furthermore, once they have reached consensus on an issue, it is forbidden to violate it by opposing them. Accordingly, there is no justification for issuing fatwás that contradict their positions, nor for acting personally upon opinions that oppose them. Rather, disbelief is feared for anyone who advances such a claim out of the conviction that they erred, because this amounts to denying something known by necessity and unanimously agreed upon by the imams.

How could it be otherwise? The four imams are the pegs of the earth, the pillars of the religion, and the trustees of the Lawgiver over His Sharīʿah. They formulated and established their madhhabs while fully aware of the intended meanings of the Qurʾān, the Sunnah, and the statements of the Companions. They did so while possessing authentic mystical unveiling (kashf). Moreover, the spirit of each of them met with the spirit of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him), and they asked him directly about every proof concerning which they had hesitated: ‘Is this indeed from your teaching, O Messenger of Allah, or not?’ This occurred while awake and through direct conversation, according to the conditions well known among the people of mystical unveiling.

They would ask him about everything they understood from the Qurʾān and the Sunnah before recording it in their books and adopting it as their religion before Allah. They would say: ‘O Messenger of Allah! We have understood such-and-such from such-and-such a verse, and we have understood such-and-such from your statement in such-and-such a ḥadīth. Do you approve of this understanding or not?’ They would then act in accordance with his response and indication. This is undoubtedly among the miracles (karāmāt) of the awliyāʾ. Indeed, if the mujtahid imams are not awliyāʾ, then there is not a single walī upon the face of the earth.” End of the passage from the opening pages of Mīzān Walī Allah by al-Shaʿrānī. Refer to it there.^[9]

This passage contains such superstition, misguidance, and religious innovation that it will not escape anyone who adheres to the creed of the Salaf (may Allah be pleased with them).

Since one of the objectives of the Salaf Center for Research and Studies is to combat religious innovations and forms of misguidance, this paper seeks to address the issue of practicing taqlīd outside the four imams as one of the juristic issues subject to independent reasoning (ijtihād), which the scholars have examined in their works on jurisprudence and legal theory, while remaining far removed from the approaches of those characterized by excess and extremism.

Success is granted by Allah alone.

First: The Legal Schools Are Not Confined to the Four Madhhabs:

It is well known that:

“The books of the adherents of the various madhhabs are replete with the transmitted opinions of the Companions and the use of those opinions as evidence, even though each school possesses material that is not found in the others.

Each of these imams compiled the transmitted reports and the legal conclusions he derived from them, and these were consequently attributed to him, just as collections of ḥadīth are attributed to those who compiled them, such as al-Bukhārī, Muslim, and Abū Dāwūd, and just as the canonical Qurʾānic readings are attributed to those who selected them, such as Nāfiʿ and Ibn Kathīr.

The majority of what the four imams said was transmitted from those who preceded them. However, some of their opinions were not directly transmitted from earlier authorities; rather, they derived them from those foundational sources.

Thereafter came scholars who critically examined their opinions and identified those that they regarded as erroneous. All of this was done in preservation of this religion, so that its adherents would be as Allah described them: {They enjoin what is right and forbid what is wrong.} [Qurʾān 9:71]. Whenever one of them fell into an error, whether unintentionally or deliberately, another would denounce it.”^[10]

This eminent and exalted status of the four imams is overlooked by those innovators who fail to appreciate their true rank, leading them to imagine that the madhhabs of the four imams stand apart from the opinions of the Companions.

At the same time, this distinguished status does not diminish the standing of the other juristic imams, such as Sufyān al-Thawrī, Sufyān ibn ʿUyaynah, al-Layth ibn Saʿd, al-Awzāʿī, and Isḥāq ibn Rāhawayh. As will be mentioned later, one of the Ḥanafī jurists stated: “The other mujtahids also exerted themselves just as the four imams did. To deny this is sheer obstinacy and poor etiquette.”

The legal schools are not confined to those of the four imams, namely Abū Ḥanīfah, Mālik, al-Shāfiʿī, and Aḥmad. Rather, other imams also established well-known madhhabs. Some of these were documented in writing, while others spread widely and had their own followers for a period of time.

Al-Qāḍī ʿIyāḍ said, while discussing the emergence of the legal schools:

“The scholars whose madhhabs were followed and whose legal opinions were emulated by their adherents throughout the various regions and lands were, in earlier times, numerous: Mālik ibn Anas in Madīnah; Abū Ḥanīfah and al-Thawrī in Kūfah; al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī in Baṣrah, as previously mentioned; al-Awzāʿī in al-Shām; al-Shāfiʿī in Egypt; and after him, Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal in Baghdad. Abū Thawr also had followers there.

Thereafter, Abū Jaʿfar al-Ṭabarī and Dāwūd al-Aṣbahānī emerged in Baghdad. They authored books and adopted legal positions in accordance with the methodology of the scholars of ḥadīth. Dāwūd rejected analogical reasoning (qiyās), and each of the two had his own followers.

All of these madhhabs spread throughout the various regions.”^[11]

Al-Suyūṭī likewise states in his treatise al-Iʿlām bi-Ḥukm ʿĪsá ʿalayhi al-Salām:

“If you say that ʿĪsá (peace be upon him) will judge according to the Sharīʿah of our Prophet, then by what means will he judge? Will it be according to one of the four established madhhabs, or through his own independent ijtihād?

This question is astonishing on the part of the one who posed it. Even more astonishing is his statement: “according to one of the four madhhabs.” Did it ever occur to the questioner that the legal schools within this noble religion are not confined to four? The mujtahids of this Ummah are too numerous to count, and each had his own madhhab, beginning with the Companions, then the Tābiʿūn, then the successors of the Tābiʿūn, and so on.

In earlier centuries, there were approximately ten madhhabs whose founders were followed, whose legal works were compiled, and whose doctrines were documented. These included the four well-known madhhabs, as well as the madhhabs of Sufyān al-Thawrī, al-Awzāʿī, al-Layth ibn Saʿd, Isḥāq ibn Rāhawayh, Ibn Jarīr, and Dāwūd. Each of these had followers who issued fatwās and rendered judgments according to their respective madhhabs. These schools only disappeared after the fifth Islamic century due to the passing of the scholars and the decline of scholarly aspiration. Thus, the madhhabs are numerous, so why did the questioner single out only the four madhhabs?”^[12]

Shaykh Muḥammad Bakhīt al-Muṭīʿī (may Allah have mercy on him) said:

“The madhhabs of a number of mujtahid imams besides the four have likewise been preserved and thoroughly examined. Each of them had students who adhered to his madhhab and followers who acted upon it.

The ʿAbbāsid caliphs followed the madhhab of their forefather, ʿAbd Allah ibn ʿAbbās (may Allah be pleased with them both), without any objection from the scholars. The legal verdicts of Ibn ʿAbbās were compiled by the grandson of the Commander of the Faithful al-Maʾmūn, namely Abū Bakr Muḥammad ibn Mūsā ibn Yaʿqūb. It is stated in al-Hidāyah, al-Kāfī, and other works:

“People today follow the madhhab of Ibn ʿAbbās (may Allah be pleased with them both) by the order of his descendants among the caliphs, for they issued official decrees instructing that the ʿĪd prayer be performed according to the madhhab of their grandfather. As for the [Ḥanafī] madhhab, it follows the opinion of Ibn Masʿūd.” End quote.

Among the well-preserved madhhabs is the madhhab of Sufyān al-Thawrī. Among his followers was Abū Naṣr Bishr ibn al-Ḥārith, better known as al-Ḥāfī, as reported by al-Ḥāfiẓ al-Dhahabī.

Al-Ghazālī states in Iḥyāʾ ʿUlūm al-Dīn: The jurists who were the leading authorities of fiqh and the guides of the people, meaning those whose madhhabs attracted large numbers of followers, were five.” He then included Sufyān al-Thawrī among them.

Another of these well-established schools was the madhhab of Abū Thawr Ibrāhīm ibn Khālid al-Kalbī. Among his followers were the eminent ḥadīth scholar Abū al-ʿAbbās al-Ḥasan ibn Sufyān al-Nasawī and the leading Ṣūfī Junayd ibn Muḥammad al-Baghdādī.

Among them was the madhhab of Dāwūd ibn ʿAlī al-Ẓāhirī. Among his followers was Abū al-Ḥasan Ruwaym ibn Muḥammad al-Baghdādī, who belonged to the same generation as al-Junayd. Both passed away in the year 303 AH. Dāwūd’s madhhab has remained documented, and it continues to have adherents to this day.

Also among them was the madhhab of Muḥammad ibn Jarīr al-Ṭabarī, the renowned Qurʾānic exegete and historian. Among his followers was Abū al-Faraj Muʿāfá ibn Zakariyyā al-Nahrawānī, who died in 390 AH.

Another was the madhhab of Abū Bakr Muḥammad ibn Khuzaymah al-Naysābūrī. Among his followers was Abū Muḥammad Daʿlaj ibn Aḥmad ibn Daʿlaj al-Sijzī al-ʿAdl, who died in 351 AH.

Many other scholars likewise established independent madhhabs, which they adopted and practiced.”^[13]

Once it is established that the legal schools are not confined to the four madhhabs, it likewise becomes clear that the true meaning of consensus (ijmāʿ) cannot be restricted to the agreement of those four alone. Nor can it be restricted to the agreement of the jurists of the major regions previously mentioned alongside them, to the exclusion of the other mujtahids, such that anyone who disagrees with them would be considered to have opposed consensus. This clearly demonstrates the weakness of the claim that a consensus exists prohibiting departure from the four madhhabs.

Ibn Taymiyyah said:

“The scholars are unanimously agreed that the consensus of four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, or even ten jurists, such as Mālik, al-Thawrī, Abū Ḥanīfah, Ibn Abī Laylá, al-Awzāʿī, al-Shāfiʿī, Aḥmad, Isḥāq, Dāwūd ibn ʿAlī, and Muḥammad ibn Jarīr, does not constitute the infallible consensus that is binding upon all Muslims to follow.”^[14]

Second: The Scholarly Disagreement Regarding the Permissibility of Departing from the Four Madhhabs

A number of jurists and scholars of legal theory have explained that the permissibility of practicing taqlīd of a mujtahid other than the four imams is itself a matter of scholarly disagreement. They have also outlined the respective arguments of both camps, namely those who prohibit it and those who permit it.

Ibn Taymiyyah said:

“The truth does not depart from these four madhhabs in the overwhelming majority of the Sharīʿah. However, the scholars have disagreed as to whether it may depart from them in some individual issues. There are two opinions on this matter.”^[15]

This issue is sometimes discussed under the topic of the legal authority of a Companion’s opinion in works of legal theory, as was done by the eminent scholar Ibn al-Subkī in Jamʿ al-Jawāmiʿ.

Ibn al-Subkī said:

“There are two opinions regarding the permissibility of practicing taqlīd of a Companion, because confidence in accurately identifying his madhhab has diminished, given that it was not systematically documented.”^[16]

Among the most prominent scholars who prohibited practicing taqlīd outside the four madhhabs were al-Juwaynī and Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ. They are also reported to have claimed the existence of a consensus on this issue. Their statements will be cited later, and their arguments will be examined, Allah willing.

Ibn al-Subkī, however, restricted the scope of this disagreement to those mujtahids who did not have established bodies of followers, excluding those mentioned in the previous section. As for those whose schools did attract followers, he held that the permissibility of practicing taqlīd of them was a matter of agreement. After citing the statements of al-Juwaynī and Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ, he wrote:

“Accordingly, taqlīd is confined to the four imams, as well as al-Awzāʿī, Sufyān, Isḥāq, and Dāwūd, although there is disagreement concerning Dāwūd, as reported by Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ and others, because these are the ones who had established followers. As for Abū Thawr, his followers were very few.”^[17]

The scholarly disagreement regarding the permissibility of practicing taqlīd of mujtahids other than the four imams stems from a number of considerations, which may be reduced to two principal reasons.

The First Reason: Whether the Madhhabs of Mujtahids Other Than the Four Are Subject to Uncertainties That Prevent Their Being Followed

Ibn Taymiyyah said:

“Mālik, al-Layth ibn Saʿd, al-Awzāʿī, and al-Thawrī were all imams in their own time, and practicing taqlīd of any one of them was no different from practicing taqlīd of the others. No Muslim would claim that it was permissible to follow one of them but not another.

However, anyone who prohibits practicing taqlīd of one of these imams in our own time does so for one of two reasons:

One of them is the belief that no one remains who truly knows their madhhabs. There is a well-known disagreement regarding the permissibility of practicing taqlīd of a deceased scholar. Those who prohibit it argue that these imams have passed away, whereas those who permit it maintain that there must still be living scholars who know the opinions of the deceased.”^[18]

“The second is to argue that a consensus has since been established in opposition to that opinion.”^[19]

Thus, the considerations advanced by those who prohibit practicing taqlīd outside the four madhhabs relate, on the one hand, to the reliability and precision of the transmitted legal opinions, and, on the other hand, to what ultimately became the settled position of the Ummah. In other words, they ask whether a consensus was later established in opposition to a particular opinion transmitted from one of the Companions.

Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ, one of the most prominent scholars to prohibit practicing taqlīd outside the four madhhabs, said:

“Taqlīd is confined to the four imams and not to others, because their madhhabs became widespread and fully developed to the extent that the qualifications of their unrestricted statements and the specifications of their general statements became known. As for the others, only isolated legal verdicts have been transmitted from them. It is possible that those opinions had qualifying, restricting, or specifying considerations which would have become apparent had the full body of their legal discourse been preserved. This is unlike the case of the four imams. Accordingly, the prohibition of practicing taqlīd of others is due to the impossibility of accurately transmitting the true nature of their madhhabs.”^[20]

Ibn Rajab said:

“If it is argued: We concede that the general public should be prevented from pursuing the path of independent juristic reasoning (ijtihād), since doing so would lead to tremendous corruption. However, we do not concede that it is impermissible to practice taqlīd of a recognized mujtahid imam other than these well-known imams.

The response is that we have already explained the reason for prohibiting this. It is that the madhhabs of scholars other than these did not become sufficiently widespread or systematically preserved. As a result, opinions may be falsely attributed to them, or their words may be misunderstood in a manner they never intended. Moreover, their madhhabs no longer have scholars to defend them or to clarify errors that may arise concerning them. This is unlike the well-known madhhabs.”^[21]

Ibn Amīr Ḥājj, explaining the reasoning of those who prohibit it, said:

“Furthermore, as Ibn al-Munayyir stated, the madhhabs of the Companions are subject to certain uncertainties that prevent the layperson from practicing taqlīd of them. A report attributed to a Companion may not satisfy the conditions of authenticity, and it is also possible that a consensus was subsequently established in favor of another opinion.”^[22]

ʿAbd al-ʿAlī al-Lakhnawī said:

“The correct view is that practicing taqlīd outside the four imams was prohibited only because reliable transmissions of the other madhhabs were no longer preserved. Accordingly, if an authentic narration from another mujtahid is found, it is permissible to act upon it. Do you not see that the later jurists issued fatwás requiring witnesses to be placed under oath, thereby giving testimony the same evidentiary status as formal accreditation (tazkiyah), in accordance with the madhhab of Ibn Abī Laylá? Reflect on this.”^[23]

Shaykh Muḥammad al-Amīn al-Shanqīṭī said:

“What appears to be the stronger view, and Allah knows best, is that these considerations which they cited as grounds for prohibiting the practice of taqlīd outside the four imams do not constitute sufficient evidence for an unrestricted prohibition, since certain legal verdicts can be established with unmistakable certainty.”^[24]

If it is assumed that the opinion of a Companion has been conclusively established as authentic, does the disagreement remain? Or do those who prohibit practicing taqlīd outside the four imams permit it in such a case?

Following al-ʿIzz ibn ʿAbd al-Salām, Ibn al-Subkī held that this particular scenario is one of agreement. After mentioning the position of al-Juwaynī and Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ, he wrote:

“Others maintained that such scholars may indeed be followed through taqlīd, because they attained the rank of ijtihād, and their status is further elevated by virtue of their companionship with the Prophet. This, in my view, is the correct position. However, I maintain that there is, in reality, no disagreement between the two groups. If it is definitively established that a particular madhhab belongs to one of them, then practicing taqlīd of him is permissible by agreement. Otherwise, it is not. This is not because he may not be followed, but because his madhhab has not been established with sufficient certainty.”^[25]

Abū Zurʿah al-ʿIrāqī explained:

“What is meant by saying that it has not been established with sufficient certainty is that a particular opinion may have been subject to a condition that has not reached us, or it may have been intended for a specific circumstance, even though the opinion itself is authentically transmitted.”^[26]

Al-Zarkashī critiqued Ibn al-Subkī’s statement by saying:

“The disagreement can also be established from another perspective, which Ibn Burhān mentioned in al-Awsaṭ...”^[27]

He then cited Ibn Burhān’s discussion showing that this disagreement branches from the broader question of whether it is permissible to move between different madhhabs, which is the subject of our next section.

The Second Reason: The Scholarly Disagreement Regarding the Permissibility of Moving Between Madhhabs

Once it has been established that a particular opinion is authentically attributable to its mujtahid author, the remaining disagreement in this issue is founded upon the broader question of whether it is permissible to move from one madhhab to another.

Ibn Burhān stated in al-Awsaṭ:

“The issue of practicing taqlīd of the Companions is derived from the question of whether it is permissible to switch between madhhabs. Those who prohibit it do so because the madhhabs of the Companions did not develop a sufficiently extensive body of subsidiary rulings such that a follower could rely upon one of them throughout his lifetime.”^[28]

Al-Zarkashī commented:

“The rationale for prohibition mentioned by Ibn Burhān is also a sound one.”^[29]

The Mālikī scholar al-Ḥaṭṭāb likewise explained that the disagreement on this issue is founded upon the broader disagreement concerning the permissibility of switching between madhhabs.^[30]

Al-Laqānī said:

“This issue is one of scholarly disagreement. The permissibility of practicing taqlīd of the madhhabs of the Companions and others like them is founded upon the question of whether it is permissible to move between madhhabs, as Ibn Burhān is reported to have stated in al-Awsaṭ. This is because their madhhabs were neither systematically documented nor comprehensively preserved, such that a follower could rely exclusively upon them. Consequently, this would necessitate moving from one madhhab to another.

Whoever permits such movement, such as al-Zanātī and al-ʿIzz ibn ʿAbd al-Salām, also permits practicing taqlīd of them. Indeed, al-ʿIzz stated, based on his own legal methodology, that if a legal position held during the era of the Companions is authentically established regarding a particular ruling, then it may not be abandoned except in favor of evidence that is clearer than the evidence upon which it rests.

On the other hand, whoever prohibits switching between madhhabs, such as al-Qarāfī and al-Māzarī, likewise prohibits practicing taqlīd of them.”^[31]

Al-Samhūdī said:

“Once that madhhab has been established as authentically attributable to the mujtahid imam, then prohibiting reliance upon it depends upon the obligation of adhering to a single madhhab in all legal issues and the prohibition of departing from it, since the madhhab of a Companion does not encompass every legal issue.”

I later found Ibn Burhān explicitly stating this. He said:

“The issue of practicing taqlīd of the Companions (may Allah be pleased with them) is derived from the question of whether it is permissible to switch between madhhabs. Whoever prohibits such switching argues that the madhhabs of the Companions did not develop a sufficiently extensive body of subsidiary rulings to enable a person to rely exclusively upon one of them. Consequently, doing so would require switching between madhhabs, and this is impermissible. By contrast, the madhhabs of the later scholars became fully developed and established, such that a single madhhab is sufficient for a legally accountable person throughout his lifetime.”^[32]

Al-Masnawī al-Dilāʾī al-Mālikī said, after citing the statements of those legal theorists who permitted switching between madhhabs:

“Note: The apparent implication of the preceding citations is that whoever is satisfied that a particular legal opinion genuinely belongs to one of the mujtahid imams may practice taqlīd of him in that issue, regardless of who he is, whether a Companion or someone else, and whether one of the four imams or otherwise. For all of them are upon guidance from their Lord. As more than one imam has stated, all of the madhhabs are paths leading to Paradise and avenues leading to success. Whoever follows one of them will arrive at his destination.”^[33]

Note: The reason for the disagreement over practicing taqlīd of a Companion is not the disagreement over whether the opinion of a Companion constitutes a binding proof. Consequently, holding that a Companion’s opinion is not independently authoritative does not entail that one may not depart from the four madhhabs in favor of the opinion of one of the Companions (may Allah be pleased with them all).

Ibn al-Subkī and other scholars of legal theory made it clear that there is no necessary connection between the question of whether a Companion’s opinion constitutes a binding proof and the question of whether it may be followed through taqlīd. Ibn al-Subkī said:

“It does not follow from the view that a Companion’s opinion is not a binding proof that it may not be followed through taqlīd.”^[34]

Shaykh Abū Shāmah al-Maqdisī (may Allah have mercy on him), while discussing the errors of certain adherents of taqlīd, said:

“It is astonishing that many of them, whenever a report from one of the eminent Companions is cited against the position of their madhhab, immediately declare, without the slightest sense of shame or decorum: ‘The later view (al-qawl al-jadīd) of al-Shāfiʿī is that the opinion of a Companion is not a binding proof!’

The proper approach, however, is to interpret that report, reconcile it, or explain it away where possible, without resorting to such disgraceful language by which he seeks to dismiss the opinion of figures such as Abū Bakr and ʿUmar (may Allah be pleased with them) to defend his madhhab.

Even more astonishing is that when an authentic ḥadīth is presented to such a person, one who is infatuated with his madhhab and displays so little restraint in his language, if it contradicts what the two shaykhs, Abū Isḥāq and al-Ghazālī, or one of them, have written, he refuses to submit to it. Yet al-Shāfiʿī’s own madhhab is to follow the authentic ḥadīth and abandon any opinion of his that contradicts it. Thus, he imagines himself justified in setting aside the opinion of a Companion in favor of his imam’s view, while refusing to set aside the opinion of later authors within his madhhab in favor of the statement of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), even though al-Shāfiʿī himself explicitly permitted this and instructed that his own statements be abandoned whenever they conflicted with an authentic ḥadīth. What, then, should be thought of the statements of some of the later adherents of his madhhab?!”^[35]

He then continued:

“One of the practices of many authors that I find objectionable is that they present the position of their own madhhab on a particular issue and then say, ‘So-and-so held such-and-such,’ meaning a contrary view, while referring to one of the leading Companions.

The proper approach is for the various madhhabs to be compared with one another, and for the opinions of the Companions to be compared with one another, without showing contempt for any of them. The stronger opinion should then be identified through the appropriate evidentiary method. Thus, one should say: ‘The position of Abū Bakr is such-and-such, while the position of Ibn Masʿūd is such-and-such,’ or, ‘The position of al-Shāfiʿī is such-and-such, and this is also the opinion of Zayd ibn Thābit, whereas Ibn Masʿūd held such-and-such.’”^[36]

Third: The Established Documentation of the Madhhabs of the Salaf Among the Companions and the Tābiʿūn (may Allah be pleased with them)

The claim that these earlier madhhabs were not systematically documented constitutes the central pillar of the arguments advanced by those who prohibit practicing taqlīd outside the four madhhabs, regardless of whether or not they also claim that a consensus exists on the matter.

This is because the alleged lack of documentation gives rise to the various uncertainties concerning the accurate preservation of those madhhabs, such as the possibility that a qualifying condition, specification, or supplementary clarification existed that would alter the intended meaning of a transmitted opinion.

One of the consequences said to follow from this lack of documentation is the necessity of switching between different madhhabs, as previously mentioned in al-Laqānī’s statement:

“...because their madhhabs were neither systematically documented nor comprehensively preserved, such that a follower could rely exclusively upon them. Consequently, this would necessitate switching from one madhhab to another.”^[37]

Ibn al-Subkī said:

“If you ask: Have not the opinions of many of the Companions been authentically transmitted?

I reply: Imām al-Ḥaramayn does not deny this. Rather, he argues that because their opinions were not systematically documented, and because they did not have followers who precisely preserved and refined their legal positions, confidence in relying upon them was not attained.”^[38]

For this reason, al-Muṭīʿī regarded the entire disagreement over the permissibility of departing from the four madhhabs as resting upon the question of whether those earlier madhhabs had been systematically documented.^[39]

Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ said:

“It is not permissible for a person to adopt the madhhab of any of the imams from among the Companions or the early generations, even though they were more knowledgeable and held a higher rank than those who came after them. This is because they did not devote themselves to documenting the religious sciences and preserving their legal principles and subsidiary rulings. None of them possessed a refined, systematically developed, and well-established madhhab. Rather, this task was undertaken by the later imams, who sifted through the madhhabs of the Companions and the Tābiʿūn, laid the foundations for legal rulings on hypothetical cases before they occurred, and clarified both the principles and subsidiary rulings of the law, such as Mālik, Abū Ḥanīfah, and others.”^[40]

Ibn al-Subkī also quotes him as saying:

“Nor should one practice taqlīd of a Tābiʿī, or anyone else whose madhhab was not systematically documented. Rather, taqlīd is limited to those whose madhhabs were documented.”^[41]

Following Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ, the Ḥanbalī jurist Ibn Ḥamdān said:

“It is likewise impermissible for a person to adopt the madhhab of any of the imams from among the Companions or the Salaf exclusively, even though they were more knowledgeable and held a higher rank than those who came after them, even though, according to the sounder of the two narrations in our school, the opinion of a Companion constitutes a binding proof.^[42] This is because they did not devote themselves to documenting the religious sciences and preserving their legal principles and subsidiary rulings. None of them possessed a refined, systematically developed, comprehensive, and well-established madhhab. Rather, this task was undertaken by the later imams, who sifted through the madhhabs of the Companions, the Tābiʿūn, and others, laid the foundations for legal rulings on hypothetical cases before they occurred, clarified both the principles and subsidiary rulings of the law, and distinguished between matters of agreement and disagreement, such as Abū Ḥanīfah, Mālik, al-Shāfiʿī, Aḥmad, and their peers. Their agreement is a complete blessing, and their disagreement is a universal mercy.”^[43]

Taqī al-Dīn al-Subkī said:

“It is for this reason, and Allah knows best, that those who held such a view maintained that these early madhhabs may not be followed through taqlīd by the layperson. This is not due to any deficiency on the part of their founders, far be it from such a suggestion. They are the imams of guidance and the fountains of knowledge. Rather, the reason is that their legal opinions were not collected and systematically documented with sufficient care to allow one part of their corpus to be interpreted in light of another, their clear statements to clarify their ambiguous ones, their specific statements to qualify their general ones, and their restricted statements to qualify their unrestricted ones, as was done by the followers of the well-known madhhabs.

Those followers transmitted their madhhabs so extensively that many of their adherents came to possess a strong conviction that those legal rulings genuinely represented the opinions and methodology of their respective imams. Generation after generation, scholars who upheld and preferred those madhhabs transmitted them through such widespread transmission that, in the vast majority of legal issues and foundational principles, the transmission reached the level of tawātur from the time of each imam onward. This stands in contrast to an isolated legal verdict attributed to an imam, where it is unknown precisely what he intended by it or whether any qualifying circumstance accompanied it.

We would have wished that those earlier madhhabs had been documented in the same manner as these. However, the Book of Allah and the Sunnah of His Messenger, whose preservation Allah has guaranteed in His statement, {Indeed, it is We who sent down the Reminder, and indeed, We will surely preserve it.} [Qurʾān 15:9], are sufficient in place of every madhhab and render every individual’s opinion unnecessary.”^[44]

Ibn Ḥajar al-Haytamī said:

“The leading scholars have stated that it is impermissible for a muftī or a judge to practice taqlīd of anyone other than the four imams. They explained that this is not due to any deficiency in the others, for the Companions and the Tābiʿūn were the foremost figures of this Ummah. Rather, it is because confidence in the conditions, formulations, and precise applications of their madhhabs has not been preserved. What has been transmitted from them consists of rulings on numerous individual cases. Still, no established legal principles by which those rulings could be interpreted, nor any conditions or qualifications upon which reliance could be placed, have been preserved. Confidence in their madhhabs therefore diminished because they were not systematically refined and documented. This stands in contrast to the four madhhabs, which were thoroughly refined, documented, and subjected to successive scholarly scrutiny. The finest minds examined, refined, and systematized them. Consequently, no ruling remains except that its objective, evidence, and meaning are known. Thus, people’s confidence in them became firmly established, and their hearts found reassurance in them, unlike the remaining madhhabs outside the four.”^[45]

He also said:

“As for our own time, some of our leading scholars have held that it is impermissible to practice taqlīd of anyone other than the four imams, namely al-Shāfiʿī, Mālik, Abū Ḥanīfah, and Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal (may Allah be pleased with them all). This is because the legal principles of their madhhabs are well known, their rulings have become firmly established, and their followers have served, refined, and systematically developed them, ruling by ruling and branch by branch. Consequently, it is exceedingly rare to find a legal issue for which they have not provided a ruling, either explicitly or implicitly. This is unlike the other madhhabs, which were not refined and documented in the same manner. Their legal principles, from which their rulings could be derived, are therefore unknown. Accordingly, it is impermissible to practice taqlīd even of those opinions that have been preserved from them, because they may have been contingent upon additional conditions which they left to be understood through the principles of their madhhabs. As a result, confidence that the transmitted opinions are free from undisclosed qualifications or conditions is weakened, and for that reason practicing taqlīd of them is impermissible.”^[46]

Shaykh al-Islām Ibn Taymiyyah addressed in detail this line of reasoning advanced by Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ and subsequently adopted by al-Subkī and Ibn Ḥajar al-Haytamī, doing so in his refutation of al-Subkī concerning the issue of conditional divorce.

The response to the claim that the madhhabs of the Salaf among the Companions and the Tābiʿūn (may Allah be pleased with them) were not systematically documented may be summarized under the following points:

The First Response: The Imams Did, in Fact, Document the Opinions of the Companions and the Tābiʿūn in Their Works

Ibn Taymiyyah said in his refutation of al-Subkī:

“All of the imams of the Muslims used to document and transmit the actual wording of the Companions and the Tābiʿūn concerning matters of knowledge. Indeed, after the wording of the Qurʾān and the ḥadīth, this constituted knowledge itself in their view. The early compilations, such as the Muwaṭṭaʾ of Mālik ibn Anas, the Muṣannafs of Ibn Jurayj, Saʿīd ibn Abī ʿArūbah, Ḥammād ibn Salamah, and Sufyān al-Thawrī, followed later by the works of Ibn al-Mubārak, Ibn Wahb, ʿAbd al-Razzāq, Wakīʿ, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Mahdī, Saʿīd ibn Manṣūr, and others, and then later still by the writings of al-Shāfiʿī, Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal, Isḥāq ibn Rāhawayh, Abū ʿUbayd, Abū Thawr, and Muḥammad ibn Naṣr, are all filled with their opinions.

Likewise, the works of Abū Ḥanīfah, Abū Yūsuf, and Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan are filled with the opinions of the Salaf from among the Companions and the Tābiʿūn.”^[47]

He also said:

“The scholars devoted tremendous effort to this field. Indeed, all of the early compilations belonged to this category, such as the Muwaṭṭaʾ of Mālik, the Jāmiʿ of Sufyān, the Muṣannafs of Ibn Jurayj, Ḥammād ibn Salamah, and Saʿīd ibn Abī ʿArūbah, followed by the compilations of ʿAbd Allah ibn al-Mubārak, ʿAbd Allah ibn Wahb, Wakīʿ ibn al-Jarrāḥ, Hushaym ibn Bashīr, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Mahdī, and others of their stature. Then came the compilations of ʿAbd al-Razzāq, Saʿīd ibn Manṣūr, and Abū Bakr ibn Abī Shaybah, followed by the writings of al-Shāfiʿī, Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan, Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal, and Aḥmad’s students, such as al-Athram, Ḥarb al-Kirmānī, Ṣāliḥ and ʿAbd Allah, the two sons of Aḥmad, Abū Bakr al-Marwadhī, and others like them.

But among these scholars were those who confined themselves exclusively to the transmitted reports, recording only the statements of the Prophet ﷺ, the Companions, and the Tābiʿūn without mixing them with theological discourse or juristic analysis. Others, however, combined those reports with such discussion.

As for compiling the opinions of scholars independently of reports transmitted from the Prophet ﷺ, the Companions, and the Tābiʿūn, this is something introduced by the later generations. Nothing of this kind existed during the era of the Salaf.”^[48]

These reports from the Companions and the Tābiʿūn were themselves transmitted through complete chains of narration (isnāds). It is therefore remarkable that some later Shāfiʿī scholars denied this, as exemplified by ʿAlawī ibn Aḥmad al-Saqqāf, the author of al-Tarshīḥ, who said:

“A number of our scholars have explicitly stated that it is impermissible to practice taqlīd of anyone other than the four imams. They explained this because one cannot be confident in the attribution of opinions to their original authorities because there are no chains of transmission safeguarding them against alteration and distortion. This is unlike the four madhhabs, whose adherents devoted themselves to precisely documenting the legal opinions, clarifying what was authentically established from each imam and what was not. Consequently, the followers of those madhhabs were safeguarded against every form of alteration and distortion.”^[49]

The Second Response: The Method by Which Many of the Madhhabs of the Companions and the Tābiʿūn Were Transmitted Is Comparable to, and at Times Even More Reliable Than, the Transmission of the Four Madhhabs

In his response, Ibn Taymiyyah adopts a comparative approach, contrasting the manner in which the madhhabs of the Companions and the Tābiʿūn were transmitted with the transmission of the four madhhabs. He aims to demonstrate that, in many cases, the transmission of the legal positions of the Companions and the Tābiʿūn is in fact more reliable than that of the four imams.

He said:

“Many of the legal positions of the Companions and the Tābiʿūn have been transmitted within the Muslim community from generation to generation. Indeed, some have been transmitted through tawātur to a greater degree than the transmission of many of the legal positions of the well-known imams.

For example, Zayd’s (may Allah be pleased with him) opinions on the law of inheritance are better known among the Ummah than the opinions of any one of the four imams on inheritance. Likewise, ʿUmar’s (may Allah be pleased with him) position regarding ʿawl in inheritance is better known throughout the Ummah than the majority of the legal positions of the imams are among their own followers. Similarly, Ibn ʿAbbās’s (may Allah be pleased with them both) opinion concerning ʿawl is known to the general body of scholars and has been transmitted through tawātur among them, even though the majority do not adopt it. Its transmission is stronger than that of many of the legal positions of the imams among their own adherents.

Likewise, his opinions concerning mutʿah marriage and ṣarf are more widely known than many of the opinions of the leading jurists, although these are weaker opinions which contradict the textual evidence, and despite the overwhelming majority of the Ummah holding the opposite view.

If the opinion of a single Companion, despite its weakness, has been transmitted by the Ummah from generation to generation and reached the level of tawātur among them, then what should be said of their stronger opinions, those which were embraced by the majority of the Muslims?”^[50]

He further said:

“Praise be to Allah, the actual wording of the legal positions of the Salaf has indeed been documented in numerous compilations, just as the wording of the later imams has been documented. Moreover, when a scholar’s exact wording is transmitted, that is far superior to transmitting his opinions through paraphrase, a method in which errors frequently occur. This is precisely what happened when the Khurāsānīs transmitted the madhhab of al-Shāfiʿī through paraphrase, leading them to commit many errors in what they attributed to him. By contrast, the Iraqis transmitted his actual wording.

Accordingly, the transmission of those madhhabs of the Salaf whose precise wording has been preserved is more reliable than the transmission of the legal positions of some of the well-known imams.”^[51]

He also said:

“The authors of works on juristic disagreement mention in their books enough to identify the madhhabs of other scholars. They likewise record the various opinions through which the legal positions of the Companions and the Tābiʿūn are known. Throughout the generations, scholars have continuously transmitted the madhhabs of the Salaf and recorded them in their writings.

Even if one assumes that errors occurred in transmitting some of these opinions, or that certain positions remained unknown, the same applies to the well-known madhhab in which a person is raised and trained. People frequently make mistakes when transmitting its rulings, and many of its positions remain unknown to them. Thus, making mistakes in some matters does not invalidate what has been accurately preserved, nor does ignorance of what remains obscure entail ignorance of what is known.”^[52]

Al-Muṭīʿī remarked:

“They objected to what was stated in al-Burhān^[53] and similar works by arguing that this reasoning does not establish the exclusive validity of following the four imams. Those outside the four also examined the evidence, formulated legal principles, and documented their madhhabs just as the four did, if not to an even greater extent. So why should it be impermissible to follow them when their madhhabs have been transmitted through reliable means?”^[54]

Ibn Taymiyyah likewise employed this comparative method in responding to other arguments advanced by those who prohibited following anyone outside the four madhhabs. One of their arguments was:

“If the common people were required to follow the opinion of a Companion, this would impose such hardship upon them, including disrupting their livelihoods and other burdens, that the difficulty is self-evident.”^[55]

Ibn Taymiyyah observes that the very same objection could equally be directed at the four madhhabs themselves. He writes:

“A layperson, by himself, cannot determine the intended meanings of the wording of the Qurʾān and the Sunnah unless someone gathers for him their abrogating and abrogated texts, their concise passages and their explanations. If this is the case, then how could he independently ascertain the opinion of one of the Salaf? Rather, it is the scholar who is acquainted with many of their opinions.

Accordingly, when a scholar informs the layperson of the opinion of al-Thawrī or al-Awzāʿī, it is no different from informing him of the opinion of Mālik or Abū Ḥanīfah.”^[56]

The Third Response: Demonstrating the Unsound Implications of Claiming That the Opinions of the Salaf Cannot Be Known Because They Were Not Systematically Documented

This claim gives rise to a number of unacceptable implications that expose its invalidity. Among them are the following:

The First Implication: It necessarily entails declaring the leading imams misguided, including the founders of the four madhhabs and their followers, who transmitted these opinions and acquired knowledge through them.

Ibn Taymiyyah said:

“If their madhhabs cannot be known through their own statements, then the adherents of the well-known madhhabs, along with everyone else, have unanimously relied for their knowledge upon statements that do not actually convey what their authors intended!”^[57]

The Second Implication: It closely resembles the argument of the heretics who claim that the wording of revelation does not convey what Allah and His Messenger ﷺ intended.

Ibn Taymiyyah said:

“How similar this is to the claim of those heretics who say that the wording of the Qurʾān and the ḥadīth does not indicate what Allah and His Messenger ﷺ intended. Likewise is the claim of anyone who says that the wording of the Companions, the Tābiʿūn, and those who followed them does not convey what they intended!”^[58]

The Third Implication: It would render the transmission of the opinions of the Salaf impermissible, a conclusion that stands in direct contradiction to scholarly consensus.

Al-Qarāfī alluded to this implication and responded to it as follows:

“On this assumption, it would become impossible for us to transmit their madhhabs in any issue whatsoever. We would then be forced into one of two conclusions: either it is impermissible to transmit their legal positions because they are not sufficiently well-defined, or, if they are sufficiently well-defined to permit transmission, then taqlīd of them must likewise be permissible. As for prohibiting taqlīd on the assumption that the conditions governing those rulings have not been accurately preserved, that very same reasoning would equally prohibit transmitting their opinions. After all, it is possible that if all the conditions attached to a particular opinion were gathered together, it would ultimately agree with what we presently regard as contradicting it.

A possible response is that transmitting an opinion is a far lighter matter than acting upon it. The purpose of transmission may simply be to become acquainted with the various juristic approaches, to identify the underlying legal reasoning, and to recognize areas of disagreement. This, in turn, may require refraining from certain matters and encourage pursuing others.”^[59]

Al-Laqānī commented immediately afterward:

“This is the same reasoning they applied to weak opinions.”^[60]

According to this reasoning, the benefit of transmitting the opinions of the Salaf is confined to secondary purposes that lie outside the primary process of acquiring legal understanding and the consequent obligation of following and acting upon the view deemed strongest. Yet this was precisely the primary purpose for which the leading imams recorded those opinions in their legal compilations.

One of the later Shāfiʿī scholars aptly observed:

“What benefit is there in recording the preferred opinions of the imams if it is not even permissible to practice taqlīd of them?”^[61]

The Fourth Implication: It would render the identification of consensus (ijmāʿ) and disagreement (ikhtilāf) impossible.

The claim that the legal positions of the Salaf cannot be known necessarily closes the door to identifying scholarly consensus and disagreement, both of which form the basis for determining whether a legal opinion is fringe (shādhdh). Any view that contradicts the consensus of the Companions is regarded as a deviant opinion and is therefore subject to censure.

Ibn Taymiyyah said:

“If the madhhabs of the Salaf cannot be known, then it would be impermissible to invoke their consensus as evidence, whether the consensus of the Companions, the Tābiʿūn, or those who followed them. Instead, one would only be permitted to cite the consensus of the adherents of those madhhabs that happened to be systematically compiled. On this basis, however, no one could ever legitimately appeal to consensus, for it is well known that the Ummah of Muḥammad ﷺ, whose consensus constitutes definitive proof, is not limited to four, five, ten, or twelve individuals.

Furthermore, the scholars are unanimously agreed that the consensus of four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, or ten jurists, such as Mālik, al-Thawrī, Abū Ḥanīfah, Ibn Abī Laylá, al-Awzāʿī, al-Shāfiʿī, Aḥmad, Isḥāq, Dāwūd ibn ʿAlī, and Muḥammad ibn Jarīr, is not the infallible consensus that all Muslims are obliged to follow.

Accordingly, what has been claimed contradicts the consensus of the early and later Muslims alike. No one who accepts ijmāʿ as a valid proof has ever maintained that the consensus of the Companions, the Tābiʿūn, or those who followed them cannot be cited as evidence. Rather, everyone who regards consensus as authoritative also maintains that the greatest form of consensus is the consensus of the Companions.”^[62]

Third: Those to Whom the Claim of Consensus on the Impermissibility of Following Anyone Outside the Four Madhhabs Has Been Attributed

The two scholars most commonly cited as having claimed a consensus on this issue are the Shāfiʿī authorities Imām al-Ḥaramayn Abū al-Maʿālī al-Juwaynī and Shaykh Abū ʿAmr Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ.

As for al-Juwaynī, he states in al-Burhān:

“The leading scholars (al-muḥaqqiqūn) have reached a consensus that laypeople are not permitted to adhere to the individual legal opinions of the Companions (may Allah be pleased with them). Rather, they are required to follow the madhhabs of the imams...”^[63]

This passage should not be understood as meaning that al-Juwaynī regarded the issue itself as one upon which the entire Muslim Ummah had reached consensus. Rather, he intended to adopt the view that it is impermissible to practice taqlīd of the individual Companions while attributing that position specifically to the muḥaqqiqūn (the leading critical scholars).

For this reason, a number of later scholars of legal theory, including the commentators on Jamʿ al-Jawāmiʿ and the authors of its marginal glosses, understood al-Juwaynī’s statement merely as expressing his preferred view and attributing it to the muḥaqqiqūn. They did not understand him to be claiming a universal scholarly consensus on the matter.^[64]

Abū Zurʿah al-ʿIrāqī said:

“If we proceed on the basis that the opinion of a Companion does not constitute a binding proof, then is it nevertheless permissible for a non-mujtahid to practice taqlīd of him? There is disagreement on this issue, as related by Imām al-Ḥaramayn, who stated that the muḥaqqiqūn held the view that it is impermissible.”^[65]

Thus, Abū Zurʿah explicitly states that Imām al-Ḥaramayn reported the existence of scholarly disagreement on the issue.

ʿAbd al-ʿAlī al-Lakhnawī said:

“His statement, ‘The muḥaqqiqūn have unanimously agreed,’ should not be understood as referring to the type of consensus (ijmāʿ) that constitutes a binding proof. Rather, when a particular view is adopted by an individual scholar and a group of scholars happen to agree upon it, it may be said, ‘The muḥaqqiqūn have unanimously agreed upon such-and-such.’”^[66]

As for Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ, I have not found any explicit statement from him claiming consensus, whether in his Adab al-Muftī wal-Mustaftī or in the passages quoted from him by Ibn al-Subkī, al-Zarkashī, al-Qarāfī, and the other legal theorists of their generation. Rather, the attribution of such a claim appears only among scholars who came after them.

Shaykh Zakariyyā al-Anṣārī said:

“Al-Subkī said: It is permissible for a person to practice taqlīd for his own personal conduct. As for issuing fatwás and rendering judicial rulings, Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ related a consensus that this is impermissible, meaning the practice of taqlīd of anyone outside the four madhhabs.”^[67]

It is also stated in Fatāwá Bughyat al-Mustarshidīn:

“Our leading scholars have explicitly stated that it is not permissible to act, let alone issue judicial rulings or fatwás, contrary to what the four imams regarded as the stronger opinion. Indeed, Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ even transmitted a consensus on this matter.”^[68]

Among those to whom the claim of consensus on the impermissibility of following anyone outside the four madhhabs has also been attributed is Ibn Hubayrah. Ibn Mufliḥ said:

“In al-Ifṣāḥ it is stated: ‘Consensus has been established on the permissibility of following any one of the four madhhabs and that the truth does not lie outside them.’”^[69]

A Note: The Ḥanbalī scholar Ibn Rajab was among those who maintained that it is impermissible to practice taqlīd outside the four madhhabs. He even authored a treatise entitled al-Radd ʿalá Man Ittabaʿ Ghayr al-Madhāhib al-Arbaʿah (A Refutation of Those Who Follow Other Than the Four Madhhabs). However, he did not claim a consensus in support of his position. The evidence for this is his statement in that very treatise:

“If it is said: The difference between uniting the people upon a single one of the seven modes (aḥruf) of the Qurʾān and uniting them upon the opinions of the four jurists is that the seven modes were said to convey the same meaning, or nearly the same meaning, so that the intended meaning is preserved through any one of them. This, however, is unlike the opinions of the four jurists, for it is possible that they may all agree upon a matter while the truth nevertheless lies outside their views.

The response is that a group of scholars rejected this possibility, arguing that Allah would never allow this Ummah to unite upon misguidance. Numerous ḥadīths lend support to this principle.”^[70]

Reflect on his statement, “A group of scholars rejected this possibility.” He attributes the view to a group of scholars, not to the entirety of the scholarly community, and thus does not claim a consensus in support of it.

Fourth: How the Jurists of the Four Madhhabs Approached the Claimed Consensus on the Impermissibility of Departing from the Four Madhhabs

A number of jurists and legal theorists from within the four Sunni madhhabs critically examined the two claims of consensus attributed to al-Juwaynī and Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ. Some rejected those claims outright and disputed the reasoning upon which they were based, such as the Ḥanafī scholars, the author of Musallam al-Thubūt, and al-Muṭīʿī. Others sought to qualify and restrict their statements, a method that became the prevailing approach among the later Shāfiʿī scholars.

1. The Critique of al-Juwaynī’s Claimed Consensus and Its Underlying Reasoning by Later Ḥanafī Scholars

Muḥibb Allah ibn ʿAbd al-Shakūr al-Bihārī said in Musallam al-Thubūt:

“Imām al-Juwaynī said: ‘The muḥaqqiqūn have unanimously agreed that laypeople are not permitted to practice taqlīd of individual Companions. Rather, they must follow those who examined the evidence, organized it into chapters, refined it, critically evaluated it, distinguished between its various aspects, identified its effective legal causes, and elaborated its details.’

Upon this statement, Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ built his prohibition against practicing taqlīd outside the four madhhabs, on the grounds that these characteristics are not known to exist in anyone besides them. Yet this reasoning is open to criticism.”

Al-Bihārī elaborated on the brief criticism expressed by his statement, “Yet this reasoning is open to criticism,” in his marginal commentary on Musallam al-Thubūt. He wrote:

“Al-Qarāfī said:^[71] ‘There is a consensus that anyone who embraces Islam may follow whichever scholar he wishes without restriction. Likewise, the Companions (may Allah be pleased with them all) unanimously agreed that whoever sought a fatwá from Abū Bakr and ʿUmar (may Allah be pleased with them) and followed their opinions was equally entitled to seek fatwás from Abū Hurayrah, Muʿādh ibn Jabal, and others, and to act upon their opinions without any objection. Whoever claims that these two consensuses have subsequently been abrogated bears the burden of proof.’”^[72]

His commentator, ʿAbd al-ʿAlī al-Lakhnawī, remarked:

“These two consensuses invalidate the position of Imām al-Juwaynī.

Furthermore, his statement, ‘The muḥaqqiqūn have unanimously agreed,’ should not be understood as referring to the type of consensus (ijmāʿ) that constitutes a binding proof, lest one conclude that these two consensuses conflict. Rather, when a particular view is adopted by an individual scholar and a group happens to agree with it, it is customary to say, ‘The muḥaqqiqūn have unanimously agreed upon such-and-such.’

There is also another flaw in his argument: organizing legal material into chapters (tabwīb)^[73] has no bearing whatsoever on the validity of taqlīd, nor does elaborating legal details. If the muqallid understands the intended meaning of the Companion’s opinion, he acts upon it; otherwise, he asks another mujtahid. Reflect carefully upon this.

This likewise invalidates the position of Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ.

There is yet another flaw in his argument: the other mujtahids also exerted themselves with the same diligence as the four imams. To deny this is sheer obstinacy and a breach of proper scholarly etiquette.”^[74]

When some scholars sought to support their position by citing Ibn al-Humām’s transmission of the claims of consensus attributed to al-Juwaynī and Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ, Shaykh Muḥammad Bakhīt al-Muṭīʿī responded with a carefully reasoned clarification. He wrote:

“As for what some have quoted from Taḥrīr al-Uṣūl, namely that a consensus was established on the impermissibility of following any madhhab other than the four, this is an inaccurate attribution. What al-Taḥrīr actually states is what it quotes from al-Burhān of Abū al-Maʿālī al-Juwaynī, namely that the muḥaqqiqūn unanimously agreed that laypeople are not permitted to practice taqlīd of individual Companions. Rather, they are obliged to follow those who came after them, who examined the evidence, organized it, and documented it.

It then adds: ‘Based on this, some of the later scholars’—meaning Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ—’prohibited the practice of taqlīd outside the four madhhabs because their schools have been systematically preserved, their legal issues carefully delimited, their general statements qualified, whereas nothing comparable exists for others, owing to the disappearance of their followers.’ End quote.

Ibn Amīr Ḥājj said in his commentary upon this passage:^[75] ‘The substance of this argument is that practicing taqlīd outside these imams is prohibited because it is impossible to transmit their madhhabs accurately and establish them with certainty, not because following them is inherently impermissible. For this reason, Shaykh ʿIzz al-Dīn ibn ʿAbd al-Salām said: “In reality, there is no disagreement between the two sides. Rather, if the authentic establishment of a madhhab from one of those scholars can be verified, then practicing taqlīd of him is permissible by agreement; otherwise, it is not.” He also said: “If a legal opinion of one of the Companions concerning a particular ruling is authentically established, it is impermissible to oppose it except on the basis of evidence clearer than the evidence upon which he relied.”’ End quote.

Consider how this person, in transmitting from al-Taḥrīr, falsely attributed to it what it does not contain. He claimed that it reported the existence of a consensus, interpreted that as the technical legal consensus (ijmāʿ) which constitutes one of the four principal sources of Islamic law, and then attributed this claim to Ibn al-Humām!

Moreover, how can it even be conceivable that such a consensus could exist, when ijmāʿ can only be established by the mujtahids? Every mujtahid is obligated to act according to the conclusion reached through his own independent reasoning, even if that conclusion differs from the opinions of the four imams. So how could they all unanimously agree that it is impermissible to act upon a view that differs from the four madhhabs?

This is especially so when scholars themselves objected to the statement found in al-Burhān and similar works, arguing that the reasoning presented there does not establish the exclusive validity of following the four imams. Those outside the four likewise examined the evidence, formulated legal principles, and documented their madhhabs just as the four did, if not to an even greater extent. So why should it be impermissible to follow them when their madhhabs have been transmitted through reliable means?

The truth is that these attributions are unsound, in light of the evidence already presented and the explicit statements of the imams themselves. How, then, can such a claim be accepted? And how could the consensus alleged by this transmitter ever have come into existence?

On the contrary, the consensus is upon the opposite: namely, that ijtihād remains an ongoing obligation until the Day of Resurrection, and that every mujtahid is required to act upon the conclusions reached through his own ijtihād, as are those who legitimately follow him.

Ibn al-Humām himself states in Fatḥ al-Qadīr:^[76]

“There is no evidence in the Sharīʿah requiring a person to bind himself, whether verbally or by intention, to follow a particular mujtahid. Rather, the evidence establishes only that one must act upon the opinion of a mujtahid whenever one needs a ruling, in accordance with Allah’s statement: {So ask the people of knowledge if you do not know.} [Qurʾān 16:43]. Such inquiry occurs only when seeking the ruling for a specific case. Once the opinion of a qualified mujtahid has been established for him, it becomes obligatory for him to act upon it.

Most likely, statements such as these, namely those prohibiting movement between madhhabs, were intended as practical restrictions to prevent people from pursuing legal concessions (tatabbuʿ al-rukhaṣ). Otherwise, the layperson would simply adopt, in every issue, the opinion of whichever mujtahid offered the easier ruling.

I do not know what, whether in revelation or reason, would prohibit this. That a person follows the opinion that is easier for him, so long as it is the opinion of a mujtahid qualified to exercise independent legal reasoning, is not something that I know the Sharīʿah has condemned. Indeed, the Prophet ﷺ loved whatever brought ease to his Ummah.” End quote.^[77]

Al-Muṭīʿī’s reliance upon Ibn al-Humām’s statement permitting movement between madhhabs reinforces the point established earlier that once the authenticity of a legal opinion’s attribution to a mujtahid has been verified, the real point of disagreement is whether moving between madhhabs is permissible.

Accordingly, Ibn al-Humām’s acceptance of movement between madhhabs serves as evidence that he likewise regarded practicing taqlīd outside the four madhhabs as permissible. And Allah knows best.

2. Al-Abyārī, the Mālikī Commentator on al-Burhān, Critiques al-Juwaynī’s Argument

Among those who critiqued Imām al-Ḥaramayn’s reasoning for prohibiting the practice of taqlīd of the Companions was the Mālikī scholar ʿAlī ibn Ismāʿīl al-Abyārī in his commentary on al-Burhān.

Al-Juwaynī said:

“The muḥaqqiqūn have unanimously agreed that laypeople are not permitted to adhere to the individual legal opinions of the Companions (may Allah be pleased with them). Rather, they must follow the madhhabs of the imams who thoroughly examined the evidence, exercised careful legal reasoning, organized the legal material into chapters, formulated the legal issues, and addressed the opinions of the earlier authorities.

The reason for this is that those early generations, despite being exemplars in religion and models for the Muslims, did not devote themselves to refining the methods of ijtihād, clarifying the principles of legal reasoning and dialectical argumentation, or systematically organizing legal discourse. The later juristic imams undertook the task of examining and organizing the madhhabs of the Companions on behalf of those who came after them. Accordingly, the layperson is commanded to follow the madhhabs of those who carried out that critical examination.”^[78]

Al-Abyārī comments on this passage as follows:

“What Imām al-Juwaynī has stated here is untenable, both in its general premise and in its specific details.

As for his claim that the later scholars were inherently more capable of refinement and systematic organization, this is categorically incorrect. How can such a sweeping assertion be maintained when observable reality contradicts it? Those who first established disciplines such as geometry and medicine, including Hippocrates and the other great sages, were acknowledged by those who came after them as having achieved a level that later generations could not surpass.

Likewise, Sībawayh, may Allah have mercy on him, was the first to compose a comprehensive work on Arabic grammar. Everyone who came after him followed his method and adopted his approach, while openly acknowledging their inability to attain the standard he established.

How, then, can this be denied, when the quality of any scholarly work is proportional to the strength of its author’s knowledge? The early generations among the Companions and the Tābiʿūn refrained from authoring such works. Had they chosen to write them, the later scholars could never have matched what they produced, for the quality of composition corresponds to the depth of knowledge.

As for the examples he cited from crafts and technical disciplines, these are matters that vary according to differing objectives and circumstances. One group may develop interests that lead them to prefer something that others do not. Such differences do not make those who came later more deserving of being followed than those who came before.

Indeed, how can anyone dispute that the earlier generations possessed greater knowledge? Or dispute that scholarly works differ in quality according to the relative knowledge of their authors? This is self-evident and beyond doubt.

The early generations did not refrain from polishing their language because they could not do so. Rather, they were occupied with matters of greater importance. They also understood one another through the natural eloquence of Arabic expression and concise forms of communication.

This is the real reason their writings were relatively brief. The later scholars, by contrast, devoted themselves to refining literary expression because there remained little else for them to contribute.”^[79]

For this reason, after quoting Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ’s explanation, al-Qarāfī remarked:

“This is a sound line of reasoning, and it exhibits a degree of propriety that is absent from the words of Imām al-Ḥaramayn.”^[80]

Al-Qarāfī’s observation is an important one. Al-Juwaynī’s description of the Companions gives the impression that they were somehow deficient, or that they did not exert the same scholarly effort as the four imams. As al-Abyārī demonstrated in the preceding discussion, this implication is open to serious criticism.

By contrast, Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ does not attribute any deficiency to the Companions themselves. Rather, his argument concerns practical possibilities, based on his own legal reasoning, which have already been discussed above. Specifically, he argues that certain qualifications, supplementary explanations, or specifications may have existed within their legal positions but were not preserved, whereas no comparable uncertainty exists regarding the four madhhabs. It is for this reason that al-Qarāfī regarded Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ’s explanation as preferable to that of al-Juwaynī.

Earlier, ʿAbd al-ʿAlī al-Lakhnawī likewise criticized al-Juwaynī’s formulation because it fell short of the proper scholarly etiquette (adab).

3. How the Later Shāfiʿī Scholars Interpreted Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ’s Claimed Consensus

Ibn Ḥajar al-Haytamī discusses this issue in numerous places throughout his writings, including Tuḥfat al-Muḥtāj, al-Fatāwá, Kaff al-Raʿāʿ, and al-Fatḥ al-Mubīn. In some of these works, he explicitly states that it is permissible to practice taqlīd of scholars outside the four madhhabs in individual legal issues for one’s own personal practice (ʿamal al-nafs), following the position of Taqī al-Dīn al-Subkī. He interprets what has been transmitted from Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ regarding the impermissibility of such taqlīd as applying specifically to issuing fatwās and rendering judicial rulings.

He says in his commentary on the introduction to al-Minhāj:

“Al-Subkī applied this distinction, namely restricting the prohibition to judicial rulings and the issuing of fatwās, while excluding a person’s own private practice. Those who came after him likewise adopted this position regarding acting upon opinions outside the four madhhabs, provided that the attribution of the opinion to one whose taqlīd is permissible is reliably established and that all of the conditions attached to that opinion are known according to his school.

It is in this light that the statement of Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ, ‘It is not permissible to practice taqlīd of anyone outside the four imams,’ should be understood, namely as referring to the contexts of judicial rulings and the issuing of fatwās.”^[81]

He also says in the chapter on judicial rulings:

“It is permissible to practice taqlīd of any of the four imams, as well as anyone outside them whose madhhab in the particular issue has been preserved and documented such that its conditions and all other relevant qualifications are known. Accordingly, the consensus reported by a number of scholars prohibiting taqlīd of the Companions should be understood as applying only where one of these conditions is absent.”

He then adds:

“This applies only to a person’s own private practice, not to issuing fatwás or rendering judicial rulings. In those two contexts, practicing taqlīd outside the four madhhabs is impermissible by consensus, because otherwise it would amount to nothing more than personal preference and would expose people to error.

For this reason, al-Subkī said: if a muftī intends^[82] so for a legitimate religious interest, it is permissible, provided that he informs the questioner of the scholar to whom the opinion belongs.”^[83]

Elsewhere, in his Fatāwá, Ibn Ḥajar states:

“The conclusion that has become firmly established is that practicing taqlīd outside the four imams (may Allah be pleased with them) is not permissible in issuing fatwás or rendering judicial decisions. As for a person’s own private practice, it is permissible for him to practice taqlīd of scholars outside the four, provided they are among those whose taqlīd is valid, unlike the Shīʿah and certain adherents of the Ẓāhirī school.”^[84]

Al-Madābighī comments in his marginal gloss on al-Fatḥ al-Mubīn:

“His statement, ‘It is not permissible to practice taqlīd outside the four imams,’ includes even the greatest of the Companions, based on his reasoning that their madhhabs were neither systematically documented nor comprehensively preserved. However, al-Subkī and others interpreted this as applying specifically to issuing fatwās and rendering judicial rulings. As for a person’s own private practice, taqlīd is permissible whenever the attribution of the opinion to that mujtahid is established, and all of the conditions attached to it are known.”^[85]

The eminent Shāfiʿī jurist al-Ramlī likewise adopted this same position in Nihāyat al-Muḥtāj.^[86]

Likewise, a number of later Shāfiʿī scholars followed al-Subkī and Ibn Ḥajar in adopting this distinction between a person’s own private practice (ʿamal al-nafs) and the contexts of issuing fatwás and rendering judicial rulings. Among them were al-Manāwī, Ibn ʿAllān al-Ṣiddīqī, Muḥammad ibn ʿUthmān al-Aḥsāʾī, and others from the later Shāfiʿī tradition, such as Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allah Bāsawdān, who made this distinction the very first condition governing taqlīd, and ʿAlawī ibn Aḥmad al-Saqqāf, the author of al-Tarshīḥ.^[87] Indeed, some Mālikī scholars also adopted this approach. Al-Laqānī described it as an important clarification, and al-Nafrāwī likewise benefited from it.^[88]

Some Shāfiʿī scholars, however, later reconsidered this formulation. They questioned why, if no materially significant distinction exists between a person’s private practice on the one hand and issuing fatwás or rendering judicial rulings on the other, it should be permissible to practice taqlīd outside the four madhhabs in the former context but not in the latter.

This difficulty was noted by the eminent scholar Ibn Qāsim al-ʿAbbādī, who questioned the prohibition against practicing taqlīd outside the four madhhabs in the contexts of fatwá and judicial rulings where the legal position of another mujtahid has been reliably preserved, documented, and accurately transmitted. He wrote:

“A difficulty arises if we assume that the attribution of the opinion and all of its conditions are known with certainty. In that case, what distinguishes the four madhhabs from others such that the latter remain restricted from use in issuing fatwás and judicial rulings?”^[89]

Ibn al-Jamāl al-Anṣārī commented:

“This objection is evident. Moreover, the statement in al-Tuḥfah, ‘because otherwise it would amount to nothing more than personal preference and expose people to error,’ cannot serve as an adequate answer to Ibn Qāsim al-ʿAbbādī’s objection. Indeed, that explanation itself is problematic.”^[90]

The Shāfiʿī scholar Muḥammad ibn Sulaymān al-Kurdī likewise regarded:

“Permitting taqlīd of weak opinions, weak juridical positions (awjuh), and the opinions of mujtahid imams outside the four as part of the ease inherent in the tolerant and accommodating Sharīʿah.”^[91]

Among contemporary scholars, Shaykh Faḍl ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Bāfaḍl inclined toward rejecting the distinction between a person’s own private practice and the contexts of issuing fatwás or rendering judicial rulings. Endorsing the position of Ibn Qāsim al-ʿAbbādī, he wrote:

“This is because their Lord guides all of the mujtahid imams, whether they are among the four or among others, as the author of al-Zubad said:

And all the other imams besides them
Are rightly guided, and disagreement is a mercy.”^[92]

In summary, Ibn Ḥajar, following al-Subkī, interpreted the claimed consensus on this issue as applying specifically to the domains of issuing fatwás and rendering judicial rulings, while excluding a person’s own private practice, provided certain conditions are met. At the same time, he also permitted issuing fatwás that depart from the four madhhabs, subject to specific conditions, where doing so serves a legitimate religious interest.

The distinction between private practice on the one hand and fatwá and judicial rulings on the other was later questioned by Ibn Qāsim al-ʿAbbādī and those who followed him. According to this view, once the necessary conditions for relying upon a legal opinion have been satisfied, there is no principled basis for distinguishing between private practice, issuing fatwás, and judicial rulings. Accordingly, the opinion may be adopted in all three contexts without differentiation.

Ibn Ḥajar stipulated a number of conditions governing the permissibility of practicing taqlīd outside the four madhhabs in one’s own private practice. These may be summarized from his discussion in Tuḥfat al-Muḥtāj as follows:

• The opinion must be authentically attributed to a mujtahid whose taqlīd is permissible.

• The muqallid (the one practicing taqlīd) must know all of the conditions and relevant qualifications governing that issue according to the mujtahid being followed.

• The mujtahid’s madhhab must have been documented and preserved such that its conditions are known.

• The opinion must not be one on the basis of which a judge’s ruling would be overturned, such as an opinion that contradicts an explicit scriptural text, scholarly consensus, clear analogy (qiyās jalī), or established universal legal principles.

• It must not involve pursuing legal concessions (tatabbuʿ al-rukhaṣ).

• It must not involve combining two different opinions in a manner that produces a legal outcome accepted by neither of the two authorities whose views are being combined (talfīq).

• Some scholars added a further condition: that abandoning taqlīd in that instance would result in hardship that is not ordinarily bearable.^[93]

Ibn Ḥajar said:

“Many of the mujtahids outside the four imams are not permissible to follow through taqlīd, as has been established in the works of jurisprudence and legal theory. Consider, for example, what has been narrated from ʿAṭāʾ regarding the permissibility of lending female slave-concubines for sexual intercourse,^[94] from others regarding the permissibility of a thrice-divorced woman returning to her former husband without a valid intervening marriage, and from al-Aʿmash regarding the permissibility of eating during Ramaḍān after the appearance of dawn but before sunrise,^[95] as well as similar anomalous (shādhdh) opinions held by certain mujtahids, which the Ummah has come close to unanimously rejecting. None of these opinions may be followed through taqlīd. Whoever follows them is sinful and morally corrupt (fāsiq), and, by consensus, is subject to the prescribed legal consequences warranted by his conduct, whether disciplinary punishment (taʿzīr) or, where applicable, the prescribed legal penalty (ḥadd).”^[96]

Nevertheless, neither al-Subkī nor those who followed him, such as Ibn Ḥajar, challenged Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ’s underlying rationale concerning the systematic documentation and preservation of the madhhabs outside the four. On the contrary, as discussed earlier, they accepted and relied upon that rationale, even while narrowing the scope of the consensus he was understood to have claimed.

The detailed critique of that reasoning, however, has already been presented above through the discussion of Shaykh al-Islām Ibn Taymiyyah.

4. Shaykh Marʿī al-Karmī’s Approach to the Claimed Consensus Attributed to Ibn Hubayrah, and al-Ruḥaybānī’s Agreement with Him

Having discussed the critiques offered by a number of Ḥanafī, Mālikī, and Shāfiʿī scholars regarding the claims of consensus attributed to al-Juwaynī and Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ, we conclude by examining how some Ḥanbalī scholars addressed the claim of consensus related by Ibn Hubayrah on the same issue. In particular, this is the position advanced by Shaykh Marʿī al-Karmī in Ghāyat al-Muntahá.

He wrote:

“In al-Ifṣāḥ it is stated: ‘Consensus has been established on the permissibility of following any one of the four madhhabs, and that the truth does not lie outside them.’^[97]

The stronger view, however, is that this requires qualification. Indeed, it is permissible to practice taqlīd outside the four where the legal issue is not susceptible to any hidden qualification or restriction.^[98] Examples include following Dāwūd regarding the permissibility of consuming pig fat, Ibn Ḥazm regarding the permissibility of a person in a state of major ritual impurity (janābah) remaining in the mosque, and Ibn Taymiyyah and others regarding the view that pronouncing a triple divorce at one time counts only as a single divorce, as well as the view that statements such as, ‘Divorce be upon me,’ do not constitute a valid divorce.

However, if the opinion is one that could be subject to an undisclosed qualification or restriction, then practicing taqlīd of it is impermissible. Examples include following Saʿīd ibn al-Musayyib in permitting a woman who has been irrevocably divorced three times to return to her former husband merely by contracting a marriage that serves as a legal stratagem (ḥīlah), or following Nāfiʿ and Ibn ʿUmar regarding intercourse through the anus during menstruation, since it is possible that they did not actually hold this view under those circumstances.”^[99]

Al-Ruḥaybānī explains this passage as follows:

“His statement, ‘The stronger view, however, is that this requires qualification,’ refers to the statement in al-Ifṣāḥ. ‘Rather, it is permissible’ means that it is permissible to practice taqlīd of trustworthy scholars outside the four madhhabs where the legal issue is not susceptible to any hidden qualification or restriction.

Examples include following Dāwūd al-Ẓāhirī regarding the permissibility of consuming pig fat; following Ibn Ḥazm regarding the permissibility of a person in a state of major ritual impurity (janābah) remaining in the mosque; and following Ibn Taymiyyah, Ibn al-Qayyim, and others who held that when a triple divorce is pronounced at one time, such as saying, ‘You are divorced three times,’ only a single divorce takes effect. Likewise, one may follow their view that statements such as, ‘Divorce be upon me if I do such-and-such,’ do not result in any divorce if the person subsequently fails to carry out what he mentioned.

However, where an opinion may be subject to an undisclosed qualification or restriction, practicing taqlīd of it is impermissible. Examples include following Saʿīd ibn al-Musayyib in permitting a woman irrevocably divorced three times to return to her former husband merely by contracting a marriage arranged as a legal stratagem (ḥīlah), because legal stratagems are impermissible in all matters of religion. Likewise, one may not follow Nāfiʿ or Ibn ʿUmar regarding intercourse through the anus during menstruation, and similar cases, because it is possible that they did not actually hold this view under those particular circumstances. Furthermore, they stood alone in this opinion, and both their contemporaries and those who came after them repudiated it, stating that they possessed no evidence for it from either the Qurʾān or the Sunnah.

This differs from the opinion of Dāwūd, for the apparent wording of the Qurʾānic verse does not preclude it. It also differs from the opinion of Ibn Ḥazm, since some scholars adopted that position as well. Likewise, it differs from the opinion of Ibn Taymiyyah, for many Companions, Tābiʿūn, and rightly guided imams held the same view. We have already discussed this issue in detail in the chapter concerning the matters that affect the number of divorces.

Accordingly, whoever becomes aware of these opinions and is satisfied that they are authentically attributable to these scholars may act upon them whenever the need arises, especially where necessity calls for doing so. This is the stronger view.”^[100]

What Shaykh Marʿī advanced had a noticeable influence upon later Ḥanbalī scholars. Thus, the Ḥanbalī Muftī of Damascus, Shaykh Muḥammad Jamīl al-Shaṭṭī, in an extended discussion concerning his teacher Muḥammad Jamāl al-Dīn al-Qāsimī, endorsed Marʿī’s position regarding the permissibility of adopting Ibn Taymiyyah’s opinion on triple divorce. He also referred to al-Qāsimī’s treatise on the subject entitled al-Istiʾnās li-Taṣḥīḥ Ankiḥat al-Nās. He writes:

“As for those who adopt the balanced path, they are indeed upon guidance from their Lord, and they are the successful ones. They are but a small number who return to the statements of the scholars and examine the evidences. Foremost among them was one of our teachers, may Allah have mercy upon him. He devoted himself to investigating difficult questions and probing complex issues, especially where a consideration of unrestricted public interest (maṣlaḥah mursalah) or a compelling need existed. He sought to bring mercy to this Ummah by drawing upon the scholarship of those great imams, so long as the evidence admitted more than one interpretation and the disagreement was authentically transmitted.

Whenever a matter arose affecting the religion and upon which the interests of the Muslims depended, he weighed it according to the scales of the Sharīʿah and sound reason, examined it with justice and fairness, and expressed the conclusions to which his knowledge and understanding led him. Time and again, he thoroughly investigated legal issues, authored books and treatises concerning them, and disseminated them in both well-known and remote places. We know of no one who equaled him in this regard, although many people spoke ill of him and treated him harshly. There is no power and no strength except through Allah.

Among these issues was the question of counting a triple divorce as a single divorce, together with the many subsidiary rulings that stem from it. This is the well-known position of Shaykh al-Islām Ibn Taymiyyah. When he recognized the widespread hardship that this issue had caused and saw the extent to which ordinary people had become entangled in its consequences, he sought to free them from this grave predicament and serious difficulty so that their marriages might remain valid and their lineages be protected from illegitimacy. How fitting was the title he gave his treatise: al-Istiʾnās li-Taṣḥīḥ Ankiḥat al-Nās (A Means of Reassurance for Validating People’s Marriages).”^[101]

It is well known that Shaykh al-Islām Ibn Taymiyyah’s position on this issue has become widespread in contemporary times. Courts in many countries have adopted it, and many contemporary scholars have likewise endorsed it.

And Allah knows best.

May Allah send His blessings and peace upon our Prophet Muḥammad, his family, and his Companions.

^[1] Al-ʿIzz ibn ʿAbd al-Salām was among those who held that it is permissible to practice taqlīd outside the four madhhabs. However, his discussion here concerns a situation in which a mujtahid has encountered evidence contrary to the view of a Companion, not a defense of the position that one may depart from the four madhhabs

^[2] Transmitted by al-Barzulī in Nawāzil (1/69); from him by al-Ḥaṭṭāb in Mawāhib al-Jalīl (1/31), and by al-Musnāwī in Nuṣrat al-Qabḍ wal-Radd ʿalá Man Ankāra Mashrūʿiyyatahu fī Ṣalāt al-Farḍ (pp. 54–55).

^[3] Minhāj al-Sunnah (3/412).

^[4] Al-Radd ʿalá al-Subkī (2/615).

^[5] Ḥāshiyat al-ʿAllāmah al-Ṣāwī ʿalá Tafsīr al-Jalālayn, Dār Taḥqīq al-Kitāb edition (4/137)

^[6] Aḍwāʾ al-Bayān (7/466).

^[7] Aḍwāʾ al-Bayān (7/467).

^[8] This argument constitutes the principal proof advanced by those who prohibit taqlīd outside the four madhhabs. Al-ʿArādī adopted it from earlier scholars, and a detailed response to it will be presented below.

^[9] Majmūʿat Fatāwá Ahl al-Taḥqīq fī Masʾalat Jamʿ al-Thalāth min al-Taṭlīq (pp. 69–70). See also Al-Mīzān al-Kubrá by al-Shaʿrānī (1/221–222), upon which al-ʿArādī relied, as he himself indicates at the conclusion of his discussion. The collection contains fatwás issued by a number of Shāfiʿī scholars from Dagestan during the previous century in refutation of those who followed Shaykh Ṣāliḥ ibn Mahdī al-Maqbalī of Yemen regarding the issue of triple divorce.

^[10] This introduction is adapted from Shaykh al-Islām’s response to Ibn al-Muṭahhar al-Ḥillī’s claim against Ahl al-Sunnah that they “introduced four madhhabs which did not exist during the time of the Prophet ﷺ or his Companions, and neglected the opinions of the Companions.” Minhāj al-Sunnah (3/410–411).

^[11] Tartīb al-Madārik (1/64–65).

^[12] Al-Ḥāwī lil-Fatāwī (2/189).

^[13] Risālah fī Bayān al-Kutub allatī Yuʿawwal ʿAlayhā wa-Bayān Ṭabaqāt ʿUlamāʾ al-Madhhab al-Ḥanafī wal-Radd ʿalá Ibn Kamāl Bāshā (pp. 48–49).

^[14] Al-Radd ʿalá al-Subkī (2/763).

^[15] Majmūʿ al-Fatāwá (20/474).

^[16] Jamʿ al-Jawāmiʿ (p. 140).

^[17] Manʿ al-Mawāniʿ (pp. 441–442). This represents Ibn al-Subkī’s method of explaining the position of those who prohibit departing from the four madhhabs. I have not found this distinction in the writings of his father or of al-ʿAllāmah Ibn Ḥajar, who instead stipulated conditions for departing from the four madhhabs in one’s own private practice without distinguishing between the madhhabs of the four imams and those of others.

^[18] The Shaykh also mentioned this rationale in Al-Radd ʿalá al-Subkī (2/762).

^[19] Majmūʿ al-Fatāwá (20/474).

^[20] Transmitted by al-Qarāfī in Nafāʾis al-Uṣūl (9/3966–3967), and by al-Zarkashī in Tashnīf al-Masāmiʿ (3/623) with identical wording, attributing it to Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ’s Kitāb al-Futyā.

^[21] Al-Radd ʿalá Man Ittabaʿ Ghayr al-Madhāhib al-Arbaʿah (p. 32).

^[22] Al-Taqrīr wal-Taḥbīr (3/345).

^[23] Fawātiḥ al-Raḥamūt Sharḥ Musallam al-Thubūt (2/439). Also transmitted by al-Muṭīʿī in Sullam al-Wuṣūl (4/630–631), and by al-Bānī in ʿUmdat al-Taḥqīq (pp. 172–174).

^[24] Nathr al-Wurūd (2/687).

^[25] Manʿ al-Mawāniʿ (pp. 450–451). See also al-ʿIzz’s discussion in Al-Baḥr al-Muḥīṭ (8/340).

^[26] Al-Ghayth al-Hāmiʿ (p. 652).

^[27] Tashnīf al-Masāmiʿ (3/633). Also transmitted by Shaykh Zakariyyā in his gloss on Sharḥ al-Maḥallī (4/33).

^[28] Transmitted by al-Ḥaṭṭāb in Mawāhib al-Jalīl (1/30), with similar wording in Tashnīf al-Masāmiʿ (3/633). A portion of Ibn Burhān’s Al-Awsaṭ has been published, but it is incomplete and does not contain the discussion of taqlīd.

^[29] Tashnīf al-Masāmiʿ (3/633).

^[30] Transmitted by al-Ḥaṭṭāb in Mawāhib al-Jalīl (1/31).

^[31] ʿUmdat al-Murīd Sharḥ Jawharat al-Tawḥīd (3/1152). See also al-Māzarī’s fatwá in Nawāzil al-Barzulī (1/85–86), which was transmitted by al-Ḥaṭṭāb in Mawāhib al-Jalīl (1/31).

^[32] Al-ʿAqd al-Farīd fī Aḥkām al-Taqlīd (p. 155).

^[33] Nuṣrat al-Qabḍ wal-Radd ʿalá Man Ankāra Mashrūʿiyyatahu fī Ṣalāt al-Farḍ (p. 54).

^[34] Manʿ al-Mawāniʿ (p. 439).

^[35] Introduction to Al-Muʾammal lil-Radd ilá al-Amr al-Awwal, included in Thalāth Rasāʾil lil-ʿAllāmah Abī Shāmah al-Maqdisī (pp. 183–184). Abū Shāmah lived in the seventh Islamic century. During his time, the principal authorities were the works of Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī and Abū Isḥāq al-Shīrāzī, to whom the title “the Two Shaykhs” was commonly applied, as is likewise found in al-Farkāḥ’s Al-Iqlīd. Later, reliance shifted to the works of al-Rāfiʿī and al-Nawawī, Abū Shāmah’s student, and the title “the Two Shaykhs” thereafter referred to them.

^[36] Introduction to Al-Muʾammal lil-Radd ilá al-Amr al-Awwal, included in Thalāth Rasāʾil lil-ʿAllāmah Abī Shāmah al-Maqdisī (pp. 186–187).

^[37] ʿUmdat al-Murīd Sharḥ Jawharat al-Tawḥīd (3/1152).

^[38] Manʿ al-Mawāniʿ (p. 451).

^[39] See Sullam al-Wuṣūl (4/630).

^[40] Adab al-Muftī wal-Mustaftī (pp. 162–163).

^[41] Manʿ al-Mawāniʿ (p. 441). Also transmitted by al-Zarkashī in Tashnīf al-Masāmiʿ (3/632)

^[42] It has already been noted that the question of the evidentiary authority of a Companion’s opinion is distinct from the question of the permissibility of practicing taqlīd of that opinion.

^[43] Ṣifat al-Muftī wal-Mustaftī (p. 281).

^[44] Al-Taḥqīq fī Masʾalat al-Taʿlīq, as quoted in Al-Radd ʿalá al-Subkī (2/613–614)

^[45] Kaff al-Raʿāʿ ʿan Muḥarramāt al-Lahw wal-Samāʿ (p. 144). Also transmitted by al-Kurdī in Al-Fawāʾid al-Madaniyyah, and from him by Bāsawdān in Al-Maqāṣid al-Saniyyah (p. 99).

^[46] Al-Fatḥ al-Mubīn fī Sharḥ al-Arbaʿīn (p. 474).

^[47] Al-Radd ʿalá al-Subkī (2/765–766).

^[48] Al-Radd ʿalá al-Subkī (2/772–773).

^[49] Mukhtaṣar al-Fawāʾid al-Makkiyyah (p. 38).

^[50] Al-Radd ʿalá al-Subkī (2/768–769).

^[51] Al-Radd ʿalá al-Subkī (2/769–770).

^[52] Al-Radd ʿalá al-Subkī (2/766–767).

^[53] That is, al-Juwaynī’s Al-Burhān. His discussion and the objections raised by the Ḥanafīs and others will be presented below.

^[54] Risālah fī Bayān al-Kutub allatī Yuʿawwal ʿAlayhā wa-Bayān Ṭabaqāt ʿUlamāʾ al-Madhhab al-Ḥanafī wal-Radd ʿalá Ibn Kamāl Bāshā (p. 47).

^[55] Al-Taqrīr wal-Taḥbīr (3/345).

^[56] Al-Radd ʿalá al-Subkī by Ibn Taymiyyah (2/766). See also ʿUmdat al-Taḥqīq by al-Bānī (p. 174).

^[57] Al-Radd ʿalá al-Subkī (2/766).

^[58] Al-Radd ʿalá al-Subkī (2/765–766).

^[59] Nafāʾis al-Uṣūl (9/3967). Some wording has been corrected based on ʿUmdat al-Murīd.

^[60] ʿUmdat al-Murīd (3/1153–1154). See also al-Shanqīṭī’s discussion of the benefits of transmitting weak opinions within the Mālikī school in Nathr al-Wurūd (2/590–593).

^[61] Al-Maqāṣid al-Saniyyah ilá al-Mawārid al-Haniyyah (p. 100). The statement is by ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Bār BāʿAlawī (d. 1212 AH).

^[62] Al-Radd ʿalá al-Subkī (2/762–763).

^[63] Al-Burhān (2/177).

^[64] See, for example, Lamaʿ al-Lawāmiʿ (2/239); Shaykh Zakariyyā’s gloss on Sharḥ al-Maḥallī (4/33); Ghāyat al-Wuṣūl (p. 663); Al-Badr al-Ṭāliʿ (2/376).

^[65] Al-Ghayth al-Hāmiʿ (p. 652).

^[66] Fawātiḥ al-Raḥamūt Sharḥ Musallam al-Thubūt (2/439).

^[67] ʿImād al-Riḍā bi-Bayān Ādāb al-Quḍāh (p. 29). The original statement of al-Subkī appears in his Fatāwá (2/12).

^[68] Bughyat al-Mustarshidīn (2/718).

^[69] Al-Furūʿ (11/103). See also Ghāyat al-Muntahā (2/565).

^[70] Al-Radd ʿalá Man Ittabaʿ Ghayr al-Madhāhib al-Arbaʿah (p. 30).

^[71] The original statement is by al-ʿIzz ibn ʿAbd al-Salām, as found in Nafāʾis al-Uṣūl (9/3963–3964). It was transmitted by al-Qarāfī in Sharḥ Tanqīḥ al-Fuṣūl (p. 826) without naming him. It was mistakenly attributed to al-ʿIrāqī in Fawātiḥ al-Raḥamūt Sharḥ Musallam al-Thubūt (2/439) and in ʿUmdat al-Taḥqīq (p. 173).

^[72] Musallam al-Thubūt (2/669).

^[73] That is, the systematic arrangement of legal chapters, which al-Juwaynī considered the reason for following the four madhhabs rather than the opinions of the Companions.

^[74] Fawātiḥ al-Raḥamūt Sharḥ Musallam al-Thubūt (2/439). Also transmitted by al-Muṭīʿī in Sullam al-Wuṣūl (4/630–631), and by al-Bānī in ʿUmdat al-Taḥqīq (pp. 172–174).

^[75] Al-Taqrīr wal-Taḥbīr (3/345).

^[76] (7/258).

^[77] Risālah fī Bayān al-Kutub allatī Yuʿawwal ʿAlayhā wa-Bayān Ṭabaqāt ʿUlamāʾ al-Madhhab al-Ḥanafī wal-Radd ʿalá Ibn Kamāl Bāshā (pp. 47–48).

^[78] Al-Burhān (2/177). Imām al-Ḥaramayn expressed a similar view in Al-Ghiyāthī (p. 485), and discussed the matter at greater length in Mughīth al-Khalq (pp. 17–22). His student Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī likewise expressed a similar view in part of a response to a question posed by his student Ibn al-ʿArabī al-Mālikī. See Nawāzil al-Barzulī (1/66–68).

^[79] Al-Taḥqīq wal-Bayān fī Sharḥ al-Burhān (4/217–219).

^[80] Nafāʾis al-Uṣūl (9/3967).

^[81] Tuḥfat al-Muḥtāj, Dār al-Ḍiyāʾ edition (1/227).

^[82] That is, by issuing fatwás according to a madhhab outside the four, or even outside one’s own madhhab. From al-Kurdī’s gloss on Tuḥfat al-Muḥtāj, Dār al-Ḍiyāʾ edition (10/210).

^[83] Tuḥfat al-Muḥtāj (10/209–210). See also Majmūʿat Fatāwá Ahl al-Taḥqīq fī Masʾalat Jamʿ al-Thalāth min al-Taṭlīq (p. 57).

^[84] Al-Fatāwá al-Fiqhiyyah al-Kubrá (4/325).

^[85] Al-Fatḥ al-Mubīn (p. 474).

^[86] Nihāyat al-Muḥtāj (1/47).

^[87] See Fayḍ al-Qadīr by al-Manāwī (1/272); Dalīl al-Fāliḥīn by Ibn ʿAllān (1/415); Al-Fawākih al-ʿAdīdah by al-Munqūr (2/144–157); Al-Maqāṣid al-Saniyyah ilá al-Mawārid al-Haniyyah by Bāsawdān (p. 98); and Mukhtaṣar al-Fawāʾid al-Makkiyyah by al-Saqqāf (p. 39).

^[88] See ʿUmdat al-Murīd Sharḥ Jawharat al-Tawḥīd (3/1154); Al-Fawākih al-Dawānī ʿalá Risālat Ibn Abī Zayd al-Qayrawānī (2/356).

^[89] Tuḥfat al-Muḥtāj with the glosses (1/47).

^[90] Fatḥ al-Majīd fī Aḥkām al-Taqlīd (pp. 132–133).

^[91] Al-Fawāʾid al-Madaniyyah fī Man Yuftá bi-Qawlihi min Aʾimmat al-Shāfiʿiyyah (p. 332).

^[92] Manāhil al-ʿIrfān min Fatāwá Faḍl ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān (p. 386). The author of Al-Zubad is al-ʿAllāmah Ibn Raslān al-Ramlī al-Shāfiʿī, may Allah have mercy on him.

^[93] This summary is taken from Manāhil al-ʿIrfān min Fatāwá Faḍl ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān (p. 384).

^[94] Regarding this opinion, Shaykh Muḥammad Saʿīd al-Bānī comments: “This view is likewise rejected, for it is unknown in Islam among the Muslims. Rather, the scholars of the Sharīʿah have consistently maintained that matters relating to sexual relations are to be treated with greater caution than other legal issues.” ʿUmdat al-Taḥqīq fī Masʾalat al-Taqlīd wal-Talfīq (pp. 178–179).

^[95] These three examples are cited by Shaykh Muḥammad Saʿīd al-Bānī in ʿUmdat al-Taḥqīq fī Masʾalat al-Taqlīd wal-Talfīq (pp. 178–179).

^[96] Kaff al-Raʿāʿ ʿan Muḥarramāt al-Lahw wal-Samāʿ (p. 134).

^[97] See Al-Musawwadah by Āl Taymiyyah (p. 540).

^[98] See ʿUmdat al-Taḥqīq fī Masʾalat al-Taqlīd wal-Talfīq (p. 175)

^[99] Ghāyat al-Muntahá (2/565).

^[100] Maṭālib Ūlī al-Nuhá (13/423–424)

^[101] Al-Wasīṭ bayn al-Ifrāṭ wal-Tafrīṭ (pp. 11–12). See also ʿUmdat al-Taḥqīq by al-Bānī (pp. 176–178).

This perception has been reinforced by the intellectual environment that prevailed during the later centuries of Islamic history, particularly from the tenth Islamic century onward, when Sufism enjoyed a strong presence throughout the Muslim world. Since the overwhelming majority of later scholars adhered to Ashʿarism, some researchers came to assume that Ashʿarism and Sufism had always been historically inseparable, or that neither could be properly understood apart from the other. The historical reality, however, was not always so.

Although the majority of later scholars held Sufism and its adherents in high regard, this attitude was by no means confined to the Ashʿarīs alone. Rather, it was also shared by a number of scholars influenced by the school of Ahl al-Ḥadīth or the reformist trend, such as the Āl al-Dihlawī, the Āl al-Ālūsī, the Ḥanbalī scholar al-Saffārīnī, Jamāl al-Qāsimī, Ṭāhir al-Jazāʾirī, and others generally associated with the Salafi orientation.

These scholars praised Sufism and even held a favorable opinion of Ibn ʿArabī al-Ṭāʾī—whether out of unawareness or in deference to the intellectual environment in which they were raised. Accordingly, it may be said that these deviations became widespread afflictions in the later centuries and were by no means unique to the Ashʿarīs. Had merely holding a favorable opinion of Sufism constituted evidence of an intrinsic theological association, it would necessarily lead to conclusions that no one is prepared to accept.

Perhaps, however, there is another factor underlying this perceived association: the practices of contemporary Ashʿarīs in portraying manifestations of grave shirk in a favorable light. It is now rare to find an Ashʿarī who does not permit forms of grave-related shirk, often in opposition to the Salafīs. Yet contemporary reality is not a sound scholarly criterion upon which conclusions may be based; otherwise, scholarship would be reduced to subjective impressions rather than rigorous academic investigation.

What appears to be the case is that grave shirk became intertwined with Sufism only in the very late centuries. It was not an original feature of Sufism, which was fundamentally rooted in asceticism and spiritual discipline, in the exclusive devotion of tawḥīd to Allah, and in refraining from supplicating anyone among His creation besides Him.

It is therefore unsurprising that Ibn ʿArabī al-Ṭāʾī—despite his extremism and unbelief—forbade seeking nearness through anyone besides Allah the Exalted, regarding it as incompatible with the true reality of tawḥīd. Thus, he states in al-Futūḥāt al-Makkiyyah: “Allah the Exalted has left His servant with no argument against Him; rather, the conclusive argument belongs entirely to Allah. Therefore, one should not seek nearness to Him through anyone besides Him. Seeking nearness is simply the pursuit of proximity, and He has informed us that He is Near, and His statement is true.”^[1]

Likewise, al-Jīlānī states: “You must adhere to the taqwá of Allah and obedience to Him. Fear no one, place your hope in no one, entrust all your needs to Allah, the Mighty and Majestic, and seek them from Him... Tawḥīd, tawḥīd, tawḥīd; the essence of everything is tawḥīd... Whoever believes that harm or benefit comes from anyone besides Allah the Exalted is not truly His servant. Whoever holds such a belief is destined for the Fire of wrath and the veil, and tomorrow will be in the Fire of Hell—except for the righteous, the people of tawḥīd, and the sincere.”^[2]

Accordingly, the correct approach to understanding the relationship between Ashʿarism and Sufism does not begin by compiling the names of those who combined the two. Rather, it begins with examining the nature of the relationship itself, identifying the points of agreement and disagreement, and uncovering the reality of the intellectual conflicts that arose between the two throughout the centuries.

The Ashʿarīs in Confrontation with Sufism

Perhaps the strongest evidence refuting the claim that Ashʿarism and Sufism are inherently inseparable is the Ashʿarī opposition to Shihāb al-Dīn al-Suhrawardī. His views provoked intense objections from the scholars of his time, to the extent that his case was brought before the political authorities. The matter ultimately culminated in his execution in 586 A.H. under the Ayyūbid state, when Sultan Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn al-Ayyūbī ordered his death based on a fatwá issued by the scholars of his age—the majority of whom were Ashʿarīs. Al-Ḥāfiẓ Ibn Ḥajar stated: “He was executed because of the corruption of his creed.”^[3]

The Ashʿarī objections to the mystical (ʿirfānī) trend were numerous and varied. Their criticism became increasingly forceful whenever Sufism moved toward esoteric interpretations, claims of mystical unveiling (kashf) that were given precedence over the apparent meanings of the revealed texts, or philosophical doctrines such as the unity of existence (waḥdat al-wujūd), ontological union (ittiḥād), or distorted conceptions of annihilation (fanāʾ).

It is in this light that one can understand why the case of Muḥyī al-Dīn Ibn ʿArabī became one of the most controversial issues in Islamic history.

Among the most well-known reports on this matter is that transmitted by al-Ḥāfiẓ Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī. He relates: “I once asked our teacher, the Imām Sirāj al-Dīn al-Bulqīnī, about Ibn al-ʿArabī, and he immediately replied that he was an unbeliever. I then asked him about Ibn al-Fāriḍ, to which he responded: ‘I do not wish to speak about him.’ I said: ‘What is the difference between the two, when the issue is the same?’ I then recited to him verses from the Tāʾiyyah, but after I had recited several verses, he interrupted me, saying: ‘This is unbelief! This is unbelief!’”^[4]

Indeed, Taqī al-Dīn al-Subkī—one of the most prominent Ashʿarī authorities to oppose Ibn Taymiyyah, and a figure frequently invoked by contemporary writers in polemics against the Salafīs—was no less uncompromising in his stance toward this mystical trend. He states: “As for those among these later Sufis, such as Ibn ʿArabī and others, they are misguided and ignorant, having departed from the path of Islam, let alone from the path of the scholars.”^[5]

In fact, the majority of the Ashʿarīs did not restrict their criticism to the extremist Sufis alone. Rather, they broadened the scope of their objections to include figures who are today regarded as among the foremost representatives of ethical and spiritual Sufism.

One of the clearest examples is the position of al-Qāḍī ʿIyāḍ, one of the leading Mālikī imāms. He did not merely denounce certain Sufi practices; rather, he directed explicit criticism at Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī himself.

Al-Qāḍī ʿIyāḍ describes al-Ghazālī as follows: “Shaykh Abū Ḥāmid is a man whose reports are reprehensible and whose writings are grave. He went to excess in the path of Sufism, devoted himself to championing its doctrine, became one of its chief advocates, and authored his well-known works on its behalf. Certain passages in those works were objected to, and the people developed an unfavorable opinion of him.”^[6]

Al-Qāḍī ʿIyāḍ was by no means an isolated case. Rather, a considerable number of scholars are known to have objected to al-Ghazālī’s adoption of the Sufi path. Among them was Imām al-Māzarī, who accused Iḥyāʾ ʿUlūm al-Dīn of being heavily influenced by the Rasāʾil Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ and the philosophy of Ibn Sīnā.^[7]

Likewise, Abū Bakr al-Ṭurṭūshī described al-Ghazālī’s approach in the Iḥyāʾ as “the practice of the Bāṭiniyyah and of those who corrupt and undermine the religion of Allah.”^[8] Indeed, even al-Ghazālī’s own student, Abū Bakr Ibn al-ʿArabī al-Ashʿarī, composed a lengthy refutation of him,^[9] as did al-Ḥāfiẓ Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ,^[10] along with many others.

Thus, the succession of historical evidence demonstrates that the relationship between Ashʿarism and Sufism was not one of seamless integration, as some contemporary writers portray it. Rather, it was a complex relationship: one that witnessed periods of convergence, but also periods of intense intellectual conflict, particularly when Sufism evolved beyond asceticism and spiritual discipline into philosophy, mystical speculation (ʿirfān), and claims of esoteric unveiling (kashf).

Sufism Did Not Originate as an Ashʿarī Movement

As is well known, the earliest figures mentioned in the biographical works on the ascetics and Sufis lived, for the most part, before the Ashʿarī school had fully taken shape and become widespread. Among the most prominent of these figures were Bishr al-Ḥāfī, Sahl ibn ʿAbd Allah al-Tustarī, Abū Sulaymān al-Dārānī, Maʿrūf al-Karkhī, al-Sarī al-Saqaṭī, al-Junayd, and ʿAdī ibn Musāfir, along with other leading figures of the second and third Islamic centuries.

These individuals—despite the presence of certain practical or spiritual errors on the part of some of them—were not known for any affiliation with the Ashʿarī school. Rather, they were much closer to the milieu of Ahl al-Ḥadīth. Indeed, what is particularly noteworthy is that many of the leading figures associated with Ahl al-Ḥadīth were more closely aligned with ethical and spiritual Sufism than were the Ashʿarīs. This explains why Ḥanbalī biographical works are replete with scholars who combined a commitment to ḥadīth scholarship with an interest in Sufism and spiritual discipline.

Abū Ismāʿīl al-Harawī al-Anṣārī, despite being renowned for the intensity of his opposition to the Ashʿarīs, is regarded as one of the foremost authorities on spiritual discipline and purification. His work Manāzil al-Sāʾirīn is among the most influential books in the later Sufi tradition.

Likewise, Imām ʿAbd al-Qādir al-Jīlānī combined Ḥanbalī jurisprudence with preaching and spiritual cultivation, to the extent that his ṭarīqah became one of the most prominent Sufi orders in the Islamic world. It is noteworthy that al-Jīlānī’s influence was not confined to those affiliated with Sufi orders; rather, it also extended to leading scholars of Ahl al-Ḥadīth and the Ḥanbalī school.

Shaykh Shams al-Dīn (Sibṭ Ibn al-Jawzī), may Allah have mercy upon him, relates: “I heard Shaykh Muwaffaq al-Dīn, may Allah have mercy upon him, say: ‘Al-Ḥāfiẓ ʿAbd al-Ghanī and I both received the khirqah from the hand of Shaykh al-Islām ʿAbd al-Qādir at the same time. We studied jurisprudence under him, heard ḥadīth from him, and benefited from his companionship. Yet we experienced no more than the final fifty nights of his life.’”^[11]

In the later centuries, we also find prominent Ḥanbalī figures who were well known for their refutations of the Ashʿarīs, yet who nonetheless affiliated themselves with certain Sufi lineages or transmitted their chains of initiation. Among them was Imām Ibn al-Mibrad al-Ḥanbalī, the author of the renowned work Jamʿ al-Juyūsh wa al-Dasākir ʿalā Ibn ʿAsākir, one of the most famous books written in refutation of the Ashʿarīs.

Ibn al-Mibrad also authored another work entitled Badʾ al-ʿUlaqah bi-Libs al-Khirqah, in which he writes: “Receiving the khirqah from the virtuous is a recommended practice, in the hope of attaining blessing and being encompassed by their upright spiritual regard.”^[12]

It should be emphasized that our discussion of Sufism among the Ḥanbalīs and Ahl al-Ḥadīth is not intended as an endorsement of their Sufi orientation. Rather, its purpose is to dismantle the assumed conceptual link between Sufism and Ashʿarism. The point is this: if the mere existence of figures such as al-Ghazālī and al-Qushayrī is invoked as proof that Sufism is inherently Ashʿarī, then what are we to make of figures such as al-Harawī, al-Jīlānī, ʿAbd al-Ghanī, Ibn al-Mibrad, al-Saffārīnī, and others who combined criticism of the Ashʿarīs with an affiliation to Sufism?

The only logical conclusion is that Sufism was an independent movement that permeated a variety of scholarly schools and intellectual environments, influencing them while also being influenced by them to varying degrees.

Accordingly, the proper question is not: Was Sufism Ashʿarī or Ḥanbalī? Rather, the real question is: Which form of Sufism are we discussing?

The Sufism that revolved around asceticism, worship, self-accountability, and the various stages of the spiritual journey toward Allah—despite the presence of varying degrees of practical innovations among its adherents—is not the same as the philosophical Sufism and the doctrine of the unity of existence (waḥdat al-wujūd) advanced by al-Suhrawardī, Ibn ʿArabī, Ibn Sabʿīn, and others of their kind.

Beyond History: A Disagreement in Epistemological Foundations

The issue does not end with historical events and the names of prominent individuals. Rather, a closer examination reveals that the intellectual foundations of the two traditions are fundamentally different. Ashʿarism, in its original form, is a rational theological (kalām) school that arose to defend Islamic doctrines through the tools of rational inquiry, logical argumentation, and demonstrative reasoning. People may differ over the extent of its success or failure, but no one disputes that reason, argumentation, and rational reflection constitute essential elements of its epistemological framework.

The mystical (ʿirfānī) currents within Sufism, by contrast, were built upon an altogether different foundation. They assigned a distinctive epistemological status to mystical unveiling (kashf), spiritual taste (dhawq), and inspiration (ilhām), speaking of forms of knowledge and hidden realities that cannot be attained through rational inquiry and argumentation alone, but only through spiritual striving, seclusion, and ascetic disciplines.

Indeed, from the Sufi perspective, theological (kalām) conceptions of tawḥīd are regarded as a form of heresy. Al-Qushayrī relates in his Risālah, on the authority of Abū Naṣr al-Sarrāj, that al-Shiblī was asked: “Inform us about pure tawḥīd, expressed in the language of unalloyed truth.” He replied: “Woe to you! Whoever answers concerning tawḥīd through mere expression is a heretic.”^[13]

The Ashʿarī Mutakallim, therefore, is bound by the methods of rational demonstration and logical argumentation. In contrast, the Sufi gnostic (ʿārif) may appeal to mystical unveiling (kashf), spiritual taste (dhawq), and direct witnessing (shuhūd). Such claims cannot be evaluated according to the conventional standards of kalām. It is therefore unsurprising that many theologians adopted a cautious stance toward claims of mystical unveiling whenever they exceeded their legitimate bounds or were elevated into an independent source of religious knowledge. This epistemological tension became even more pronounced when Sufism entered its philosophical and speculative mystical (ʿirfānī) phase.

At this stage, the discussion was no longer concerned with asceticism, worship, and self-accountability. Rather, it shifted to questions concerning the nature of existence, the relationship between the Creator and the creation, the meaning of fanāʾ (annihilation), the doctrine of the unity of existence (waḥdat al-wujūd), and the esoteric realities underlying the revealed texts. It was precisely at this stage that the disputes intensified, refutations proliferated, and scholars issued successive judgments against the leading representatives of this trend.

Accordingly, portraying Ashʿarism and Sufism as two inseparable counterparts from their very inception is nothing more than a selective reading of certain chapters of history. The broader historical picture demonstrates that Sufism was a vast and diverse movement into which multiple currents entered and over which different schools contended. It was never the exclusive preserve of any single theological school.

Finally, I would say that this subject requires far more extensive treatment than has been possible here, with each of its themes deserving detailed discussion so that no questions remain unresolved in the reader’s mind. The present context, however, permits no more than a series of brief observations.

As the saying goes: It is enough of a necklace that it encircles the neck.

Recommended Reading:

Salafi Criticism of Sufism: Balanced or Extreme?

Ibn Taymiyyah and Sufism - Islamic Discourse

Ibn Taymiyyah and Sainthood - Islamic Discourse

Ibnul Qayyim and Sufism - Islamic Discourse

^[1] al-Futūḥāt al-Makkiyyah (4/226).

^[2] al-Fatḥ al-Rabbānī wa-al-Fayḍ al-Raḥmānī (p. 373).

^[3] Lisān al-Mīzān, by Ibn Ḥajar (4/158).

^[4] Lisān al-Mīzān (6/125).

^[5] See: Mughnī al-Muḥtāj, by al-Shirbīnī (3/61).

^[6] Siyar Aʿlām al-Nubalāʾ (19/327).

^[7] Siyar Aʿlām al-Nubalāʾ (19/330 and 341).

^[8] al-Miʿyār al-Muʿrib (12/186 and 187).

^[9] al-ʿAwāṣim (p. 26).

^[10] Siyar Aʿlām al-Nubalāʾ (19/329).

^[11] Mirʾāt al-Zamān fī Tawārīkh al-Aʿyān (21/108).

^[12] Badʾ al-ʿUlaqah fī Libs al-Khirqah (p. 47).

^[13] al-Risālah al-Qushayriyyah (2/466).

Many contemporary claims concerning Salafism are not founded upon sound methodological scholarship. Rather, they are based upon a selective presentation of the truth without conveying the full picture. Among these claims is the assertion that contemporary Salafis adopt juristic positions that contravene consensus (ijmāʿ) and instead conform to the Ẓāhirī school or to the opinions of Ibn Taymiyyah, after which their opponents simply presume that they have thereby violated consensus. Such critics consistently fall into the fallacy of begging the question, claiming the existence of consensus in matters where no consensus exists merely because the four Sunni legal schools are not in agreement, or on the basis of certain imagined consensuses, as will be demonstrated.

At the outset, it must be emphasized that the Salafi methodology cannot be reduced to the mere juristic preferences of a number of contemporary scholars. Such a characterization is superficial, for the Salafi methodology is, first and foremost, a methodology of receiving and constructing matters of creed. As for legal verdicts (fatwas), their nature is relatively flexible, changing with variations in time and place, while also differing according to the jurists issuing them.

Moreover, Salafis do not all follow a single juristic approach in their legal practice. A number of distinct Salafi schools have emerged in the modern era. The Najdī school follows the Ḥanbalī madhhab, the Shanqīṭī school follows the Mālikī madhhab, and the school of al-Shawkānī is closer to the Ẓāhirī madhhab, and so forth. Nor is such diversity unique to Salafism; even within the Ashʿarī tradition, some adopted independent juristic approaches in ijtihād, as will be discussed.

Furthermore, with respect to those issues in which it has been alleged that Salafis depart from the four legal schools—rare as such cases are among Salafis—they were preceded in these positions by scholars from both the early and later generations. For this reason, this academic paper has been published by the Salaf Center for Research and Studies as part of its series defending the Salafi methodology and its leading scholars.

The discussion will proceed through two principal sections:

First: Have the Salafis departed from consensus (ijmāʿ)?

Second: The juristic opinions that critics have attributed to certain scholars.

With this, we now begin the main discussion.

First Section: The Claim That the Salafis Have Departed from Consensus

This claim will be examined from several perspectives.

First Perspective:

One of the principal foundations upon which the critics have constructed their argument is the assumption that whoever departs from the opinions of the four Sunni legal schools has necessarily departed from consensus (ijmāʿ). Consequently, they dismissed the disagreement of the Ẓāhirī school and certain extinct legal traditions of the early generations. Although some later scholars adopted this position, it is undermined by the following:

1- The corrections made by later Ḥanbalī scholars, such as al-Ruḥaybānī and Marʿī al-Karmī, to this alleged consensus.

Shaykh Marʿī al-Karmī states:

“In al-Ifṣāḥ it is said: ‘Consensus has been established upon following any one of the four legal schools, and that the truth does not lie outside them.’ However, this is subject to scrutiny. The stronger view is that this applies only where the issue admits of no qualification, such as one following Dāwūd regarding the permissibility of pork fat, Ibn Ḥazm regarding the permissibility of a person in a state of major ritual impurity (janābah) remaining in a mosque, or Ibn Taymiyyah and others regarding the ruling that a triple divorce pronounced in a single sitting counts as only one divorce, and that an oath formulated with the words ‘ʿalayya al-ṭalāq’ does not constitute a divorce. However, where the matter is capable of qualification, such following is impermissible, such as following Saʿīd ibn al-Musayyib regarding the permissibility of a woman irrevocably divorced (through three pronouncements) merely by virtue of a marriage contract concluded as a legal stratagem, or following Nāfiʿ and Ibn ʿUmar regarding anal intercourse during menstruation, since it is possible that they did not actually hold that view in such a circumstance.”^[1]

Al-Ruḥaybānī likewise states:

“Whoever becomes aware of these opinions—that is, Dāwūd’s view concerning the permissibility of pork fat, Ibn Ḥazm’s view regarding remaining in a mosque while in a state of major ritual impurity, and Ibn Taymiyyah’s view concerning triple divorce—and is satisfied that these opinions are authentically attributed to those scholars, may act upon them when the need arises, especially if necessity compels him to do so. This is the stronger position.”^[2]

2- Many scholars maintain that it is permissible for a jurist possessing restricted ijtihād (al-ijtihād al-muqayyad) to depart from the four legal schools, even if he has not attained the rank of absolute ijtihād (al-ijtihād al-muṭlaq).

Al-Dhahabī states:

“The accomplished jurist, alert in understanding and well-versed in ḥadīth, who has memorized an abridged work in jurisprudence, a treatise on the principles of legal theory, studied Arabic grammar, acquired proficiency in the auxiliary sciences, memorized the Book of Allah, devoted himself to its exegesis, and possesses strength in legal disputation—such a person has reached the rank of restricted ijtihād and is qualified to examine the evidences of the leading Imams. Whenever the truth becomes clear to him in a particular issue, the textual evidence is established, and one of the eminent Imams, such as Abū Ḥanīfah, Mālik, al-Thawrī, al-Awzāʿī, al-Shāfiʿī, Abū ʿUbayd, Aḥmad, or Isḥāq, has acted upon it, then he should follow the truth in that matter. He should not pursue legal concessions (rukhaṣ), but rather exercise piety. Once the proof has been established before him, it is no longer permissible for him to continue in blind imitation (taqlīd).”^[3]

Al-Dhahabī also states:

“There is nothing objectionable about the school of Dāwūd. It contains many sound opinions and adheres closely to the textual sources, even though a number of scholars do not consider his disagreement to be legally significant. He also held certain anomalous opinions that tarnished his school. As for the Al-Qāḍī —that is, Al- Qāḍī ʿIyāḍ—he mentioned what indicates the permissibility of making taqlīd of these schools by consensus, for he listed the four legal schools together with the Sufyānī, Awzāʿī, and Dāwūdī schools. He then said: ‘These are the schools upon whose making taqlīd of the consensus of the people has been established, despite their disagreement regarding which of them is superior. The scholars agreed upon following them, adopting their legal schools, studying their books, understanding jurisprudence according to their legal methodologies, and deriving subsidiary rulings from their foundational principles, rather than those who preceded or were contemporaneous with them, for the reasons we have mentioned. Today, people throughout the world adhere to five legal schools, the fifth being the Dāwūdī school. It is therefore incumbent upon the seeker of knowledge to know which of them is most deserving of being followed so that he may adhere to its school. We shall now demonstrate that Mālik, may Allah have mercy upon him, is the one most deserving of this, owing to his possession of the qualifications of Imamate and his superior knowledge among them.’

Al-Qāḍī then defended, embellished, and refined his argument. Yet there is nothing to prevent any Ḥanafī, Shāfiʿī, Ḥanbalī, or Dāwūdī from making a similar claim on behalf of the Imam he follows. Indeed, that is effectively the language of his state, even if he does not express it explicitly.

Al-Qāḍī ʿIyāḍ then said: ‘In our view—and all praise belongs to Allah—each of the aforementioned Imams possesses merits that establish his qualification for leadership.’

I say: Nevertheless, this Imam, who is the guiding star, acted with fairness and spoke decisively when he said: ‘The statements of everyone may be accepted or rejected except for the occupant of this grave ﷺ.’ There is no doubt that whoever finds within himself sound juristic understanding, breadth of knowledge, and sincerity of purpose is not bound to adhere to a single legal school in every one of its opinions.”^[4]

Al-Dhahabī also states:

“A certain shaykh said: ‘For the one who has committed himself to following an Imam, that Imam is like a prophet in relation to his community; it is not permissible to oppose him.’ I [al-Dhahabī] say: His statement, ‘It is not permissible to oppose him,’ is nothing more than an unsupported claim and a personal opinion devoid of sound knowledge. Rather, it is permissible for a person to depart from the opinion of his Imam in favor of another Imam whose evidence in that particular issue is stronger. Indeed, he is obligated to follow the evidence wherever it has become manifest to him.”^[5]

It is also worth noting that this was the view of Ibn Ḥamdān (d. 695 AH), one of the foremost Ḥanbalī scholars. He states:

“For a long time now, the absolute mujtahid has ceased to exist, even though attaining that rank is now easier than it was in earlier times, because ḥadīth and jurisprudence have been systematically compiled, as have the Qur’anic verses, narrations, principles of legal theory, Arabic language, and other disciplines necessary for ijtihād. However, aspirations have become weak, determination has waned, the fire of diligence and caution has been extinguished, and the eye of reverence and fear has grown still. People have become content with blind imitation (taqlīd), seeking relief from strenuous effort, fleeing from burdens, and preferring an easier course in order to facilitate their worldly affairs and attain their ambitions with the least amount of effort. Yet ijtihād is a communal obligation (farḍ kifāyah), which they have neglected, grown weary of, and failed to comprehend sufficiently to undertake.”^[6]

According to these scholars, the weighing of evidences (tarjīḥ) is not restricted to those who have attained the rank of absolute ijtihād—as some contemporary writers claim—but is also within the capacity of those possessing a moderate level of scholarly expertise and discernment.

Ibn Taymiyyah states:

“Most people of moderate scholarly ability who possess discernment, when they carefully examine and reflect upon the evidence of both sides with sincere intention and thorough consideration, will find that one opinion outweighs the other. Yet they may not fully trust their own judgment, recognizing the possibility that there may be responses to their reasoning of which they are unaware. Such a person is nevertheless obligated to follow the opinion that appears stronger to him, without claiming for himself the rank of ijtihād.”^[7]

If someone were to object by saying: “But Ibn Rajab authored a treatise entitled al-Radd ʿalá man Ittabaʿ Ghayr al-Madhāhib al-Arbaʿah (A Refutation of Those Who Follow Other Than the Four Legal Schools),” the response is that this represents Ibn Rajab’s own juristic reasoning, may Allah have mercy upon him. His opinion is no more authoritative than that of Al-Qāḍī ʿIyāḍ, Ibn Taymiyyah, al-Dhahabī, and others. Although Ibn Rajab’s treatise presents a sound argument, namely, that the student of knowledge should not formally adhere to a legal school other than the four because the legal doctrines of the earlier scholars have not been preserved with sufficient precision, this is indeed a valid point, and in fact the correct one. However, to make the unrestricted claim that a discerning jurist may never depart from the four legal schools under any circumstances is open to question.

Moreover, Ibn Rajab himself did not consistently adhere to such a principle. In his Fatḥ al-Bārī, he adopted certain opinions that differ from all four legal schools, including the view that a person who deliberately abandons the prescribed prayers is not required to make them up later.^[8]

Second Perspective:

The Najdī scholars, from the time of Shaykh Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhāb until the era of Shaykh Muḥammad ibn Ibrāhīm, adhered to the Ḥanbalī legal school and rejected departing from it except in a limited number of issues, none of which involved departing from the four Sunni legal schools. Shaykh ʿAbdullāh mentioned these exceptions in his letter to the scholars of Makkah. Indeed, the Najdī scholars of that period declined to follow Ibn Taymiyyah in those matters in which he differed from the four legal schools, such as his opinion that a triple divorce pronounced in a single utterance counts as only one divorce.

Shaykh ʿAbdullāh ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhāb states:

“We hold that Imam Ibn al-Qayyim and his teacher are true Imams from among Ahl al-Sunnah, and their books are among the most cherished works in our possession. Nevertheless, we do not imitate them in every issue. It is well known that we differ with them in several matters, including the ruling on a triple divorce pronounced in a single utterance during one sitting. In that matter, we uphold the position of the four Imams.”^[9]

Moreover, the Salafis made substantial contributions to the Islamic scholarly tradition through their service to the legal school by producing marginal commentaries (ḥawāshī) and high-caliber critical editions. Among these works are Ibn Māniʿ’s marginal commentary on Dalīl al-Ṭālib, al-ʿAnqarī’s marginal commentary on al-Rawḍ, and Abā Baṭayn’s marginal commentary on Muntahá al-Irādāt, which spans ten large volumes.

Nothing demonstrates this more clearly than the statement of Ibn Ḥumayd, one of the foremost opponents of the Salafi daʿwa, who wrote in the biography of the Najdī scholar Abā Baṭayn:

“ʿAbdullāh ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Abā Baṭayn was, without dispute, the leading jurist of Najd in the thirteenth century AH... With his passing, true scholarly verification within the legal school of Imam Aḥmad was lost. He was unparalleled in this field and represented the pinnacle of meticulous juristic verification, having reached its utmost limit.”^[10]

This testimony comes from a Ḥanbalī jurist who opposed the Salafi daʿwah. How, then, can it be claimed that the Salafis departed from the four Sunni legal schools?!

The point of the foregoing discussion is that it cannot reasonably be claimed that the Salafis are responsible for juristic disorder. From the very inception of their movement, they adhered fully to a recognized legal school. It was only after the death of Shaykh Muḥammad ibn Ibrāhīm, when Shaykh Ibn Bāz assumed the office of issuing legal verdicts (fatwas), that the practice of iftāʾ began to follow an approach based on ijtihād and selecting between the various legal schools. Formal instruction, however, remained rooted in the established legal school, while incorporating the weighing of evidence (tarjīḥ) and discussion of differing scholarly opinions.

Their methodological approach following the era of Shaykh Muḥammad ibn Ibrāhīm was driven by a number of factors and considerations related to increasing openness, modern developments, the practical difficulty of issuing legal verdicts exclusively according to a single legal school, the emergence of Islamic economics as a field that was not confined to any one madhhab, and other reasons whose detailed discussion falls beyond the scope of this study.

Third Perspective:

This call for ijtihād and for departing from the four Sunni legal schools did not originate within Salafi circles. Rather, one of its foremost proponents was the Sufi Imam Walī Allah Shāh al-Dihlawī (d. 1176 AH), may Allah have mercy upon him, the author of Ḥujjat Allah al-Bālighah and ʿIqd al-Jīd fī Aḥkām al-Ijtihād wal-Taqlīd. The movement then gained greater momentum with the emergence of al-Amīr al-Ṣanʿānī, followed by al-Shawkānī, Ṣiddīq Ḥasan Khān al-Qannūjī, and others.

Their call profoundly influenced numerous scholarly traditions despite their differing theological orientations. Its impact extended to Salafis, Ashʿarīs, and Māturīdīs alike. The following are examples of this:

1- Al-Azhar itself adopted the path of ijtihād and cast off the burdens of rigid taqlīd under the influence of these reformist calls. The distinguished scholar Shaykh ʿAbd al-Fattāḥ al-Ḥusaynī, may Allah have mercy upon him—former President of Al-Azhar University and former member of the Council of Senior Scholars—authored a work outlining Al-Azhar’s methodology in jurisprudence. In it, he explained that Al-Azhar had long since abandoned sectarian adherence to a particular legal school, refuted the claim that the gate of ijtihād had been closed, and also criticized the authors of the later marginal commentaries (ḥawāshī).^[11]

The Islamic Research Academy at Al-Azhar also published a treatise entitled Naqḍ Daʿwā Buṭlān Ittibāʿ Ghayr al-Madhāhib al-Arbaʿah (Refuting the Claim That Following Other Than the Four Legal Schools Is Invalid), prepared by the Committee for Juristic Studies of the Council of Senior Scholars at Al-Azhar.^[12]

In this work, the authors examine the claim that one must confine oneself exclusively to the four legal schools and demonstrate the invalidity of that assertion. Notably, this publication was issued under the authority of Al-Azhar’s highest scholarly body.

The obvious question, then, is this: Why is a particular group singled out for criticism when this is an issue in which they hold no unique or exclusive position?

Nor was this development confined to the school of Shaykh Muḥammad ʿAbduh. Rather, it became a broader trend within Al-Azhar. Many Azharī scholars who adopted the path of ijtihād cannot be classified as belonging to the school of Muḥammad ʿAbduh. Among them are the distinguished scholar Muḥammad Bakr Ismāʿīl, author of al-Fiqh al-Wāḍiḥ; Shaykh al-Sayyid Sābiq, author of Fiqh al-Sunnah; and Shaykh ʿAṭiyyah Ṣaqr, in his Fatāwá, among others. Nevertheless, none of them confined their writings or legal verdicts to a single legal school.

2- Shaykh Aḥmad al-Ṣiddīq al-Ghumārī laid the theoretical foundations for departing from the four Sunni legal schools and criticized rigid adherence to them in his work al-Iqlīd fī Tanzīl Kitāb Allah ʿalá Ahl al-Taqlīd. He went so far as to apply Qur’anic verses revealed concerning the disbelievers and polytheists to those who practice blind imitation (taqlīd) and rigid adherence to a particular legal school.

His brother, Shaykh ʿAbdullāh ibn al-Ṣiddīq al-Ghumārī, likewise followed this approach by affirming the permissibility of departing from the four legal schools and criticizing the later scholars. He also wrote a commendation (taqrīẓ) for his brother Aḥmad al-Ghumārī’s book al-Iqnāʿ bi-Ṣiḥḥat Ṣalāt al-Jumuʿah fī al-Manzil Khalf al-Midhyāʿ (Establishing the Validity of Performing the Friday Prayer at Home Behind the Radio), a work in which Aḥmad advanced a position that departed from the overwhelming consensus of scholars.

ʿAbdullāh al-Ghumārī states, criticizing rigid adherence to the four legal schools:

“Most of the conditions that the Imams stipulated for the establishment or validity of the Friday prayer—such as requiring it to be held in a settled city (miṣr), requiring a specific minimum number of attendees, requiring it to be held in a mosque, or prohibiting multiple Friday congregations, among other conditions—have no basis in the Qur’an or the Sunnah. Whoever carefully examines the books of Sunnah, the works of prophetic biography (siyar), and the books of transmitted Qur’anic exegesis (tafsīr bi al-maʾthūr) will find reports of the Friday prayer being established and considered valid outside settled cities and without the requirement of a specific number, whether forty, thirty, twelve, or otherwise... These conditions that we have mentioned, along with others found throughout the jurisprudential works of the four legal schools, have no support or corroboration from either the Qur’an or the Sunnah, except perhaps for certain reports from some of the Companions.”^[13]

The al-Ghumārī brothers made remarkably strong criticisms of the four legal schools, criticisms unprecedented among earlier scholars. They are of the same general nature as the objections that critics level against certain Salafi shaykhs who departed from the established legal schools in only a handful of issues that can be counted on one hand. Why, then, are the Salafis singled out in a manner that suggests they are the cause of juristic disorder, while others are exalted in a way that implies they are steadfast adherents of the legal schools?

Furthermore, what demonstrates that this issue is not truly motivated by concern for scholarship or the preservation of the religion—as they claim—is that many of the critics themselves adopt opinions that depart from the four Sunni legal schools. Indeed, many, if not most, contemporary Ashʿarīs hold that musical instruments are permissible, citing the dissenting opinions of Ibn Ḥazm and al-Shawkānī as justification. This is also the official position adopted by the Egyptian Dār al-Iftāʾ and other institutions. One may therefore ask the critic: Why did you adopt the opinion of Ibn Ḥazm in this issue while condemning the Salafis for adopting his opinions in other issues, when the underlying principle is exactly the same?

Thus, those who reproach the Salafis for adopting these juristic opinions—opinions in which earlier scholars preceded them—fall into the very same type of conduct they criticize. Examples include permitting women to hold the offices of head of state and judge, prohibiting all forms of female circumcision, permitting bank interest despite the unanimous position of the major fiqh academies that it is prohibited, permitting friendships between unrelated men and women, allowing men to look at immodestly dressed women, and numerous other anomalous legal opinions that were endorsed neither by the four Imams nor by jurists outside the four legal schools.

In an attempt to escape this inconsistency, some respond by saying: “We do not accept these opinions held by our own scholars.” Yet this does not absolve them of the inconsistency. They did not denounce their own scholars with the same severity that they directed toward the Salafis, nor did they portray these legal verdicts as a cause of division within the Muslim community in the way they accused the Salafis of doing. Rather, as the poet said:

The bullets of one whom you love are gold,
While the gold of one with whom you are displeased is but lead.

Second Section: The Juristic Issues That Critics Have Raised Against Certain Salafi Scholars

We shall confine ourselves to a number of the issues cited by one of the critics, who claimed that contemporary Salafis have departed from both the four Sunni legal schools and scholarly consensus (ijmāʿ).

1. The Question of Whether One Who Deliberately Abandons the Prayer Must Make Up the Missed Prayers

Many Salafi scholars maintain that a person who deliberately abandons the prescribed prayers and subsequently repents is not required to make up the missed prayers. Rather, he should increase his performance of voluntary prayers (nawāfil). This differs from the majority opinion, which obligates him to make up the missed prayers.

The critic claimed that this position is contrary to consensus (ijmāʿ). This assertion is mistaken and reflects a limited familiarity with the range of scholarly opinions. In fact, this was the position of al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī, al-Ḥumaydī, and some of the early Shāfiʿī and Ḥanbalī scholars, such as Ibn Baṭṭah and al-Barbahārī. It was also adopted by Ibn Ḥazm and Ibn Taymiyyah, and inclined to by al-Ḥāfiẓ Ibn Rajab, as will be discussed.

Al-Mardāwī states:

“Whoever has missed prescribed prayers is required to make them up immediately. This is the established position of the Ḥanbalī school, explicitly stated in its authoritative texts. It is the view of the overwhelming majority of our scholars, and many of them affirmed it unequivocally. However, Shaykh Taqī al-Dīn [Ibn Taymiyyah] held that if one who deliberately abandoned the prayer repents, it is neither legislated for him to make up those prayers nor would such make-up prayers be valid. Rather, he should increase his performance of voluntary acts of worship. The same applies to fasting. Ibn Rajab said in his Sharḥ al-Bukhārī: ‘It appears in the statements of a number of our early companions that performing those prayers after deliberately abandoning them is not sufficient.’”^[14]

Al-Ḥāfiẓ Ibn Rajab states:

“The position of the Ẓāhirī school, or at least the majority of its adherents, is that there is no obligation to make up prayers deliberately abandoned. This view has also been attributed to ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, a companion of al-Shāfiʿī in Iraq, and to Ibn Bint al-Shāfiʿī. It was likewise the opinion of Abū Bakr al-Ḥumaydī regarding both fasting and prayer: that if they are deliberately abandoned, making them up afterward is of no benefit. He mentioned this in his creed at the end of his Musnad. Similar statements are also found among a number of our early Ḥanbalī scholars, including al-Jawzajānī, Abū Muḥammad al-Barbahārī, and Ibn Baṭṭah.

Ibn Baṭṭah states:

“Know that the prescribed prayers have appointed times. Whoever performs a prayer before its prescribed time has not fulfilled an obligatory prayer, whether he has an excuse or not. Likewise, whoever deliberately delays it beyond its prescribed time without a valid excuse has not fulfilled an obligatory prayer.”

He thus regarded a prayer performed after its prescribed time without a valid excuse as analogous to one performed before its prescribed time, saying of both that “it is not an obligatory prayer,” meaning that in both cases it is counted only as a voluntary prayer.

Al-Barbahārī likewise states:

“Allah accepts none of the prescribed prayers unless they are performed within their appointed times, except in the case of forgetfulness, for such a person is excused...”

How, then, can consensus (ijmāʿ) be claimed when al-Ḥasan [al-Baṣrī]—despite his immense stature, distinction, vast knowledge, asceticism, and piety—held a contrary opinion? Indeed, there is no known report from any of the Companions stating that one who deliberately abandons the prayer is obligated to make it up. Nor have I found any explicit statement from the Tābiʿūn on this issue, except from al-Nakhaʿī. Numerous reports have been transmitted from the early generations stating that the prayer of one who deliberately abandons the prescribed prayer is not accepted. Among them is the report from al-Ṣiddīq, may Allah be pleased with him, who said to ʿUmar in his final counsel:

“Indeed, Allah has a right due during the night that He does not accept during the day, and a right due during the day that He does not accept during the night.”

By this, he was referring to the prescribed prayers of the night and the day.^[15]

The following may be inferred from Ibn Rajab’s discussion:

The view that one who deliberately abandons the prayer is not required to make up the missed prayers was held by al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī, certain companions of al-Shāfiʿī, and a number of the early Ḥanbalī scholars, including al-Barbahārī, Ibn Baṭṭah, and al-Jawzajānī. Where, then, is the alleged consensus (ijmāʿ)?

For this reason, Ibn Rajab rejected this supposed consensus, saying: “How can consensus be established when al-Ḥasan—despite his immense stature, distinction, virtue, and vast knowledge—held a contrary opinion?!”

In summary, we do not dispute that the four Sunni legal schools are agreed that a person who deliberately abandons the prescribed prayers is obligated to make them up. Rather, what we dispute is the claim that this agreement constitutes a binding scholarly consensus (ijmāʿ). As has already been demonstrated, Ibn Rajab’s own statements establish the invalidity of that claim.

2. The Question of the Prohibition of Letting One’s Garment Hang Below the Ankles (Isbāl)

The majority of scholars hold that allowing one’s garment to hang below the ankles without arrogance (khuyalāʾ) is not prohibited. They differed, however, as to whether it is merely disliked (makrūh) or permissible (mubāḥ). A number of Mālikī scholars—including al-Qāḍī ʿIyāḍ, Ibn al-ʿArabī, and al-Qarāfī—held that it is prohibited.

Ibn al-ʿArabī states:

“It is not permissible for a man to let his garment extend below his ankles and then say, ‘I do not do so out of arrogance,’ because the prohibition encompasses him both by its wording and by its underlying rationale. It is not permissible for someone to claim that the wording of the text applies while asserting that its ruling does not because its rationale is absent in his case. Such a claim is a departure from the Sharīʿah and an assertion that cannot be accepted. Indeed, it is out of arrogance that he lengthens his garment and lower wrap, and his falsehood in this regard is manifest beyond doubt.”^[16]

Al-ʿAdawī transmitted the Mālikī disagreement on this issue in his marginal commentary, where he states:

“In summary, the textual evidence appears to conflict regarding garments extending below the ankles without the intention of arrogance. Al-Ḥaṭṭāb’s discussion implies that this is not prohibited but merely disliked, whereas the implication of al-Dhakhīrah is that it is prohibited. The apparent conclusion is that the position which ought to be adopted is that of severe reprehensibility (al-karāhah al-shadīdah).”^[17]

Among the Shāfiʿī scholars, some—including al-Dhahabī and al-Ḥāfiẓ Ibn Ḥajar—also adopted the view that letting one’s garment hang below the ankles is prohibited.

Al-Dhahabī states in response to one who lets his lower garment hang below his ankles and says, “I do not do so out of arrogance”:

“You see him obstinately arguing and exonerating his foolish self. He takes a clear, general text and seeks to qualify it by means of another independent ḥadīth concerning arrogance. He further seeks justification through the statement of al-Ṣiddīq, who said: ‘O Messenger of Allah, my lower garment sometimes slips down,’ to which the Prophet ﷺ replied: ‘You are not among those who do so out of arrogance, O Abū Bakr.’

We say: Abū Bakr, may Allah be pleased with him, did not originally fasten his lower garment so that it hung below his ankles. Rather, he tied it above the ankles, after which it would occasionally slip down. Moreover, the Prophet ﷺ said: ‘The lower garment of the believer should reach the middle of his shins, and there is no blame if it extends anywhere between that and the ankles.’ Accordingly, the same prohibition applies to one who tailors trousers that cover his ankles, as well as to excessively long sleeves. All of this stems from a concealed arrogance residing within the soul.”^[18]

Ibn Ḥajar, may Allah have mercy upon him, states:

“In summary, letting the garment hang below the ankles necessarily entails dragging it, and dragging the garment necessarily entails arrogance, even if the wearer does not consciously intend arrogance. This is further supported by the report transmitted by Aḥmad ibn Manīʿ through another chain from Ibn ʿUmar, in the course of a ḥadīth which he attributed to the Prophet ﷺ: ‘Beware of dragging your lower garment, for dragging the lower garment is an act of arrogance.’”^[19]

Fairness requires it to be said that the opinions of the two eminent ḥadīth scholars, al-Ḥāfiẓ al-Dhahabī and al-Ḥāfiẓ Ibn Ḥajar, do not represent the authoritative position (muʿtamad) of the Shāfiʿī legal school. The established position of a madhhab is determined by its jurists, not by its specialists in ḥadīth.

Al-Ṣanʿānī, may Allah have mercy upon him, likewise adopted the view that letting one’s garment hang below the ankles is prohibited. He authored a treatise on the subject entitled Istīfāʾ al-Aqwāl fī Taḥrīm al-Isbāl ʿalá al-Rijāl (A Comprehensive Survey of the Opinions Regarding the Prohibition of Isbāl for Men). The majority of Salafi scholars agreed with his conclusion.

As for the evidence they cite from Ibn Taymiyyah’s Sharḥ al-ʿUmdah, claiming that he regarded isbāl as merely disliked rather than prohibited, it should be noted that Sharḥ al-ʿUmdah was composed by Ibn Taymiyyah during the early part of his scholarly career. In that work, he adhered to the Ḥanbalī legal school, as noted by the editor of the published edition.^[20] It therefore does not represent Ibn Taymiyyah’s mature and settled position.

Indeed, Shaykh al-Islām was later asked the following question:

“If a person’s trousers extend below the ankles, is this permissible?”

He replied:

“With respect to the length of a shirt, trousers, or any other garment, it is not permissible for a person to allow it to extend below the ankles, as established by the authentic ḥadīths from the Prophet ﷺ. He also said: ‘Isbāl applies to trousers, the lower garment (izār), and the shirt,’ meaning that he prohibited isbāl.”^[21]

He also states:

“As for what Abū al-Ḥasan al-Āmidī and Ibn ʿAqīl mentioned—that sadl refers to letting one’s garment hang so low that it extends beyond the feet and drags along the ground, thereby making it identical to the prohibited practice of isbāl and dragging the garment—this is a mistaken view that contradicts the position of the overwhelming majority of scholars. Although isbāl and dragging the garment are prohibited by consensus, and the ḥadīths concerning them are more numerous, and the correct opinion is that they are prohibited (muḥarram), this is nevertheless not what sadl means.”^[22]

Reflect upon his statement: “the correct opinion is that it is prohibited.” Had he intended only the case of arrogance, he would not have employed the phrase “the correct opinion,” since the prohibition of arrogance itself is a matter of consensus.

The foregoing has been presented simply to clarify Ibn Taymiyyah’s settled position on this issue. Nevertheless, this does not affect the legitimacy of scholarly disagreement in the matter, for it is unquestionably one in which differing opinions are considered acceptable.

In summary, Salafi scholars were preceded in holding the view that letting one’s garment hang below the ankles is prohibited by a number of Mālikī and Shāfiʿī jurists. Indeed, some of them—such as Ibn al-ʿArabī and al-Dhahabī, as previously demonstrated—even rejected the claim of those who practiced isbāl that they did not do so out of arrogance. Accordingly, the position adopted by Salafi jurists on this issue is a legitimate and recognized scholarly opinion, and there is no justification for ridiculing it.

3. The Purity of Human Blood

The critic claims that Salafi scholars maintain that human blood is ritually pure (ṭāhir), following al-Shawkānī, in contradiction to the alleged scholarly consensus that human blood is impure (najis). This claim may be answered from several perspectives.

First: This sweeping assertion is incorrect. Rather, the majority of contemporary Salafi jurists hold that human blood is ritually impure.

Shaykh Ibn Bāz, may Allah have mercy upon him, states:

“All blood is impure (najis): the blood of animals and the blood of human beings alike, provided that it is flowing blood (masfūḥ). However, if it is only a small amount—such as a few drops that come into contact with a person from a slaughtered animal or from another human being—it is excused, according to the soundest opinion among the scholars.”^[23]

Shaykh Ibn Jibrīn, may Allah have mercy upon him, likewise states:

“As for the reports from the Companions, they do not establish the ritual purity of blood. Rather, they indicate only that small amounts of blood are excused and that bleeding does not invalidate ablution. As for the prayer of ʿUmar and others while their blood was flowing, this was due to necessity and their inability to stop the bleeding. Their case is therefore analogous to one who suffers from chronic urinary incontinence or a similar condition involving a continuous state of ritual impurity.”^[24]

As for those who held that human blood is ritually pure, they include Shaykh al-Albānī and Shaykh Ibn ʿUthaymīn, may Allah have mercy upon them both. This opinion, however, was rejected by many Salafi scholars.^[25]

Among the statements issued in a fatwá by al-Shabakah al-Islāmiyyah is the following:

“Some later scholars have adopted the view that human blood is ritually pure, and it is the view toward which the distinguished scholar Ibn ʿUthaymīn inclines. However, the opinion upon which we issue fatwas is that blood is ritually impure. This is the position of the overwhelming majority of scholars, and more than one scholar has transmitted consensus on the matter. Upon reviewing these discussions, it becomes clear that Imam Aḥmad, Ibn Ḥazm, al-Nawawī, and others all reported agreement regarding the impurity of blood. We are therefore not at liberty to oppose these transmitted consensuses, regardless of the stature or scholarly rank of those who dissent.”^[26]

In summary, it is not valid to attribute the independent juristic reasoning of a particular scholar indiscriminately to Salafi jurists as a whole.

4. The Question of Pronouncing Triple Divorce in a Single Utterance

The majority of scholars—including the four Sunni legal schools—as well as the majority of the Companions and the Tābiʿūn, held that pronouncing a triple divorce in a single utterance constitutes three effective divorces. Some scholars even reported this as a matter of consensus (ijmāʿ).

Shaykh al-Islām Ibn Taymiyyah, however, disputed the existence of such a consensus. He maintained that a triple divorce pronounced in a single utterance counts as only one divorce. He attributed this position to many of the leading scholars of the Salaf, and it was also the view of Isḥāq ibn Rāhawayh and others. Muḥammad ibn Naṣr al-Marwazī states:

“Isḥāq used to say that a triple divorce pronounced to a previously unmarried woman counts as only one divorce. He interpreted the ḥadīth narrated by Ṭāwūs from Ibn ʿAbbās—‘During the lifetime of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, the caliphate of Abū Bakr, and the first part of ʿUmar’s caliphate, a triple divorce was treated as one’—in accordance with this view.”^[27]

Ibn Taymiyyah supported his position with a number of evidences, including the narration recorded by Muslim from Ibn ʿAbbās, may Allah be pleased with them both, who said:

“During the lifetime of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, the caliphate of Abū Bakr, and the first two years of ʿUmar’s caliphate, a triple divorce was counted as one. Then ʿUmar said: ‘The people have become hasty in a matter in which they were previously given respite. If only we were to enforce it against them.’ So he enforced it upon them.”^[28]

Ibn Mufliḥ states:

“Our Shaykh did not regard a divorce pronounced while the wife was menstruating, or during a period of purity in which intercourse had occurred, as effective. Likewise, where three divorces were pronounced together, or separately before any reconciliation (rajʿah) had taken place, he counted them as only one divorce. He said that he knew of no one who differentiated between these two situations, and he attributed this view to his grandfather as well.”^[29]

Among the later authorities of the Ḥanbalī school who permitted following Ibn Taymiyyah’s opinion were Marʿī al-Karmī^[30] and al-Ruḥaybānī.^[31]

His position has also been adopted by contemporary fiqh academies and fatwá institutions throughout the Islamic world—including Al-Azhar—because of the ease and relief it provides for Muslims.

The Ḥanafī scholar Badr al-Dīn al-ʿAynī states:

“The position adopted by Ibn Taymiyyah concerning the issues of visitation and divorce was nothing other than the product of a valid exercise of ijtihād, by scholarly agreement. A mujtahid in either case is rewarded and deserving of recompense. There is therefore nothing in his position that warrants blame or reproach. Rather, what drove his opponents was their manifest envy and evident malice. As for the envious person, the final sūrah of the Qur’an is sufficient condemnation, for he burns inwardly with the anguish of his own envy.”^[32]

The purpose here is not to present an exhaustive treatment of the issue, but merely to point out that Ibn Taymiyyah was not the first to hold this opinion.

In Summary:

Citing a handful of contemporary juristic opinions as evidence for the alleged invalidity of the Salafi methodology is a fallacy into which no fair-minded researcher should fall.

The call to ijtihād was advanced by figures such as Imam al-Dihlawī, al-Ṣanʿānī, al-Shawkānī, and others, and it influenced a wide range of scholarly traditions, including Al-Azhar, the scholars of the Indian subcontinent, the Maghrib, and others, as has already been demonstrated.

The Najdī scholars explicitly affirmed adherence to a recognized legal school (tamadhhub), emphasized that one should not depart from the four Sunni legal schools, and regarded ijtihād as permissible only within defined conditions and constraints.

The juristic opinions adopted by some Salafi scholars that differ from the four legal schools are relatively few. Even in those cases, no scholarly consensus (ijmāʿ) exists. As for those isolated opinions that are genuinely anomalous, Salafi scholars themselves refuted them before anyone else did.

Most of the criticisms directed by opponents at the Salafis regarding legal verdicts can be found—often in even more pronounced forms—among the scholars whom those same critics themselves follow.

Every scholar’s opinion may be accepted or rejected. There is therefore nothing objectionable in the fact that some scholars err in matters of ijtihād, just as others do. Such errors do not impugn a scholar’s integrity, knowledge, or virtue, provided that the error itself is acknowledged and identified.

May Allah send His prayers and peace upon our Prophet Muḥammad, his family, and his Companions.

^[1] Ghāyat al-Muntahá (2/565).

^[2] Maṭālib Ulī al-Nuhá (6/447).

^[3] Siyar Aʿlām al-Nubalāʾ (18/191).

^[4] Siyar Aʿlām al-Nubalāʾ (8/92).

^[5] Zaghl al-ʿIlm (p. 36).

^[6] Ṣifat al-Muftī wal-Mustaftī (p. 156).

^[7] Al-Fatāwá al-Kubrá (5/556).

^[8] See: Fatḥ al-Bārī (3/350–360).

^[9] Risālah fī al-Mubāḥathah Maʿa ʿUlamāʾ Makkah (pp. 85–86).

^[10] Al-Suḥub al-Wābilah ʿalá Ḍarāʾiḥ al-Ḥanābilah (2/257).

^[11] See: Kitāb Fiqh al-ʿIbādāt, by Dr. ʿAbd al-Fattāḥ al-Ḥusaynī (pp. 145–165).

^[12] Supplement to Majallat al-Azhar, Muḥarram 1441 AH issue.

^[13] ʿAbdullāh al-Ghumārī’s commendation (taqrīẓ) of the book Al-Iqnāʿ bi Ṣiḥḥat Ṣalāt al-Jumuʿah fī al-Manzil Khalf al-Midhyāʿ (p. 2).

^[14] Al-Inṣāf (1/443).

^[15] Fatḥ al-Bārī (3/350–360).

^[16] ʿĀriḍat al-Aḥwadhī (7/238).

^[17] Ḥāshiyat al-ʿAdawī (2/453).

^[18] Siyar Aʿlām al-Nubalāʾ (3/234).

^[19] Fatḥ al-Bārī (10/322).

^[20] See the editor’s introduction to Sharḥ al-ʿUmdah (p. 17), ʿĀlam al-Fawāʾid and ʿAṭāʾāt al-ʿIlm edition.

^[21] Majmūʿ al-Fatāwá (22/144).

^[22] Iqtiḍāʾ al-Ṣirāṭ al-Mustaqīm (1/383).

^[23] See the complete fatwá on the Shaykh’s website:

https://binbaz.org.sa/fatwas/15229/%D8%AD%D9%83%D9%85-%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%85%D8%B5%D9%84%D9%8A-%D8%A7%D8%B0%D8%A7-%D8%AA%D8%A8%D9%8A%D9%86-%D9%84%D9%87-%D9%86%D8%AC%D8%A7%D8%B3%D8%A9-%D9%81%D9%8A-%D8%AB%D9%8A%D8%A7%D8%A8%D9%87-%D9%88%D8%AD%D9%83%D9%85-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%AF%D9%85

^[24] Ibn Jibrīn’s commentary on Sharḥ al-Zarkashī ʿalá Mukhtaṣar al-Khiraqī (2/41).

^[25] See, for example, the article entitled: Al-Qawl bi-Ṭahārat Dam al-Ādamī wal-Tashkīk fī al-Ijmāʿ ʿalá Najāsatih.

https://anasalafy.com/ar/51777-%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%82%D9%88%D9%84-%D8%A8%D8%B7%D9%87%D8%A7%D8%B1%D8%A9-%D8%AF%D9%85-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A2%D8%AF%D9%85%D9%8A-%D9%88%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%AA%D8%B4%D9%83%D9%8A%D9%83-%D9%81%D9%8A-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A5%D8%AC%D9%85%D8%A7%D8%B9

^[26] See the fatwá:

https://www.islamweb.net/ar/fatwa/364270/%D8%AF%D9%85-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A2%D8%AF%D9%85%D9%8A-%D9%86%D8%AC%D8%B3-%D8%A3%D9%85-%D8%B7%D8%A7%D9%87%D8%B1

^[27] Ikhtilāf al-ʿUlamāʾ (p. 133).

^[28] Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim (1473).

^[29] Al-Furūʿ (9/19). See also: Al-Inṣāf by al-Mardāwī (8/334).

^[30] See: Ghāyat al-Muntahá by Marʿī al-Karmī (2/565).

^[31] See: Maṭālib Ulī al-Nuhá (6/447).

^[32] See: Al-Shahādah al-Zakiyyah by Shaykh Marʿī al-Karmī (p. 67).

The relationship between miracles and the truth of prophethood occupies a central place in Islamic theology. A person who claims to have been sent by God cannot be accepted merely because he makes the claim. There must be evidence by which a truthful messenger can be distinguished from a liar, a magician, a soothsayer, or another person who produces unusual phenomena. Muslim theologians therefore devoted considerable attention to the nature of the miracle, the conditions under which an event qualifies as a prophetic sign, and the precise way in which such a sign establishes the truthfulness of the person at whose hands it appears.

In Dalālat al-Muʿjizah ʿalá Ṣidq al-Nubuwwah ʿinda al-Ashāʿirah: Qirāʾah Naqdiyyah (The Indication of the Miracle to the Truth of Prophethood According to the Ashʿarīs: A Critical Study), Dr. ʿAbd Allah ibn Muḥammad al-Qarnī examines the Ashʿarī theory of miracles and the theological foundations upon which it rests. His concern is not whether Ashʿarī theologians accepted miracles as evidence for prophethood. They clearly did, and many of them treated the miracle as the principal or even exclusive proof of a prophet’s truthfulness. His concern is whether their wider commitments concerning causality, the properties of created things, and the meaning of customary occurrence allowed them to explain coherently what a miracle is, how it differs from magic and other extraordinary events, and why its occurrence indicates that a claimant to prophethood is truthful.

The book is accordingly not a general introduction to miracles, nor a simple collection of Ashʿarī definitions. It is an integrated criticism of a theological method. Al-Qarnī attempts to identify the foundational principles from which the Ashʿarī theory proceeds, trace the consequences that follow from those principles, and present what he regards as a more coherent account of prophetic evidence. The discussion moves through three main questions. First, are miracles the only means by which prophethood may be known? Second, what effect does the Ashʿarī denial of causality and the inherent properties of created things have upon the concept of a miracle? Third, does the Ashʿarī method of requiring a prophetic claim, a challenge, and freedom from opposition successfully establish the miracle’s indication of prophethood?

The Need to Combine Exposition and Criticism

Al-Qarnī opens by explaining that a sound study of miracles must rest upon two complementary foundations. The first is careful conceptual exposition. The reality of the miracle must be defined, its meaning and forms clarified, its relevant fields identified, and the efforts of scholars who treated the subject examined. The second is disciplined criticism. The different ancient and modern theories concerning miracles must be tested against the reality they claim to explain, because an error in defining the miracle will inevitably affect the argument by which prophethood is established.

Neither task can replace the other. A detailed exposition without criticism may simply reproduce a defective theory. A criticism that does not first understand the position in its full structure may attack a caricature. Al-Qarnī therefore seeks to join reconstruction and evaluation. He presents the Ashʿarī position through the statements of major theologians, identifies the broader doctrinal principles that shaped it, and then traces the consequences of those principles for the proof of prophecy.

He emphasizes that the discussion cannot be isolated from the philosophical and theological heritage surrounding causality, nature, and divine action. The various intellectual schools did not approach miracles as an independent subject untouched by their wider commitments. Their theories of causes and effects, the properties of bodies, the regularity of the world, and the relation of created powers to God’s will all influenced the way they defined a miracle and explained its evidential force.

Among these schools, al-Qarnī regards the Ashʿarī tradition as especially influential. Its formulations did not remain confined to specialist books of kalām. They entered Qurʾānic exegesis, ḥadīth commentary, the sciences of ḥadīth, Arabic language, and other fields. As a result, many later scholars and contemporary researchers repeated Ashʿarī definitions of the miracle and its conditions without examining the theological premises upon which those definitions depended. The purpose of the book is therefore to return to those premises and ask whether they provide a stable foundation for distinguishing a prophetic miracle from every other extraordinary occurrence.

The introduction identifies the author’s principal thesis. In his account, the Ashʿarī denial of causality and the properties of created things made it difficult for Ashʿarī theologians to define the miracle through a genuine difference between it and other phenomena. They consequently treated the miracle, magic, saintly wonders, soothsaying, and similar events as members of the broad category of violations of custom. Because the events were not adequately distinguished in their essential realities, the Ashʿarīs had to distinguish them by adding external conditions, such as a claim to prophethood, a challenge, and the absence of successful opposition. Al-Qarnī intends to argue that these conditions do not solve the original problem and that the proof of prophecy must instead be grounded in an affirmation of real created properties and a divinely governed causal order.

The book is divided accordingly into three substantive investigations. The first concerns the place of the miracle among the evidences of prophethood. The second concerns causality and miracles in Ashʿarī theology. The third concerns the Ashʿarī method of inferring prophethood from a miracle and the conditions placed upon that inference. The results and recommendations at the end gather the conclusions reached throughout the three discussions.

Are Miracles the Only Proof of Prophethood?

The first major question concerns the position assigned to miracles within the broader body of prophetic evidence. Al-Qarnī identifies two tendencies among Ashʿarī theologians. Most restricted the proof of prophethood to the miracle. Others recognized additional indications, such as the prophet’s character, conduct, and prior scriptural prophecies, but treated them as supplementary rather than independently sufficient.

Al-Qarnī does not dispute that miracles prove prophethood. His criticism is directed at the claim that prophethood can be known by no other means. The validity and importance of the miracle do not require the denial of every other evidence. In his view, the truthfulness of prophets may be known through many converging and sometimes independently decisive signs.

The Position Restricting the Proof to Miracles

Abū Bakr al-Bāqillānī is presented as one of the clearest representatives of the restrictive position. He states that the truthfulness of a claimant to prophethood is not established by the bare claim but by miracles. In another formulation, he maintains that no evidence separates the truthful claimant from the liar except the miraculous signs associated with his mission.

Imām al-Ḥaramayn al-Juwaynī advances the same general conclusion. He asks whether a prophet’s truthfulness may be established by something other than a miracle and answers that this is impossible. Any proposed sign, he argues, must be either customary or extraordinary. If it is customary, it cannot distinguish the truthful claimant from the liar because ordinary events occur for both. If it is extraordinary but bears no relation to the prophetic claim, it likewise fails to prove the claim. What remains is an extraordinary event created by God in connection with the claim and serving as divine confirmation.

Al-Taftāzānī similarly states that the means of proving prophethood to one who denies it is the miracle and nothing else. Al-Qarnī also cites an Ashʿarī creed attributed to al-Aṣfahānī, which declares that the proof of the prophets’ prophethood is their miracles, while the particular proof of Muḥammad’s prophethood is the Qurʾān, miraculous in its composition and meaning.

Al-Qarnī considers the restriction invalid. A miracle is certainly a sound proof, but the truth of that proposition does not establish that every other route to knowledge of prophethood is impossible. The author therefore turns to an alternative account, especially as articulated in Sharḥ al-ʿAqīdah al-Ṭaḥāwiyyah. The cited discussion acknowledges that the common method among many theologians is to establish prophethood through miracles and notes that many of them consequently claim it can be known in no other way. It then rejects this limitation.

A person claiming prophethood must be either among the most truthful people or among the greatest liars. The difference between these two extremes cannot remain entirely hidden except from someone profoundly ignorant. The claimant’s conduct, character, message, followers, opponents, and the effects of his mission offer many ways of distinguishing truthfulness from falsehood. Human beings ordinarily recognize truthful and dishonest people through the totality of their words, deeds, circumstances, and enduring patterns of conduct. A prophetic claimant is not exempt from this rational form of judgment.

The Prophet’s Character, Message, and Historical Circumstances

Al-Qarnī argues that the life of a truthful prophet cannot resemble the life of a fraudulent claimant in every relevant respect. Prophethood is the highest of human stations, while falsely claiming revelation from God is among the greatest forms of lying. The true prophet must therefore be among the best of people, whereas the false claimant must be among the worst. Their moral character, purposes, teachings, conduct, and effects upon others necessarily contain indications by which one may be distinguished from the other.

The content of the prophetic message is itself evidential. The messengers bring knowledge, guidance, justice, mercy, benefit, and protection from harm. Their laws manifest knowledge of the welfare of creation and direct human beings toward what perfects them. Such a message does not resemble the fabrication of an ignorant liar who seeks worldly power or personal gratification.

The prophets also inform their peoples of the consequences that will follow belief and rejection. Their followers are promised victory and a praiseworthy outcome, while their opponents are threatened with defeat and destruction. God then supports the prophets and destroys their enemies in extraordinary ways. Al-Qarnī mentions the flood that overtook the people of Noah and the drowning of Pharaoh and his forces. These historical outcomes form part of the evidence, not merely decorative details added after prophethood has already been proved through a discrete miracle.

The conditions of the prophet’s followers and opponents are likewise significant. The kinds of people who accept the message, the transformations it produces within them, their steadfastness under persecution, the growth of the prophetic cause, and the failure of its enemies may all reveal the nature of the claimant. These matters may converge with physical miracles, but al-Qarnī insists that their evidential force is not necessarily dependent upon them.

Prior Prophecies as Independent Evidence

Another major proof consists in the announcements made by earlier prophets concerning those who would follow them. God revealed to previous messengers descriptions and identifying characteristics of future prophets. They transmitted those descriptions to their communities so that the promised messenger could be recognized when he appeared.

Al-Qarnī appeals to the Qurʾān’s repeated invocation of the knowledge possessed by the People of the Book. The Qurʾān states that the scholars of the Children of Israel knew of the Prophet, that one who possessed knowledge of the Scripture could serve as a witness, and that the recipients of earlier Scripture recognized him as they recognized their own children. The author asks how such testimony can be reduced to a mere supplement to the miracle when revelation itself invokes it as evidence.

Previous prophecies are especially powerful because they may identify a later messenger through specific descriptions preserved long before his appearance. If a prophet whose truthfulness is already established announces the coming of another messenger and identifies him through clear signs, the fulfilment of that announcement may itself establish the later messenger’s prophethood.

Muslims also know the prophethood of many earlier messengers through truthful transmitted reports and the testimony of established revelation. Not every later believer personally witnesses the physical miracle of every earlier prophet. One prophet may truthfully announce the mission of another, and a later scripture may confirm those who preceded it. This demonstrates that the knowledge of prophethood is not universally confined to direct witnessing of a miracle.

Heraclius’s Examination of the Prophet

The report of Heraclius and Abū Sufyān is presented as one of the clearest illustrations of this broader method. When the letter of the Prophet Muḥammad reached the Byzantine emperor, Heraclius did not begin by asking for a report of a particular physical miracle. He questioned Abū Sufyān about the Prophet’s lineage, his reputation before claiming prophethood, the social character of his followers, the growth or decline of their numbers, whether anyone abandoned the religion out of dissatisfaction with it, whether the Prophet violated agreements, the fortunes of the conflict between him and his opponents, and the substance of his commands.

Abū Sufyān acknowledged that Muḥammad was of noble lineage, that no one among his people had previously made the same claim, and that none of his ancestors had been a king whose rule he might be seeking to restore. He admitted that the Prophet had never been accused of lying before his mission. His followers were chiefly the weak, their numbers were increasing, none abandoned the religion because of resentment toward it, and the Prophet did not betray his agreements. He commanded the worship of God alone, prayer, truthfulness, chastity, and the maintenance of family ties.

Heraclius explained the significance of each answer. Prophets arise from noble lineages. A person who had never lied about people would be unlikely suddenly to invent lies about God. The followers of prophets are often initially the weak, their numbers grow, and genuine faith does not leave the heart after its sweetness has entered it. Prophets do not betray, and their message calls to the worship of God and moral rectitude. Heraclius concluded that these were the characteristics of a prophet and declared that, if Abū Sufyān had spoken truthfully, Muḥammad would possess the land beneath his feet.

For al-Qarnī, this report shows that the Prophet’s truthfulness may be inferred through a disciplined examination of his life and mission. Heraclius did not treat these signs as worthless until a physical miracle was separately established. He drew a conclusion by comparing the claimant’s circumstances with the known characteristics of prophets. The author therefore asks how such evidence can reasonably be described as merely supplementary.

A Tension in al-Taftāzānī’s Formulation

Al-Qarnī finds a tension in al-Taftāzānī’s treatment. On the one hand, al-Taftāzānī restricts the proof of prophethood to miracles. On the other hand, he acknowledges that the testimony of a person whose immunity from lying is already established may prove the prophethood of another. This includes the announcements of Muḥammad in the Torah and Gospel and one prophet’s report concerning another prophet.

Al-Taftāzānī attempts to reconcile the two claims by saying that the miracle is the proof applicable without qualification and against every denier. Previous prophetic announcements are not available in the case of the first prophet or every later prophet. Al-Qarnī responds that universality is not the same as exclusivity. The fact that a form of evidence is unavailable in every case does not prevent it from being independently decisive in cases where it exists. At most, al-Taftāzānī’s qualification establishes that the miracle is the most universal proof, not that it is the only proof.

Ashʿarīs Who Recognized Other Evidences

Al-Qarnī next discusses Ashʿarī theologians who acknowledged evidences beyond miracles. The author of al-Mawāqif, for example, lists several routes for proving Muḥammad’s (peace be upon him) prophethood. One is the examination of his circumstances before the mission, during it, and after the establishment of his cause. His exalted character, wise rulings, courage, and advance into situations from which renowned warriors retreated all contribute to the case. Another route consists in the announcements of earlier prophets in the Torah and Gospel.

Nevertheless, after presenting these evidences and considering objections to them, the author of al-Mawāqif identifies the appearance of a miracle at the Prophet’s hands as the relied-upon proof and treats the other signs as completion and reinforcement. Al-Qarnī welcomes their recognition but rejects the reduction of their role. The prior prophecies and the Prophet’s character and circumstances contain what he regards as necessary indications of prophethood. They do not merely ornament an argument already completed by a miracle.

The conclusion of the first investigation is therefore not that miracles should be diminished. It is that the evidence for prophecy is richer than the restrictive Ashʿarī account allows. Miracles are among the clearest proofs, but the prophet’s character, message, conduct, followers, historical effects, divine support, the fate of his enemies, fulfilled predictions, and previous prophetic announcements may also establish his truthfulness. These evidences often converge, but some may independently lead the rational observer to knowledge of prophethood.

Causality and the Reality of a Miracle

The second investigation turns to the theological foundation that al-Qarnī believes most deeply shaped the Ashʿarī theory: the denial of causality and of stable properties inherent in created things.

A miracle signifies because it exceeds the capacity of those addressed by it. In some cases, it is accompanied by an explicit challenge, as with the Qurʾān. In others, the primary purpose is to support the prophet and provide a sign of his mission rather than to challenge the audience to a formal contest. In either case, the event has evidential force because it lies beyond ordinary human power and departs from the regular order established within creation.

This may occur in the sphere of knowledge, when the prophet reports unseen matters that human beings could not discover through their ordinary faculties. It may also occur through observable events that contradict the stable course of created things according to their properties. Al-Qarnī insists that the reality of the miracle cannot be established without first affirming the existence of stable cosmic regularities. Nor can a miracle be distinguished from every other astonishing event unless one differentiates between what belongs to the established order of creation and what genuinely transcends it.

The Ashʿarī Denial of Necessary Causal Connection

Al-Qarnī explains that Ashʿarī theologians rejected causality and stable natural properties because they believed that affirming them generated two dangers. First, causal necessity would make miracles impossible. If an effect followed necessarily from its created cause, fire could not fail to burn, life could not remain after the severing of the neck, the dead could not return to life, and a staff could not become a serpent. Second, causal efficacy might compromise divine unity and omnipotence by assigning to created things an independent power of producing effects.

Al-Ghazālī is presented as an especially important representative of this reasoning. In Tahāfut al-Falāsifah, he denies that the observed conjunction between what people call a cause and what they call its effect proves that the first necessarily produces the second. Drinking and the quenching of thirst, eating and satiety, contact with fire and burning, sunrise and illumination, severing the neck and death, medicine and recovery, or a laxative and the loosening of the bowels occur together because God habitually creates them together. The conjunction does not establish that one event possesses an intrinsic power that necessitates the other.

God may therefore create satiety without eating, death without severing the neck, or continued life despite the severing of the neck. He may create the supposed cause without the customary effect or the effect without the customary cause. The regular sequence is a product of divine will rather than a necessity inherent in created things.

Dr. Sulaymān Dunyā, whose explanation al-Qarnī cites, clarifies that succession does not prove causation. Two events may arise from a single source that creates them together in a regular order. For al-Ghazālī and the Ashʿarīs, God creates both the antecedent and the subsequent event. Their regular conjunction is maintained by His free will. Freedom of will does not require randomness, but neither does regularity prove a necessary causal power residing in the created antecedent.

The Philosophers’ Necessitarian Position

Al-Qarnī agrees with al-Ghazālī that a created cause cannot independently necessitate its effect in a manner that places the effect beyond God’s control. Such a doctrine would conflict with divine unity and make miracles impossible. He also cites al-Ghazālī’s report of the philosophers’ argument that the observed conjunction between causes and effects is necessary and that the effect cannot fail when the complete cause exists.

The author nevertheless argues that the Ashʿarīs moved from rejecting one extreme to embracing another. The denial of an autonomous and absolute necessity between created causes and effects does not require the denial of all real causality or the real properties of created things. A third position is possible: God creates things with genuine powers and properties, causes operate through those created properties, and all remain dependent upon God’s will and subject to His ability to suspend their customary effects.

Created Properties Without Independence from God

Al-Qarnī argues that created things possess distinct natures and properties by which they are known and differentiated. If two things possessed precisely the same reality and every one of the same properties, there would be no principled basis for distinguishing them as different kinds of things. The intelligibility of the world therefore presupposes that created beings possess real characteristics.

Causal explanations arise from these characteristics. Fire is associated with heat and burning, snow with coldness, food with nourishment, and medicines with particular bodily effects because God created them with these properties. Their properties do not make them independent creators. They remain created capacities that operate only under God’s decree.

To reinforce this point, al-Qarnī cites Ibn Rushd’s response to al-Ghazālī. Ibn Rushd argues that existing things are known through their causes and distinctive properties. Particular actions issue from particular natures. If things possessed no distinctive natures, actions, or limits, no stable knowledge of them would be possible. Everything would collapse into an undifferentiated reality. If a thing possessed no action peculiar to it, it would possess no nature peculiar to it, and the differences between things would disappear.

Al-Qarnī does not adopt the philosophers’ doctrine of a natural order operating independently and necessarily. He distinguishes two propositions. The first is that created things genuinely possess properties and exercise effects because God created them in that manner. The second is that those properties produce their effects autonomously and necessarily, independently of God’s continuing will. He accepts the first and rejects the second.

Fire genuinely possesses a capacity for burning, but God created that capacity and may prevent its effect. Food genuinely nourishes, a blade genuinely cuts, and medicine genuinely affects the body, yet none of these acts outside God’s determination. The causal connection is real without being independent or absolute.

Regularity and the Possibility of Miracles

Affirming causality does not mean that the conjunction between cause and effect is impossible for God to interrupt. It means that God established an ordered world in which particular created things ordinarily produce particular effects according to the properties He placed within them.

The fire that became cool and safe for Ibrāhīm (عليه السلام) is the author’s clearest example. Fire ordinarily burns because God created it with that property. When God willed to support Ibrāhīm (عليه السلام), He prevented the customary effect. The suspension of burning in that instance does not prove that fire never possessed a genuine capacity to burn. On the contrary, the event is miraculous precisely because it constitutes an exception to an established rule.

Al-Qarnī therefore proposes a position between two extremes. Causes and effects are genuinely related, but their relation is not an autonomous necessity that binds God. Ordinarily, effects accompany their causes because this is the order God created. He may, however, prevent the effect despite the presence of its cause or produce an effect through an extraordinary means whenever His wisdom requires a breach of the regular order.

This conception preserves both the intelligibility of creation and the possibility of miracles. Created things possess real properties, while God remains their Creator and exercises complete authority over their operation.

Why Causal Regularity Is Necessary to Identify a Miracle

A miracle is recognized because it departs from the stable regularities of creation. If no such regularities existed, there would be no objective standard against which an event could be judged miraculous. Every common and uncommon occurrence would simply be a direct creation of God, and the distinction between them would reduce to the frequency with which people had witnessed them.

For al-Qarnī, this is insufficient. The difference between fire ordinarily burning cotton and fire failing to burn Ibrāhīm (عليه السلام) cannot be explained merely by saying that one event is frequently observed and the other rare. The latter is a miracle because it transcends the established properties and powers that God placed within creation.

The miracle’s indication of prophethood comes from its functioning as divine confirmation. For an extraordinary event to perform that role, the observer must know that it lies beyond the powers ordinarily granted to created beings and therefore could only have been produced by God as support for His messenger.

The Essential Difference Between Miracles and Magic

The same principle allows miracles to be distinguished from magic. Magic may involve astonishing events that most people cannot reproduce. Nevertheless, it remains within the capacities and regularities available to created beings. It may be learned, taught, practised, and acquired through particular means. Its effects, however startling, do not transcend the possibilities God placed within creation.

A prophetic miracle differs not merely because of the person who performs it or the circumstances surrounding it, but because the two phenomena differ in their reality and kind. No amount of training or refinement of magical techniques enables a magician to produce what God has made beyond created power.

The difference may then be reinforced through the character of the prophet, the content of his message, the claim he makes, and the circumstances surrounding the sign. These contextual indicators matter, but they do not create the essential distinction between miracle and magic.

Ibn Ḥazm on Nature and Habit

Al-Qarnī uses Ibn Ḥazm’s discussion to clarify the difference between intrinsic properties and mere habit. Ibn Ḥazm describes prophetic miracles as events that lie outside the levels, properties, and structure of the created world. His examples include the splitting of the moon, the parting of the sea, the production of food and water without their customary sources, the transformation of a staff into a living serpent, the revival of the dead, and the emergence of a camel from a rock.

These are not merely unfamiliar combinations of ordinary created capacities. They cross the limits by which created things are known. The properties of things permit them to receive their names and definitions. When wine loses the characteristics of wine and becomes vinegar, it is no longer called wine. Bread and meat likewise cease to retain their former names when their defining properties are destroyed. The natures and properties of things therefore belong to their objective reality, not merely to human expectations.

Ibn Ḥazm criticizes those who deny created natures and properties and consequently describe prophetic signs as mere violations of habit. A habit in ordinary Arabic refers to a repeated practice that a person may abandon and replace. Its cessation does not involve a change in the nature of a thing. Human habits are constantly abandoned without anyone regarding this as miraculous.

A prophetic miracle cannot therefore be reduced to the interruption of a mere habit. Its extraordinary character is not merely statistical or psychological. It transcends the defining limits and powers of created things.

The Consequence of the Ashʿarī Position

Al-Qarnī observes that the Ashʿarīs denied causality partly to protect the possibility and evidential force of miracles. Yet he argues that their denial produces the opposite consequence. By denying the real properties and regularities against which a genuine breach of the created order could be identified, they deprive themselves of the criterion needed to distinguish a miracle from magic and other unusual phenomena.

They can describe a miracle as contrary to custom or unfamiliar to people, but this does not establish an essential difference between it and other astonishing events. Both magic and miracles are placed within the general category of extraordinary occurrences. The distinction must therefore be made through surrounding conditions rather than through the reality of the events themselves.

Al-Qarnī regards this as damaging to the proof of prophecy. If miracles and magic belong to the same essential class, the miracle cannot function as unmistakable divine confirmation unless a series of external conditions is added. The author’s alternative is to affirm the causal order and created properties while denying their independence from God. Against that stable background, the miracle is recognizable as an event that truly exceeds created capacity.

The Ashʿarī Method of Arguing from a Miracle to Prophethood

The third and longest investigation examines the precise conditions through which Ashʿarī theologians attempt to move from the occurrence of an extraordinary event to the truthfulness of a prophetic claimant.

Ashʿarī definitions commonly describe a miracle as an act of God that departs from custom, corresponds to the claim of a prophet, is accompanied by a challenge, and remains free from successful opposition. Al-Bāqillānī defines it as an act of God contrary to custom, corresponding to the prophetic claim, through which the prophet challenges his people to produce its equivalent. Al-Juwaynī gives a similar definition, and al-Taftāzānī describes it as an extraordinary matter associated with a challenge and freedom from opposition.

Al-Qarnī argues that these conditions are not merely neutral clarifications. They were made necessary by the Ashʿarī failure to establish an essential difference between prophetic miracles and other extraordinary events. He identifies three principles upon which the Ashʿarī method rests:

1. An extraordinary event does not indicate prophethood merely by virtue of its extraordinary nature.

2. It becomes a proof of prophethood only when it is joined to a prophetic claim and a challenge.

3. A magician or false claimant must be unable to oppose the prophet with a comparable event.

The author examines each principle and attempts to show that all three arise from the same foundational problem.

What Does “Violation of Custom” Mean?

The first question concerns the meaning of kharq al-ʿādah, the violation of custom. Al-Qarnī distinguishes two possible meanings of custom. It may refer to the stable and regular order God established within creation, according to which things possess particular properties and ordinarily produce particular effects. Alternatively, it may refer simply to what a particular group of people has become accustomed to witnessing.

The first meaning can supply an intelligible basis for identifying a miracle. Human beings know through repeated experience the properties of fire, water, living bodies, celestial objects, plants, animals, and other created things. An event that genuinely exceeds these properties and regularities may be recognized as miraculous.

The Ashʿarīs, however, cannot consistently ground their definition in this meaning because they deny the causal properties and stable natural order upon which it depends. They therefore move toward the second meaning: the extraordinary is whatever differs from what people ordinarily experience.

Al-Qarnī argues that this makes the concept relative. What is unfamiliar to one people may be customary to another. An event may be extraordinary in one place or time while entirely familiar elsewhere. The standard becomes the audience’s experience rather than the actual powers and properties of created things.

Al-Āmidī raises the possibility that a prophet might produce something unfamiliar to his people even though the same event is customary in another region or among an earlier nation. The response is that extraordinariness is assessed relative to the people challenged. It need not be contrary to the experience of all humanity.

For al-Qarnī, this response confirms the difficulty. A technique, craft, natural phenomenon, or magical practice known elsewhere might appear miraculous to an ignorant community. The event would be extraordinary only relative to their limited experience, not because it genuinely exceeds created power. A definition based upon familiarity cannot reliably distinguish a prophetic sign from unfamiliar arts or magic.

The Result of Denying Causality

The author argues that the Ashʿarī denial of causality and created properties leaves no objective basis for distinguishing violations of the cosmic order from events that merely differ from human custom. A genuine miracle must be contrary to the stable order God established within creation. Yet the Ashʿarīs deny that created things possess the stable causal properties required for such an account.

As a result, the term “extraordinary” becomes a relative, additional description. What counts as customary or extraordinary may change according to people, places, and times. The miracle, magic, a saintly wonder, and soothsaying are all placed within the broad category of events outside ordinary experience.

This is the point from which the remaining Ashʿarī conditions arise. Since the miracle cannot be differentiated from magic through its reality, it must be differentiated through external circumstances.

The First Principle: A Miracle Does Not Indicate Prophethood by Itself

Al-Qarnī identifies the first Ashʿarī principle as the proposition that an extraordinary event does not indicate prophethood merely by its own nature. It belongs to the general category of extraordinary events, which also includes saintly wonders and magic. Its evidential connection to prophecy must therefore arise from something added to it.

Al-Juwaynī states that the occurrence of a saintly wonder does not undermine the miracle because the extraordinary event does not indicate the person himself but his prophetic claim and the divine attestation attached to it. He also allows that God may create an event of the same general extraordinary kind at the hands of a magician. The distinction lies not in the genus of the event but in its relation to the claim.

Al-Qarnī considers this admission highly significant. If a magician may produce something from the same genus as certain prophetic signs, then an extraordinary event cannot be evidence of prophecy merely because it is extraordinary. A further principle must explain why the same kind of event confirms one person and not another.

Prophetic Signs Must Be Specific to Prophets

Against this position, al-Qarnī cites Ibn Taymiyyah’s argument that the evidence for a thing must be appropriately related to what it proves. A sign of prophethood cannot be more general than prophethood in such a way that it appears equally among prophets and non-prophets. It must either be equal in extension to its object or more specific to it. A sign that belongs equally to prophets, magicians, and soothsayers cannot by itself distinguish the prophet.

Prophetic signs must therefore possess a special connection to prophets. God sent messengers and granted them signs that indicate their prophethood. These signs cannot function as proof if they are equally available to others. Their distinction must return to the signs themselves, not merely to conditions external to them.

Al-Qarnī argues that the signs by which God supports His messengers exceed cosmic regularities and the capacity of both human beings and jinn. Magic, soothsaying, and the practices of innovators remain within created capacity. They may be learned, taught, acquired, and practiced. Prophetic miracles cannot be obtained through training or instruction.

Ibn Taymiyyah is cited to the effect that magic and soothsaying can be reached through learning, effort, and acquisition, whereas no person can acquire a prophetic miracle. This difference is not accidental. It belongs to the reality of the two kinds of event.

The Clarity and Certainty of Prophetic Signs

Al-Qarnī adds that prophetic signs possess a clarity and certainty that magic lacks. When a person witnesses or reliably knows a true miracle, he knows that it constitutes divine support for a prophet. Magic, by contrast, contains deception, concealment, ambiguity, and uncertainty. The observer may be confused about what occurred and how it was produced.

The author appeals to the great miracles of the prophets. The fire became cool and safe for Abraham. The sea was parted for Mūsá (عليه السلام). Jesus formed the likeness of a bird from clay, healed the person born blind and the leper, and revived the dead by God’s permission. The moon was split for Muḥammad, water flowed from between his fingers, and small quantities of food were multiplied. Al-Qarnī asks how it can seriously be suggested that magic might produce events of this kind.

The impossibility does not depend upon the magician refraining from a prophetic claim. A magician cannot make fire lose its burning property, split the sea, raise the dead, split the moon, or cause water to flow from his fingers whether he claims prophethood or not.

Mūsá (عليه السلام) and Pharaoh’s Magicians

The confrontation between Mūsá (عليه السلام) and Pharaoh’s magicians is central to the author’s argument. Pharaoh accused Mūsá (عليه السلام) of being a magician and gathered the most skilled magicians to oppose him. They cast their ropes and staffs and produced a powerful magical display. Mūsá (عليه السلام) then cast his staff, which truly became a serpent and consumed what they had fabricated.

The magicians immediately recognized that Mūsá (عليه السلام)’s sign was not magic. Their expertise enabled them to know the limits and reality of their own craft. They understood that the sign brought by Mūsá (عليه السلام) belonged to another order. They therefore believed in the Lord of Mūsá (عليه السلام) and Aaron despite Pharaoh’s threats and punishment.

For al-Qarnī, their reaction is among the strongest rational indications that prophetic miracles and magic differ in their reality. If the two were of the same genus and differed only through a claim and challenge, the magicians’ knowledge of magic would not have given them immediate certainty. They believed because they knew that what Mūsá (عليه السلام) produced could not arise from the kind of act they practised.

The author concludes that the Ashʿarī equalization of miracles and magic contradicts both rational necessity and revealed history. The prophetic sign is not merely an extraordinary event that becomes miraculous through attached conditions. It is an event of a kind that created beings cannot produce.

The Second Principle: The Prophetic Claim and Challenge

The second Ashʿarī principle is that an extraordinary event proves prophethood only when it accompanies a prophetic claim and a challenge. This condition appears in their definitions of the miracle as an extraordinary event associated with a challenge and corresponding to a claimant’s declaration.

Al-Bāqillānī argues that an event does not become a miracle merely because of its genus, itself, or occurrence. God might independently revive a dead person, make the sun rise from the west, shake the earth, or produce another astonishing event without anyone claiming prophethood. Such an event could be miraculous in the broad sense of extraordinary, but it would not function as a prophetic miracle. It becomes a proof when the claimant invokes it as evidence for his truthfulness and challenges others with it.

Al-Qarnī responds that this condition follows from the Ashʿarī decision to place all extraordinary events within one genus. If the miracle and magic are not distinguished through their realities, the miracle cannot indicate prophethood by itself and must be made dependent upon external factors. The claim and challenge are consequently added as necessary conditions.

The Claim Cannot Be Part of the Proof of Itself

The author argues that making the prophetic claim part of the evidence produces a methodological problem. The prophetic claim is the proposition requiring proof. The claimant says that he is a prophet, and the miracle is supposed to establish the truth of that statement. If the claim itself becomes a component of the evidence, the thing being proved is inserted into its own proof.

Ibn Taymiyyah is cited as saying that the claim of prophethood is what the evidence is established upon. It is not itself part of the evidence. The prophet’s declaration may explain the significance and intended connection of the sign, but it cannot be one of the premises that prove its own truth.

The same applies to challenge and opposition. Demanding that opponents reproduce the sign may reveal their inability, but the challenge does not create that inability. If the sign truly exceeds created capacity, they are unable to produce its equivalent whether or not a formal challenge is issued.

Al-Qarnī regards the Ashʿarī procedure as reversing the proper order. Instead of identifying the miracle through its intrinsic reality and then understanding its connection to the prophetic mission, it begins with an ambiguous extraordinary event and turns it into proof by attaching the very claim that requires proof.

The Qurʾānic Challenge Does Not Establish a Universal Condition

The Qurʾān was accompanied by an explicit challenge because the Prophet’s opponents alleged that he had fabricated it. They were invited to produce something comparable if their accusation were true. Their incapacity demonstrated that the Qurʾān did not belong to ordinary human speech.

Al-Qarnī accepts the importance of this challenge but denies that it establishes a condition applicable to every miracle. The challenge was appropriate to the particular accusation directed against the Qurʾān. It does not follow that every prophetic sign must occur in the form of a formal contest.

Ibn Taymiyyah notes that the prophets generally did not challenge their peoples with every miracle. The Qurʾānic challenge arose because the opponents claimed that the Qurʾān was fabricated. Other miracles were not initially presented through the same formula, although people knew that created beings could not produce their equivalent.

The Historical Miracles of the Prophet

Al-Qarnī argues that the requirement of challenge conflicts with the known biography of the Prophet Muḥammad (peace be upon him). Most of his miracles were not preceded by a formal challenge. Water flowed from between his fingers. Small quantities of food fed large numbers. A sheep or goat produced milk in extraordinary circumstances. An injured eye was restored. A broken leg was healed. The tree trunk cried. A camel complained. A wolf spoke. The Prophet reported hidden matters. A palm tree or branch obeyed him. These and other great signs occurred without the Prophet challenging his opponents to reproduce each one.

Ibn Ḥazm therefore calls the condition baseless. He states that there is no Qurʾānic text, sound Sunnah, consensus, statement of a Companion, or rational proof establishing that every miracle must be accompanied by a challenge. No earlier authority, he argues, imposed this requirement before the theologians who introduced it.

If the condition were accepted, most of the Prophet’s miracles would cease to qualify as miracles. Many were witnessed only by believing Companions, not by opponents assembled for a contest. The Jews were not challenged to make water flow from their fingers, multiply food, heal injuries, make a tree trunk cry, or reproduce the other signs. Nor did the Prophet explicitly say after each occurrence, “If I do this, bear witness that I am the Messenger of God.”

Ibn Taymiyyah reaches the same conclusion. It is not a condition of the evidence of prophethood that it accompany a claim, a formal invocation of it as proof, a challenge to reproduce it, or the immediate inability of opponents to do so. All these matters may occur in certain cases, but the absence of one does not deprive an event of its status as a prophetic sign.

Al-Qarnī concludes that the challenge condition is unsupported and contrary to historical reality. It was adopted because the Ashʿarī method required an external means of distinguishing the miracle from other extraordinary events.

The Third Principle: A Magician or Liar Must Be Prevented from Opposition

The third Ashʿarī principle concerns the possibility that a magician might claim prophethood or attempt to oppose a true prophet. Since magic and miracles are treated as belonging to the same broad category of extraordinary events, a magician might theoretically perform his magic while announcing that he is a prophet. If the event accompanies a prophetic claim, the outward conditions could resemble those of a miracle.

To prevent this result, Ashʿarī theologians maintain that God will not allow a false claimant successfully to display a confirming extraordinary event. If a magician claims prophethood, God must deprive him of his magical ability, cause his performance to fail, produce the opposite of what he intended, or otherwise expose his falsehood.

Al-Bāqillānī gives two principal possibilities. God may cause the magician to forget the procedures and knowledge upon which his magic depends. Alternatively, He may allow the magician to perform the same procedures but prevent the expected effect or create an outcome contrary to his intention. In either case, the person’s claim is exposed and the prophet’s sign remains free from opposition.

Different Ashʿarī Explanations of the Impossibility

Al-Qarnī notes that Ashʿarī theologians offered several explanations for why a miracle cannot appear at the hands of a liar.

Abū al-Ḥasan al-Ashʿarī is reported to hold that allowing such an occurrence would render God unable to establish a proof for His messenger. If the same confirming sign appeared for a liar, the evidence would no longer distinguish truth from falsehood.

Many later Ashʿarīs regarded the occurrence as rationally impossible rather than merely customarily prevented. Al-Shahrastānī argues that if God produced a confirming miracle for a person He knew to be lying, the sign of truth would become a sign of falsehood. The same event would indicate both truth and lying, which is contradictory.

Al-Juwaynī similarly states that a miracle cannot appear in confirmation of a liar because it includes an attestation of truthfulness. A miracle occurring in accordance with a false claim would rationally imply the liar’s truth. The impossibility therefore arises not from a limitation upon divine power but from the contradictory content of the proposed event. Al-Juwaynī distinguishes this from the general possibility of extraordinary events occurring without a truthful prophetic claim.

Al-Bāqillānī’s position, as summarized by al-Taftāzānī, allows that the bare creation of an extraordinary event for a liar is within divine power, but God’s established custom makes its confirming occurrence impossible. The prevention is known with certainty through the regular way God deals with prophetic claims.

Despite these differences, the shared conclusion is that a false claimant cannot successfully produce an extraordinary event that functions as confirmation of prophethood.

Al-Qarnī’s Criticism of the Solution

Al-Qarnī agrees that a genuine prophetic miracle cannot be successfully opposed by a false claimant. His disagreement concerns the reason. The magician’s inability should follow from the nature of the miracle itself, not from a special removal of a power that he otherwise possesses.

A magician cannot split the moon, revive the dead, part the sea, make water flow from his fingers, or produce the other great signs of the prophets. This remains true whether he claims prophethood, denies it, or says nothing about religion. His incapacity is not activated by his verbal claim. The miracle is simply beyond his power.

The Ashʿarī account makes the distinction depend upon circumstances. Before claiming prophethood, the magician may produce an extraordinary event. When he invokes it as proof, God must suddenly remove his capacity or frustrate its effect. The distinction lies not between miracle and magic but between occasions on which God permits or prevents a similar kind of extraordinary act.

Al-Qarnī regards this as both unnecessarily complicated and evidentially weaker than affirming an essential difference from the outset.

Freedom from Opposition Is a Consequence of the Miracle’s Nature

The author accepts that a true miracle must remain free from successful opposition. If another person can produce its equal through created power, the event cannot uniquely confirm a prophet. The absence of opposition is therefore valid in principle.

The question is whether freedom from opposition is an external condition added to an ambiguous event or a consequence of what the miracle already is. Al-Qarnī adopts the second view. A miracle is contrary to the stable cosmic order and beyond the capacity of human beings and jinn. Its inimitability follows from its nature.

The Ashʿarīs, however, treat miracles and magic as members of one genus and therefore make freedom from opposition one of the external restrictions through which a miracle acquires evidential force. Al-Qarnī considers this a defect in the theory, not a successful proof of the miracle’s indication.

Historical Reality and False Claimants

Al-Qarnī argues that historical reality contradicts the claim that God necessarily removes every extraordinary capacity from a false claimant or ensures that someone immediately opposes him with the same kind of act.

Ibn Taymiyyah asks where the Ashʿarīs obtained the rule that every liar must be prevented from performing what he ordinarily does or must be opposed by another person. In reality, many people claimed prophethood or claimed to have no need for prophets, asserted that their path was superior to the prophetic path, or alleged direct divine communication without a messenger. Some displayed extraordinary phenomena from the same general class as magic and soothsaying, and no one necessarily opposed them in the same time and place.

Al-Aswad al-ʿAnsī claimed prophethood in Yemen during the life of the Prophet Muḥammad. Reports associate him with two devils named Suḥayq and Muḥayq and with information resembling the reports of soothsayers. No person opposed him by reproducing the same acts. His falsehood was nevertheless known through numerous indications. His conduct, claims, and contradictions exposed him. Al-Qarnī cites the Qurʾānic declaration that devils descend upon every sinful liar as an explanation of the type of phenomena associated with such people.

The author also mentions Musaylimah the Liar, al-Ḥārith al-Dimashqī, Makḥūl al-Ḥalabī, Bābā al-Rūmī, and others who had devils associated with them, as magicians and soothsayers do. Their unusual acts did not disappear simply because they made false religious claims.

These examples do not undermine the protection of genuine prophetic miracles. They show that false claimants may display magic, soothsaying, demonic assistance, deception, or other extraordinary, created phenomena. Their acts are not miracles and do not constitute genuine opposition to the prophets. Their falsehood is known through their conduct, teaching, contradiction of established revelation, and the created character of their phenomena.

The Proper Foundation of the Miracle’s Inimitability

Al-Qarnī’s conclusion is that prophetic signs are intrinsically specific to prophets. Rational people know that God did not create their equivalent for non-prophets. No person can reproduce them, whether he claims prophethood or not. Freedom from opposition therefore returns to the reality of the miracle, not to an external divine intervention triggered by a liar’s claim.

This explains why many people opposed the Prophet Muḥammad (peace be upon him) in other ways without producing his signs. Some opponents displayed extraordinary acts, but those acts belonged to another genus. Others were refuted by the finality of Muḥammad’s (peace be upon him) prophethood, their contradiction of the prophetic path, the corruption of their teaching, or other decisive evidences. No factually false principle was needed to protect the miracle.

The author closes the third investigation by tracing the entire difficulty back to the Ashʿarī denial of causality. Because the Ashʿarīs did not define the miracle through a real violation of the stable cosmic order, they could not distinguish it essentially from magic. Their conditions of claim, challenge, and opposition were attempts to solve a problem created by that foundational error.

Al-Qarnī’s alternative is to affirm causality and understand the correct relationship between causes and effects. The establishment of cosmic regularities does not conflict with God’s unity in His acts. Nor does it undermine the miracle’s indication of prophethood. On the contrary, the indication of a miracle cannot be properly understood, either rationally or religiously, except by affirming the causal order that the miracle transcends.

The Book’s Seven Principal Findings

Al-Qarnī gathers the conclusions of the study into seven numbered findings.

1. Most Ashʿarīs Exaggerate the Exclusivity of the Miracle

Most Ashʿarī theologians, according to the author, go too far in their use of miracles as evidence for prophethood. They restrict the indication of prophethood to miracles even though the evidences of prophecy are numerous. The fact that a miracle is an obvious and powerful sign does not require the dismissal of every other proof.

2. Other Evidences Are Not Merely Supplementary

Those Ashʿarīs who acknowledge other evidences do not grant them their proper force. They appeal to the Prophet’s circumstances and the previous prophecies concerning him but place them in the category of evidence that completes and reinforces the miracle. Al-Qarnī argues that these are themselves manifest proofs of prophethood and may be used without making their force dependent upon the miracle. Heraclius’s examination of Abū Sufyān is again cited as a clear example.

3. The Denial of Causality Profoundly Distorts the Method

The Ashʿarī denial of causality, created properties, and the relation between causes and effects had a major negative influence upon their method of establishing prophethood. The miracle is known by its departure from the stable cosmic order. When that order is denied, the Ashʿarīs lose the foundational criterion by which the miraculous may be distinguished from the non-miraculous.

4. “Violation of Custom” Becomes Unstable

The Ashʿarī position produces an inability to define the extraordinary precisely. A violation can be distinguished only through its opposition to stable cosmic regularities, but the Ashʿarīs deny those regularities as genuine created properties. Their “extraordinary” consequently becomes what differs from human custom. Custom has no fixed reality and changes according to circumstances, periods, and places.

5. Miracles and Magic Are Placed in the Same Genus

The Ashʿarī causal theory also results in the equalization of miracles and magic within the category of extraordinary events. Their concept of the extraordinary is whatever absolutely differs from the customary. Since both miracle and magic enter that category, external conditions are introduced to distinguish them. These conditions lie outside the reality of the miracle itself.

6. The Requirement of a Challenge and Prophetic Claim Is Unproved

The Ashʿarīs require that the miracle be accompanied by a challenge and a claim to prophethood. Al-Qarnī states that this has no proof and conflicts with reality and the known biography of the Prophet. The Prophet did not begin by challenging people with most of his miracles, and his general circumstances in calling people to Islam do not support the proposed condition.

7. Freedom from Opposition Is Sound in Principle but Misexplained

The Ashʿarīs also require the miracle to be free from opposition. The principle is correct because a genuine miracle is a violation of the cosmic order and therefore beyond created power. The Ashʿarīs, however, made the miracle and magic members of one genus. They therefore maintained that a magician who claimed prophethood or opposed a prophet had to be deprived of his magical capacity or prevented from producing what he ordinarily produced. Al-Qarnī says that this is unsupported and contrary to reality. Many opponents and false claimants displayed extraordinary created phenomena, but people knew their falsehood through many other evidences. No condition requiring the loss of their magical power was needed.

Conclusion

Al-Qarnī’s argument is not that miracles lack evidential value. The entire book presupposes that they are among the clearest signs of prophethood. His criticism is directed at a particular theory of how they function.

In his account, the Ashʿarī denial of causality and real created properties makes it impossible to define a miracle through a genuine difference between it and other extraordinary phenomena. The miracle, magic, saintly wonders, and soothsaying are placed within a general category of violations of custom. Since the events are not distinguished through their essential realities, the theory must rely upon external conditions: a prophetic claim, a challenge, correspondence to that claim, freedom from opposition, and the special prevention of a magician or liar who attempts to assume the prophetic role.

Al-Qarnī considers these conditions attempts to repair a difficulty created by the original causal doctrine. The proper account, in his view, begins by affirming that God created things with genuine properties and established real causal regularities within the world. These causes never act independently of Him. They are created, sustained, and governed by His will, and He may suspend their effects whenever He chooses.

Against this stable created order, the miracle becomes intelligible. It is not merely an uncommon occurrence or an event unfamiliar to a particular audience. It is an act that exceeds the capacities and properties God ordinarily placed within creation. Its appearance in connection with a prophet therefore constitutes divine confirmation, while its intrinsic transcendence of created power explains why it cannot be reproduced by a magician, soothsayer, human being, jinn, or false claimant.

The author likewise broadens the epistemology of prophecy. Miracles remain central, but they are not the only signs. The prophet’s character, message, conduct, followers, divine support, historical effects, fulfilled predictions, and the announcements of earlier prophets may all lead to knowledge of his truthfulness. The proof of prophecy is therefore not confined to a single isolated event. It appears in the integrated reality of the prophet, his mission, and the signs by which God distinguishes him from every liar.

Principal Works Listed in the Book’s Bibliography

The book concludes with a twenty-item bibliography. Its principal sources include al-Āmidī’s Abkār al-Afkār fī Uṣūl al-Dīn; al-Juwaynī’s al-Irshād ilá Qawāṭiʿ al-Adillah fī Uṣūl al-Dīn and al-ʿAqīdah al-Niẓāmiyyah; al-Bāqillānī’s al-Inṣāf fīmā Yajib Iʿtiqāduhu wa-lā Yajūz al-Jahl bihi and al-Bayān ʿan al-Farq bayna al-Muʿjizāt wa-l-Karāmāt wa-l-Ḥiyal wa-l-Kahānah wa-l-Siḥr wa-l-Nāranjiyyāt; Sulaymān Dunyā’s al-Tafkīr al-Falsafī al-Islāmī; Ibn Rushd’s Tahāfut al-Tahāfut and Sharḥ Jawharat al-Tawḥīd by al-Bājūrī; Ibn Taymiyyah’s Sharḥ al-ʿAqīdah al-Iṣfahāniyyah, al-Nubuwwāt, and Nihāyat al-Iqdām fī ʿIlm al-Kalām ascribed in the bibliography to al-Shahrastānī; Ibn Abī al-ʿIzz’s Sharḥ al-ʿAqīdah al-Ṭaḥāwiyyah; al-Taftāzānī’s Sharḥ al-Maqāṣid; Ibn Ḥajar’s Fatḥ al-Bārī; Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim; Ibn Ḥazm’s al-Faṣl fī al-Milal wa-l-Ahwāʾ wa-l-Niḥal; al-Juwaynī’s Lumaʿ al-Adillah fī Qawāʿid ʿAqāʾid Ahl al-Sunnah wa-l-Jamāʿah; al-Rāzī’s Muḥaṣṣal Afkār al-Mutaqaddimīn wa-l-Mutaʾakhkhirīn; and al-Ījī’s al-Mawāqif fī ʿIlm al-Kalām. (Source pages 69-71.)

Introduction

The doctrine of naskh (abrogation) has long occupied an important place within the Islamic sciences. From the earliest generations of Muslims, scholars of tafsīr, uṣūl al-fiqh, fiqh, and aqīdah devoted considerable attention to defining its nature, identifying its examples, explaining its wisdoms, and distinguishing genuine instances of abrogation from other forms of textual interpretation. Consequently, few subjects have received as sustained or as rigorous a treatment within the Qur’anic sciences. Despite this rich scholarly heritage, the doctrine has faced renewed criticism in modern times. A growing number of contemporary writers have questioned not merely the application of abrogation to particular verses, but the very existence of abrogation within the Qur’an itself. While some revive arguments first advanced by the Muʿtazilī exegete Abū Muslim al-Iṣfahānī, others develop new objections grounded in philosophical assumptions about divine legislation or in contemporary approaches to scriptural interpretation.

The significance of this debate extends far beyond the technical confines of Qur’anic exegesis. In many modern discussions, the denial of abrogation functions as the foundation for reinterpreting well-established rulings of Islamic law. Questions relating to criminal punishments, warfare, gender, family law, and numerous other legal subjects are often revisited through the claim that the traditional doctrine of naskh is fundamentally flawed. Consequently, the discussion is no longer confined to determining whether one Qur’anic verse superseded another. It has become part of a broader attempt to reconsider the relationship between revelation, legal authority, and the historical development of Islamic law. This makes a careful and methodologically rigorous examination of the doctrine all the more necessary.

It is important to note at the outset that objections to abrogation are not unique to Islam. Long before similar questions were raised by some Muslim scholars, earlier religious communities challenged the very possibility that God could replace one revealed command with another. Their principal objection rested upon the assumption that legislative change necessarily implies a change in divine knowledge, purpose, or will. If God commands one thing at one time and another at a later time, they argued, then either the earlier command was deficient, or God subsequently acquired knowledge that He did not previously possess. Classical Muslim theologians unanimously rejected this reasoning, pointing out that it rests upon a false analogy between the Creator and His creation. Allah’s knowledge is eternal, perfect, and all-encompassing. He knows from eternity every command He will reveal, the precise time at which it will be revealed, the duration for which it will remain operative, and the ruling that will eventually replace it. The occurrence of legislative succession, therefore, reflects not any alteration in divine knowledge, but the unfolding of a decree whose every detail has always been known to Allah.

Before examining the textual evidence for abrogation, however, a preliminary methodological observation must be established. Much of the contemporary literature suffers not from a lack of evidence but from methodological weaknesses. Discussions frequently proceed by isolating a single statement from a classical scholar, adopting one opinion from among several legitimate juristic disagreements, or appealing to philosophical intuitions while neglecting the cumulative force of revelation and the inherited scholarly tradition. Sound scholarship requires precisely the opposite approach. Individual texts must be understood in light of the Qur’an as a whole; isolated reports must be weighed alongside the broader corpus of evidence, and subsidiary juristic disagreements must never be elevated into principles capable of overturning established doctrines. Above all, the burden of proof rests upon anyone who seeks to overturn an understanding transmitted by the Companions, accepted by the Successors, elaborated by the founders of the legal schools, and preserved throughout the classical Islamic tradition.

This study therefore proceeds from a cumulative rather than an isolated methodology. It will first define the concept of naskh as understood by the classical scholars before examining the Qur’anic evidence for its occurrence. It will then consider the Companions’ understanding and the scholarly consensus that emerged from the earliest generations of Islam. Only after this positive case has been established will the principal objections raised against abrogation be examined, beginning with the arguments of Abū Muslim al-Iṣfahānī and extending to their modern reformulations. Finally, the study will consider the principal wisdoms underlying abrogation and address the distinct question of naskh al-tilāwah (abrogation of recitation). This topic has become central to many contemporary critiques of the doctrine. The objective is not merely to defend a traditional position because it is traditional, but to demonstrate that the classical doctrine of abrogation remains the most coherent, textually grounded, and methodologically consistent understanding of the Qur’anic evidence.

1. Defining Abrogation (Naskh): Linguistic and Technical Definitions

Any meaningful discussion of abrogation must begin with a precise definition of the term itself. Much of the confusion surrounding naskh arises from the failure to distinguish between its linguistic usage, its technical meaning in the Islamic sciences, and the broader way the early generations of Muslims occasionally employed it. Once these distinctions are appreciated, many apparent disagreements turn out to be over terminology rather than substance.

Linguistically, the Arabic word naskh carries several related meanings. Classical lexicographers commonly mention removal, replacement, transfer, and transcription among their principal usages. Thus, it may describe the removal of something by something else, as when sunlight removes a shadow, or the transfer of writing from one document to another without altering its content. These various usages share the common idea of succession, whereby one thing takes the place of another or causes it to cease functioning in its previous capacity. The Qur’an itself employs derivatives of the root in more than one sense, demonstrating the richness of its linguistic range.

Within the discipline of legal theory (uṣūl al-fiqh), however, the term acquired a far more precise meaning. The majority of jurists define naskh as the lifting of a legal ruling established by revelation through another revealed proof that comes later in time. Several elements of this definition deserve emphasis. First, abrogation concerns legal rulings rather than matters of creed, historical narrative, or objective truth. Allah’s attributes, the realities of the Hereafter, the stories of previous nations, and the foundational principles of faith are not subject to abrogation. Secondly, the replacement of one ruling must itself occur through revelation. Neither juristic reasoning, changing social circumstances, nor human preference can abrogate a divine command. Only Allah, who legislates the original ruling, possesses the authority to replace it through subsequent revelation. Thirdly, chronology is indispensable. Two texts may appear to differ, but unless it is established that one was revealed after the other, no claim of abrogation can even be considered. For this reason, the science of nāsikh and mansūkh has always depended upon careful knowledge of the circumstances and sequence of revelation.

The jurists’ insistence upon these conditions reflects an important methodological concern. Abrogation was never regarded as a convenient mechanism for resolving every apparent tension between Qur’anic verses or prophetic traditions. On the contrary, the classical scholars repeatedly emphasized that reconciliation between texts should always be attempted whenever reasonably possible. Only when genuine reconciliation proved impossible, and when the chronological order of the relevant texts had been established with confidence, would the question of abrogation arise. This explains why later scholars gradually reduced the number of verses classified as abrogated. As legal theory developed and methods of harmonization became increasingly sophisticated, many examples that earlier writers had described as naskh were more accurately understood as instances of specification (takhṣīṣ), qualification (taqyīd), contextual clarification, or differences in circumstance rather than genuine legislative replacement. The doctrine itself was therefore not weakened by this refinement. Rather, it became more precise.

This distinction is particularly important because some modern writers cite the declining number of accepted examples as evidence that the doctrine of abrogation gradually collapsed under scholarly scrutiny. The historical record suggests precisely the opposite. Early authors occasionally employed the word naskh in its broad linguistic sense, encompassing a variety of interpretive phenomena. As the sciences of tafsīr and legal theory matured, scholars distinguished these phenomena with increasing precision, reserving the technical term naskh for those instances in which one revealed legal ruling demonstrably replaced another. Consequently, the narrowing of the category reflects methodological rigor rather than growing skepticism.

The broader usage of the term by the early generations also requires careful attention. Numerous statements transmitted from the Companions and the Successors employ the word naskh in a manner that extends beyond its later technical definition. At times, they used it to refer to the specification of a general text, the restriction of an otherwise unrestricted ruling, or even the clarification of an earlier misunderstanding concerning a verse. Modern readers occasionally encounter these reports and mistakenly conclude that the early Muslims possessed an entirely different conception of abrogation from that adopted by the jurists. Such a conclusion is unwarranted. The broader linguistic usage did not exclude the technical phenomenon of legislative replacement; rather, it included it alongside several other interpretive concepts that had not yet acquired distinct technical names. As the Islamic sciences developed, scholars refined their terminology to avoid ambiguity, assigning separate labels to concepts that had previously been grouped under a single term. This evolution of technical language is common to every mature academic discipline and should not be mistaken for a change in doctrine.

Recognizing these distinctions is essential before examining the Qur’anic evidence itself. The question under discussion is not whether every apparent difference between two texts constitutes abrogation, nor whether the early generations occasionally used the word in a broader linguistic sense. Rather, the issue is whether revelation itself contains instances in which another intentionally replaced a legal ruling with a subsequent revelation. Once the discussion is framed in these precise terms, the evidence may be evaluated with considerably greater clarity, free from much of the terminological confusion that has clouded the modern debate.

2. Methodological Principles Governing the Discussion of Abrogation

Before examining the Qur’anic evidence for abrogation, it is necessary to establish several methodological principles that govern the discussion. These principles are not unique to the doctrine of naskh; rather, they represent fundamental rules of sound scholarship. Indeed, many contemporary disagreements concerning abrogation arise less from deficiencies in the textual evidence than from weaknesses in the methodology used to evaluate it. Clarifying these principles at the outset, therefore, provides the framework for understanding the subsequent discussion.

The first principle is that subsidiary juristic disagreements must not be transformed into foundational methodological assumptions. Throughout the history of Islamic scholarship, jurists have differed on numerous issues related to abrogation. Does specification (takhṣīṣ) constitute a form of naskh? Can the Sunnah abrogate the Qur’an? Does an additional legal qualification introduced by a later text amount to legislative replacement or merely clarification? Such questions have occupied generations of legal theorists and produced multiple opinions supported by sophisticated argumentation. Yet these disagreements concern the boundaries and application of the doctrine rather than its existence. It is therefore methodologically unsound to adopt one opinion in these subsidiary debates and immediately draw sweeping conclusions from it that overturn established legal rulings. Before such conclusions can be accepted, the underlying methodological choice must itself be demonstrated and defended against competing scholarly positions.

This point may be illustrated by discussions surrounding the punishment of rajm. Some contemporary writers appeal to isolated legal principles associated with the Ḥanafī school, arguing that these principles necessarily require rejecting authentic prophetic traditions establishing the punishment of stoning. Such reasoning overlooks a simple historical reality. The very jurists whose principles are being invoked, including Abū Ḥanīfah, Abū Yūsuf, Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan, and the generations of Ḥanafī scholars who followed them, all affirmed the legal validity of rajm. If those principles genuinely demanded the opposite conclusion, one would first need to explain how the founders and authoritative representatives of the school consistently failed to recognize such an obvious implication. A more plausible explanation is that the contemporary interpretation of those principles is itself mistaken. Methodological consistency, therefore, requires beginning with the cumulative understanding of the scholarly tradition rather than constructing novel conclusions upon isolated theoretical premises.

A second principle concerns the burden of proof. Those who affirm the doctrine of abrogation do so based on explicit Qur’anic texts, authentic prophetic traditions, the understanding of the Companions, and the consensus transmitted by generations of scholars. Those who deny it are therefore not merely proposing an alternative reading of a handful of verses. They are asserting that the overwhelming majority of Muslim scholarship misunderstood one of the central features of Qur’anic legislation. Such a claim inevitably bears a correspondingly weighty evidentiary burden. It cannot be established through speculative reasoning, rhetorical observations, or ambiguous statements capable of multiple interpretations. The stronger and more deeply rooted a scholarly consensus becomes, the stronger the evidence required to overturn it. Consequently, arguments that rest upon possibility rather than demonstrable proof are methodologically insufficient to displace an interpretation supported by the cumulative testimony of revelation and the inherited scholarly tradition.

Closely related to this is a third principle concerning the evaluation of evidence. Every academic discipline has established criteria for assessing evidence, and the Islamic sciences are no exception. Textual evidence cannot be accepted when it supports one’s preferred conclusion and dismissed when it does not. Nor may isolated reports be elevated above numerous authentic narrations merely because they appear more compatible with a preconceived theory. One of the recurring methodological weaknesses in certain contemporary approaches is precisely this inconsistency. Entire bodies of rigorously authenticated prophetic traditions are dismissed because they conflict with a preferred thesis, while weaker or disputed reports are readily accepted whenever they appear to support it. Such selectivity is incompatible with the objective standards that the classical scholars developed for evaluating both Qur’anic and prophetic evidence.

The fourth principle concerns the relationship between certainty and uncertainty. One of the most common errors in modern discussions is to allow unresolved questions to overturn conclusions already established by decisive evidence. Suppose, for example, that an individual encounters a Qur’anic verse whose legal significance appears difficult to reconcile with another text. The existence of that difficulty does not entitle him to discard the conclusion established by clearer and more decisive evidence. Rather, it requires further investigation until the apparent tension is resolved. This principle operates throughout every field of knowledge. Scientists do not abandon well-established laws because they encounter an unexplained phenomenon, nor do historians reject well-attested events because certain details remain uncertain. Likewise, the Muslim scholar does not abandon a doctrine grounded in explicit revelation because a subsidiary question concerning its application has yet to be fully clarified.

This principle is especially relevant to discussions of wisdom. Critics frequently ask why Allah would legislate one ruling before replacing it with another, implying that unless the wisdom behind every instance of abrogation can be fully explained, the doctrine itself becomes questionable. Such reasoning confuses two distinct issues. Whether a ruling exists is determined by revelation; why it exists belongs to the discussion of divine wisdom. The latter follows the former, not the other way around. A believer may legitimately seek to understand the wisdom behind a ruling, but the absence of an immediately apparent explanation cannot constitute evidence against the ruling itself. Otherwise, the same objection could be directed toward countless acts of worship whose complete wisdom remains known only to Allah. The obligation of the five daily prayers, the number of units assigned to each prayer, and numerous details of ritual worship are accepted because they rest upon decisive revelation, even where every aspect of their wisdom cannot be fully demonstrated through reason alone.

Finally, the discussion of abrogation must always be situated within the broader objective of revelation itself. The Qur’an was not revealed instantaneously as a completed legal code. Rather, it descended over approximately twenty-three years, accompanying the Prophet ﷺ and the first Muslim community through every stage of their religious, social, and political development. The gradual nature of revelation is therefore not incidental but fundamental to understanding Qur’anic legislation. Commands were revealed in response to particular circumstances, communities were prepared progressively for greater obligations, and legal rulings developed alongside the emerging Muslim society. Any methodology that ignores this historical reality inevitably risks misreading the Qur’an’s legislative structure. The doctrine of abrogation must therefore be studied not as an isolated legal theory but as one aspect of the broader phenomenon of progressive revelation, through which Allah guided the first Muslim community with perfect wisdom until the religion reached its completion.

These methodological principles provide the necessary framework for evaluating the textual evidence. Only after they have been firmly established can the Qur’anic examples themselves be examined fairly, allowing the revealed texts to determine the conclusion rather than requiring the conclusion to determine the interpretation of the texts.

3. Qur’anic Evidence for the Occurrence of Abrogation

3.1 The Change of the Qiblah

Having established the methodological framework for the discussion, we now turn to the evidence itself. The strongest proof for the doctrine of abrogation is not juristic consensus or theological reasoning, important though both undoubtedly are. Rather, it is the Qur’an. If the Qur’an itself records instances in which one revealed another replaced legal ruling, then the occurrence of abrogation becomes a matter established directly by revelation before it becomes the subject of legal or theological analysis. Consequently, the primary task is not to begin with abstract definitions or philosophical objections, but to examine the Qur’an’s own presentation of legislative development.

The clearest and most widely acknowledged example is the change of the qiblah from Bayt al-Maqdis (Jerusalem) to the Kaʿbah in Makkah. Allah says:

“The foolish among the people will say, ‘What has turned them away from the direction of prayer which they used to face?’ Say, ‘To Allah belong the east and the west. He guides whom He wills to a straight path.’” (Qur’an 2:142)

A few verses later, Allah declares:

“Indeed, We have seen the turning of your face toward heaven, and We shall surely turn you to a qiblah that will please you. So turn your face toward al-Masjid al-Ḥarām.” (Qur’an 2:144)

These verses leave little room for interpretive uncertainty. They explicitly acknowledge that the Muslims had previously prayed toward one direction before being commanded to face another. The Qur’an does not merely allude to this historical transition; it addresses the objections raised against it and commands the believers to implement the new ruling immediately. The legal obligation governing the direction of prayer, therefore, changed through subsequent revelation. If this does not constitute abrogation in the technical sense recognized by the jurists, it becomes exceedingly difficult to identify what would.

The Qur’an further identifies one of the principal wisdoms behind this legislative transition. Allah says:

“We did not appoint the qiblah which you formerly faced except that We might distinguish those who follow the Messenger from those who turn back on their heels.” (Qur’an 2:143)

This verse is of immense significance because it demonstrates that the earlier ruling was never intended to remain permanent. Rather, it formed part of a divinely ordained process through which the sincerity and submission of the believers would be tested. Their obedience was not directed toward Jerusalem or the Kaʿbah as independent objects of devotion, but toward Allah, who possesses absolute authority to legislate in whichever direction He wills. By commanding one qiblah before replacing it with another, Allah manifested the essence of servitude: true obedience consists in following divine command irrespective of personal preference or inherited custom.

The historical context preserved in the Sunnah reinforces this understanding. Numerous authentic narrations establish that the Prophet ﷺ initially prayed toward Bayt al-Maqdis by divine command. While residing in Makkah, he would position himself in such a way that the Kaʿbah stood between him and Jerusalem whenever possible, thereby facing both simultaneously. Following the Hijrah to Madinah, this arrangement was no longer feasible, and he continued facing Jerusalem until revelation instructed him to turn toward al-Masjid al-Ḥarām. The Companions immediately implemented the new command, famously changing direction during the prayer itself upon learning that revelation had descended. The speed and unanimity of their response demonstrate that they understood the legal ruling itself to have changed. They did not regard the new command as merely clarifying an existing obligation or granting an optional alternative. They understood that the earlier ruling had been replaced.

The classical scholars consistently cited this episode as one of the most decisive examples of Qur’anic abrogation. Abū Manṣūr al-Baghdādī regarded it as one of the clearest instances of naskh in the Qur’an. Al-Qurṭubī likewise identified it as explicit proof that Allah’s Book contains both abrogating and abrogated rulings. At the same time, numerous authorities reported a consensus that the change of the qiblah represented the earliest occurrence of legal abrogation in the Qur’anic revelation. Their agreement is hardly surprising, for the textual evidence itself is remarkably direct. Both the earlier and later rulings are known, their chronological relationship is firmly established, and the Qur’an explicitly addresses the transition between them.

Despite the clarity of this evidence, Abū Muslim al-Iṣfahānī sought to avoid classifying the change of the qiblah as abrogation. He argued that Jerusalem retained a residual legal significance because believers might still face it under exceptional circumstances, such as uncertainty regarding the correct direction or situations of overwhelming fear. According to his reasoning, the continued possibility of facing Jerusalem prevented the earlier ruling from being genuinely abrogated.

This argument, however, fails to engage the issue actually under discussion. No one disputes that exceptional circumstances may permit concessions regarding the direction of prayer. Such concessions apply equally to every direction whenever necessity requires and arise from general legal principles governing hardship rather than from the continuing legal authority of Jerusalem as the prescribed qiblah. The relevant question is not whether one may accidentally or exceptionally face Jerusalem. Rather, it is whether Jerusalem remained the divinely designated direction of prayer after Allah commanded the believers to face al-Masjid al-Ḥarām. On this point, the Qur’an is unequivocal. The former legal obligation ceased to govern the community once the latter command was revealed.

Some writers have advanced an even less persuasive suggestion: that the Prophet ﷺ initially faced Jerusalem on his own independent judgment rather than through divine revelation. This interpretation is difficult to reconcile with both the Qur’an and the Sunnah. Acts of worship are established through revelation, not personal preference, and the Qur’an explicitly portrays the Prophet ﷺ awaiting divine instruction as he repeatedly turned his face toward the heavens in anticipation of the new command. Had the earlier qiblah merely reflected personal judgment, there would have been no need to await revelation before changing it. Moreover, authentic reports from Ibn ʿAbbās explicitly state that Allah commanded the Prophet ﷺ to face Bayt al-Maqdis before subsequently commanding him to face the Kaʿbah. The historical evidence, therefore, confirms what the Qur’anic text already makes abundantly clear.

The change of the qiblah thus stands as one of the clearest illustrations of legislative abrogation in the Qur’an. It satisfies every condition established by the jurists for identifying naskh: an earlier legal ruling is known, a later ruling replaces it through revelation, the chronological order of the two rulings is firmly established, and the Prophet ﷺ together with his Companions immediately implemented the new legislation. Indeed, the force of this example is such that many later scholars regarded it as sufficient, by itself, to establish the occurrence of abrogation within the Qur’an. Once this example is accepted, the debate shifts from whether abrogation exists to identifying its other legitimate instances and understanding the wisdoms that underlie its occurrence.

3.2 The Gradual Prohibition of Intoxicants

If the change of the qiblah demonstrates that Allah may replace one legal ruling with another, the legislation concerning intoxicants illustrates an equally important principle: abrogation may occur gradually, with successive revelations preparing the believers for the final legal command. This example is especially significant because the Qur’an itself preserves each stage of the legislative process, allowing the reader to observe the progressive development of divine law over time.

Before Islam, wine consumption was deeply embedded in Arabian society. It was part of social gatherings, commercial activity, and cultural life, and many of the leading Companions had consumed it before embracing Islam. Had revelation prohibited intoxicants immediately and without preparation, the command would undoubtedly have imposed a far greater burden upon a community whose customs had been shaped over generations. Divine wisdom therefore required that the prohibition be introduced progressively, cultivating moral conviction before imposing complete legal obligation.

The first stage appears in Allah’s response to those who asked about wine and gambling:

“They ask you concerning wine and gambling. Say: In them is great sin and some benefit for people, but their sin is greater than their benefit.” (Qur’an 2:219)

This verse does not prohibit intoxicants. Rather, it reshapes believers’ moral perceptions by acknowledging that, while certain worldly benefits may exist, they are overwhelmingly outweighed by the harm they cause. The emphasis falls not upon legal prohibition but upon ethical evaluation. What had previously been regarded as an ordinary feature of daily life now became something whose destructive consequences exceeded whatever temporary advantages it offered. The hearts of the believers were thus prepared for the legislation that would follow.

The second stage imposed a practical restriction without yet establishing a complete prohibition. Allah says:

“O you who believe, do not approach prayer while you are intoxicated until you know what you are saying.” (Qur’an 4:43)

The legal significance of this verse should not be underestimated. Although drinking itself remained permissible, the opportunities to do so became increasingly limited. The five daily prayers structure the entire day of a Muslim, and the requirement that one be sober for each prayer substantially reduces the occasions on which intoxication could realistically occur. The legislation, therefore, continued the process begun in the earlier verse by gradually detaching the believers from a deeply rooted social habit while preparing them for the final prohibition.

The definitive ruling came with the revelation of Sūrat al-Mā’idah:

“O you who believe, indeed wine, gambling, sacrificial stones, and divining arrows are filth from the work of Satan, so avoid them that you may succeed. Satan only desires to create enmity and hatred among you through wine and gambling and to hinder you from the remembrance of Allah and from prayer. Will you then desist?” (Qur’an 5:90–91)

With these verses, the legislative process came to an end. Intoxicants were no longer merely discouraged or restricted; they were categorically prohibited. The command to “avoid them” (fajtanibūhu) represents one of the strongest expressions of prohibition found in the Qur’an. The Companions immediately understood its legal implications. Authentic narrations describe how wine containers were emptied into the streets of Madinah upon the revelation of these verses, demonstrating the early Muslim community’s complete and unquestioning submission to the final command.

The Sunnah further illuminates this gradual development. Among the most famous reports is the narration of ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb (رضي الله عنه), preserved in both Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī and Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim. Each time a verse concerning wine was revealed, ʿUmar supplicated, “O Allah, clarify for us the ruling concerning wine with complete clarity.” His supplication continued until the revelation of the final verses in Sūrat al-Mā’idah, after which the legal status of intoxicants was settled definitively. The narration vividly illustrates that the Companions themselves recognized successive stages of legislation culminating in a final and permanent ruling.

Some modern writers attempt to avoid describing this progression as abrogation by characterizing it instead as “gradual legislation.” While the expression itself is unobjectionable, it cannot eliminate the underlying legal reality. Gradual legislation simply describes the manner in which abrogation occurred in this instance. During one period, the believers were legally permitted to consume intoxicants, subject only to moral caution. Later, they were permitted to drink, but not in proximity to prayer. Finally, the permission itself ceased altogether through subsequent revelation. Whatever terminology one chooses, the legal ruling governing intoxicants changed over time. That successive legal development is precisely what the jurists mean by naskh.

Indeed, this example demonstrates one of the greatest wisdoms underlying the doctrine of abrogation. Revelation was not sent merely to announce legal commands in the abstract but to cultivate a believing community capable of implementing them wholeheartedly. Allah, in His perfect wisdom, knew both the final objective of the legislation and the most effective means of preparing His servants to receive it. The gradual prohibition of intoxicants therefore reflects not any deficiency in the earlier rulings, but the pedagogical wisdom through which revelation transformed individuals and society alike. The earlier stages fulfilled the purpose for which they had been revealed, and once that purpose had been accomplished, the final legislation descended. Abrogation in this case was therefore not simply a legal mechanism but a profound manifestation of divine mercy, wisdom, and consideration for the realities of human nature.

The gradual prohibition of wine also exposes a methodological inconsistency in many contemporary critiques of abrogation. Those who reject the doctrine often acknowledge without hesitation that the legal status of intoxicants developed progressively throughout the Qur’anic revelation. Yet having accepted the phenomenon itself, they object only to describing it as naskh. The disagreement therefore becomes largely terminological rather than substantive. Whether one prefers the expression “gradual legislation” or “legislative abrogation,” the historical fact remains unchanged: successive revelations established successive legal obligations, with each later ruling replacing the legal force of the one that preceded it. It is this legal reality, rather than the terminology used to describe it, that constitutes the essence of abrogation.

3.3 Permission to Fight

The legislation concerning armed struggle provides another clear illustration of legislative abrogation within the Qur’an. Unlike the previous examples, which primarily demonstrate gradual moral and legal preparation, the verses concerning fighting reveal how divine legislation responded to the changing circumstances of the Muslim community as it progressed from a persecuted minority in Makkah to an established polity in Madinah. Far from reflecting inconsistency, this development illustrates the profound harmony between revelation and the historical realities in which it was implemented.

During the Makkan period, the Muslims were repeatedly commanded to endure persecution with patience and restraint. They suffered torture, social boycott, confiscation of property, exile, and even murder, yet they were not permitted to respond with armed force. Numerous Qur’anic passages instructed them to forgive, overlook abuse, and persevere in the face of oppression. This restraint was not born of weakness in the divine command, nor did it imply that self-defense was inherently impermissible. Rather, the fledgling Muslim community lacked both the political authority and the practical capacity to engage in armed conflict without exposing itself to destruction. The wisdom of the Makkan legislation therefore lay in cultivating faith, patience, and perseverance while preserving the community until the appropriate circumstances for armed resistance had emerged.

The legal position changed fundamentally after the Hijrah. Having established themselves in Madinah, the Muslims now possessed a political community capable of defending itself against external aggression. It was at this stage that Allah revealed:

“Permission has been granted to those who are being fought because they have been wronged, and indeed Allah is fully capable of granting them victory.” (Qur’an 22:39)

The wording of the verse is especially significant. It does not merely regulate the conduct of warfare; it announces that permission has now been granted. The implication is unmistakable. Before this revelation, such permission did not exist. The legal ruling governing the believers had therefore changed. What had previously been prohibited became permissible through subsequent revelation. This transition satisfies all the conditions identified by the jurists for legislative abrogation.

The development of the legislation did not end there. Permission to fight was subsequently followed by verses imposing a collective obligation to defend the Muslim community against aggression and, later still, by more detailed regulations governing the conduct of warfare, treaties, prisoners, and relations with hostile forces. The Qur’an, therefore, presents military legislation not as a single command revealed in isolation but as a carefully structured progression corresponding to the development of the Muslim community itself. Each stage served a particular purpose, and each remained operative only for the period intended by divine wisdom.

The earliest Muslim scholars consistently understood these verses in precisely this manner. Ibn ʿAbbās regarded the verse granting permission to fight as the first revelation allowing armed resistance after years of patient endurance. Similar explanations are transmitted from Qatādah, al-Zuhrī, and numerous early exegetes. At the same time, Imām al-Shāfiʿī likewise treated the verse as marking a new legislative stage in the development of Islamic law. Their agreement is unsurprising, for the language of the Qur’an itself points directly to this conclusion. One cannot meaningfully speak of permission being granted unless that permission was previously absent.

Some contemporary writers attempt to avoid the conclusion of abrogation by arguing that the Makkan verses addressed one set of circumstances while the Medinan verses addressed another. Properly understood, this observation is entirely correct. Yet rather than undermining the doctrine of naskh, it explains one of its principal wisdoms. The earlier rulings were indeed appropriate for one historical context, while the later rulings became appropriate for another. The legal obligation governing the believers, nevertheless, changed through revelation. To acknowledge changing circumstances while denying legislative development is ultimately to affirm the substance of abrogation while objecting only to its terminology.

Indeed, this example illustrates an important principle that will recur throughout the present study. Divine legislation is not detached from human reality. Allah legislates according to His perfect knowledge of both His servants and the circumstances through which they pass. The Makkan Muslims required spiritual formation before military engagement; the Medinan Muslims required legal permission to defend themselves after establishing their community. Neither ruling was deficient. Each fulfilled the purpose for which it had been revealed, and each occupied its proper place within the broader unfolding of revelation. Legislative succession, therefore, reflects not inconsistency but perfect wisdom applied to differing circumstances.

The permission to fight also exposes a recurring weakness in many modern critiques of abrogation. These critiques often assume that if two rulings can be explained by reference to different historical contexts, then no abrogation has occurred. This conclusion does not follow. On the contrary, one of the primary reasons for abrogation is precisely that the circumstances governing the application of a legal ruling have changed through the course of revelation. Explaining why Allah replaced one ruling with another does not amount to denying that He did so. The historical explanation complements the doctrine of abrogation rather than eliminating it. In this respect, the legislation concerning warfare serves as another compelling illustration of the progressive unfolding of revelation, with successive legal rulings guiding the Muslim community according to the changing circumstances foreknown to Allah from eternity.

3.4 The Legislation Concerning Illicit Sexual Relations

The legislation governing illicit sexual relations provides another important illustration of legislative abrogation within the Qur’an. Unlike the previous examples, which concern acts of worship and relations between the Muslim community and its opponents, this example pertains to the gradual development of the Qur’an’s criminal legislation. It demonstrates that even within the sphere of penal law, revelation occasionally introduced temporary rulings before establishing the permanent legal framework that would govern the Muslim community thereafter.

The earliest legislation appears in Sūrat al-Nisāʾ, where Allah says:

“As for those women among you who commit indecency, call four witnesses against them from among yourselves. If they testify, then confine them to their houses until death takes them or Allah appoints for them another way.” (Qur’an 4:15)

This verse is remarkable because it contains within itself an explicit indication of its temporary character. The confinement of offenders is not presented as the final legislative settlement of the matter. Rather, the ruling is expressly qualified by the statement, “until Allah appoints for them another way.” From the moment of its revelation, therefore, the verse anticipates the arrival of subsequent legislation. It informs the believers that the existing ruling will remain operative only until Allah reveals another legal course. Few verses illustrate the principle of legislative succession more clearly.

That promised legislation arrived with the revelation of Sūrat al-Nūr:

“The unmarried woman guilty of fornication and the unmarried man guilty of fornication, flog each of them with one hundred lashes.” (Qur’an 24:2)

The Prophet ﷺ himself identified this verse as the fulfillment of the earlier promise. In the authentic ḥadīth recorded by Muslim, he declared:

“Take from me. Allah has now appointed for them another way.”

He then explained the legal punishments applicable to unmarried and married offenders respectively, thereby making explicit what the earlier verse had anticipated. The significance of this narration cannot be overstated. The Prophet ﷺ did not merely introduce an independent legal ruling. Rather, he expressly linked the new legislation to the Qur’anic promise that Allah would provide “another way.” The transition was therefore understood by the Prophet ﷺ himself as the replacement of the earlier temporary ruling.

The classical scholars consistently regarded this as one of the clearest examples of Qur’anic abrogation. Al-Ḥārith al-Muḥāsibī, Abū Manṣūr al-Baghdādī, Ibn al-Jawzī, al-Qurṭubī, and numerous others explicitly identified the verse in Sūrat al-Nisāʾ as having been superseded by the later legislation concerning the punishment for zinā. Indeed, reports of scholarly consensus on this point are widespread within the classical literature. Their conclusion rests not upon speculative reasoning but upon the explicit wording of both the Qur’an and the Sunnah. The earlier verse announces that another ruling will eventually replace it, while the Prophet ﷺ subsequently declares that Allah has now revealed that promised alternative.

Some modern writers attempt to avoid the conclusion of abrogation by suggesting that the earlier verse addressed one category of offenders while the later legislation addressed another. Such explanations, however, encounter considerable textual difficulty. Neither the Qur’anic wording nor the prophetic explanation supports such a distinction. On the contrary, the Prophet ﷺ explicitly interpreted the later legislation as the realization of the promise contained within the earlier verse. Once this connection is acknowledged, the relationship between the two rulings becomes unmistakable. The temporary measure of confinement gave way to the permanent legal framework governing the punishment of illicit sexual relations.

This example also demonstrates an important characteristic of Qur’anic legislation more generally. Temporary rulings should not be viewed as incomplete or defective simply because they were later replaced. Every stage of revelation fulfilled a particular objective within the gradual formation of the Muslim community. The initial legislation concerning confinement provided an immediate legal response to a pressing social problem while preparing the believers for the more comprehensive penal legislation that would later be revealed. When that objective had been achieved, Allah replaced the earlier ruling with one better suited to the mature legal order of the Islamic community. The earlier legislation was therefore neither mistaken nor unnecessary. It accomplished precisely the purpose for which it had been revealed.

The legislation concerning zinā also highlights a methodological principle that recurs throughout the doctrine of abrogation. The question is not whether one can imagine alternative explanations that avoid the term naskh. Rather, the question is which interpretation best accounts for the totality of the evidence. Here, the Qur’an announces that another legal course will be revealed; the Prophet ﷺ explicitly identifies the later legislation as the promised alternative; and the overwhelming majority of classical scholars understand the relationship between the two rulings as one of legislative replacement. Against this cumulative body of evidence, alternative interpretations appear increasingly strained. They often preserve the terminology preferred by the interpreter while conceding the very legislative development that the doctrine of abrogation seeks to describe. In such cases, the disagreement becomes largely semantic rather than substantive.

Accordingly, the legislation concerning illicit sexual relations stands alongside the change of the qiblah, the prohibition of intoxicants, and the permission to fight as another clear manifestation of legislative abrogation within the Qur’an. Together, these examples reveal a consistent pattern. Revelation did not descend as a static legal code in which every ruling was intended to remain permanently operative from the moment of its revelation. Rather, Allah guided the first Muslim community through successive stages of legislation, each perfectly suited to its time, each fulfilling its intended purpose, and each contributing to the gradual completion of the Sharīʿah. Far from diminishing the perfection of divine legislation, this progressive unfolding constitutes one of its most profound manifestations.

3.5 Charity Before Private Consultation with the Prophet ﷺ

Among the most explicit examples of legislative abrogation in the Qur’an is the temporary obligation requiring believers to give charity before privately consulting the Messenger of Allah ﷺ. Although this ruling remained in force for only a brief period, it occupies an important place in the discussion of naskh because both the legislation establishing the obligation and the revelation removing it appear in immediate succession within the Qur’an itself. The example therefore leaves little room for uncertainty regarding either the chronological sequence of the rulings or their legal relationship.

Allah initially revealed:

“O you who believe, when you wish to consult the Messenger privately, then present a charity before your consultation. That is better and purer for you. But if you do not find the means, then indeed Allah is All-Forgiving, Most Merciful.” (Qur’an 58:12)

The purpose of this legislation is readily apparent. The Companions loved the Prophet ﷺ deeply and naturally desired opportunities to speak with him in private. As the Muslim community continued to grow, however, frequent private consultations inevitably consumed a considerable portion of his time. By requiring a charitable donation before such meetings, the Qur’an ensured that private consultation would be sought only for matters of genuine importance while simultaneously directing material benefit toward those in need—the legislation therefore combined educational, social, and spiritual objectives within a single command.

Yet the obligation proved difficult for many believers. Some lacked the financial means to offer charity, while others hesitated lest they impose an unnecessary burden upon themselves. Shortly thereafter, Allah revealed:

“Are you afraid to present charities before your private consultations? Since you did not do so, and Allah has accepted your repentance, then establish prayer, give zakāh, obey Allah and His Messenger, and Allah is fully aware of what you do.” (Qur’an 58:13)

The contrast between the two verses is unmistakable. The first establishes a legal obligation; the second removes it. Nothing in the wording suggests mere clarification, specification, or qualification. Rather, the legal requirement itself ceases to govern the believers following the second revelation. Consequently, this passage has long been regarded by the overwhelming majority of Qur’anic exegetes and legal theorists as one of the clearest instances of legislative abrogation.

The historical reports preserved in the Sunnah reinforce this conclusion. It is authentically narrated that ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib (رضي الله عنه) was among the very few Companions who fulfilled the command by offering charity before privately consulting the Prophet ﷺ. He himself expressed gratitude that Allah granted him the opportunity to act upon the verse before it was subsequently abrogated. Such reports demonstrate that the Companions understood the command as a genuine legal obligation during the period in which it remained operative. They did not regard it as merely symbolic or advisory. Equally important, they recognized that the later revelation lifted the obligation entirely.

It is precisely this example that receives considerable attention in the writings of Abū Muslim al-Iṣfahānī. Seeking to avoid classifying the passage as an instance of abrogation, he argued that the legislation simply expired because its objective had already been achieved. According to his explanation, the command was intended to distinguish sincere believers from hypocrites. Once that distinction had become manifest, the ruling naturally ceased to apply, not because it had been abrogated, but because its purpose had been fulfilled.

At first glance, this interpretation appears plausible, yet closer examination reveals that it ultimately preserves the very phenomenon it seeks to deny. If Allah reveals a legal obligation that binds the believers for a period of time before subsequently removing it through another revelation, the legal ruling governing the community has unquestionably changed. Whether one attributes that change to the fulfillment of the ruling’s objective or to any other wisdom does not alter the legal reality itself. The believers were initially required to give charity before private consultation; they were later released from that requirement. This successive development of legislation is precisely what the jurists define as naskh.

Moreover, the alternative explanation encounters significant difficulties of its own. Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī observes that if the sole purpose of the legislation had been to expose hypocrites, then those who failed to offer charity before consulting the Prophet ﷺ would necessarily have been counted among them. Yet historical reports indicate that very few Companions actually fulfilled the command, despite their unquestionable sincerity of faith. It is therefore impossible to maintain that everyone who refrained from giving charity was acting hypocritically. The explanation consequently produces implications that neither the Qur’an nor the Sunnah supports.

The simpler, more coherent interpretation is the one adopted by the overwhelming majority of classical scholars. Allah legislated a temporary obligation whose purposes included disciplining the believers, reducing unnecessary demands upon the Prophet’s time, encouraging charity, and testing the sincerity of those seeking private consultation. Once those purposes had been sufficiently realized, Allah lifted the obligation through subsequent revelation while retaining the enduring commands to establish prayer, pay zakāh, and obey His Messenger. The legislative transition is therefore both textually explicit and entirely consistent with the broader pattern of progressive revelation observed throughout the Qur’an.

This example is especially instructive because it illustrates that the duration of a legal ruling has no bearing upon whether it constitutes abrogation. Some rulings remained in effect for many years before being replaced, while others lasted only briefly. In both cases, the defining characteristic is not the length of time the ruling remained in force, but that a later revelation altered the legal obligation of the believers. The temporary command concerning private consultation therefore stands alongside the previous examples as another compelling demonstration that Qur’anic legislation unfolded through successive stages, each governed by the perfect wisdom and foreknowledge of Allah.

3.6 The Obligation of Night Prayer in Sūrat al-Muzzammil

The legislation concerning the night prayer (qiyām al-layl) in Sūrat al-Muzzammil provides yet another compelling example of legislative abrogation within the Qur’an. Its importance lies not only in the clarity of the legal transition, but also in the fact that both the abrogating and the abrogated rulings appear within the same sūrah. This has occasionally led some writers to question whether abrogation can occur within a single chapter of the Qur’an. Such an objection, however, rests upon a misunderstanding of the manner in which the Qur’an was revealed.

Although certain sūrahs descended as complete units, many others were revealed over extended periods of time. Individual verses frequently descended months or even years after the opening of a chapter, yet were placed within that chapter by the direct instruction of the Prophet ﷺ under divine guidance. Consequently, the arrangement of the Qur’an is not chronological but revelatory. The order of the verses reflects Allah’s final arrangement of His Book rather than the sequence in which the revelations originally descended. This distinction is well established within the Qur’anic sciences and is indispensable for understanding numerous examples of legislative development.

The opening of Sūrat al-Muzzammil contains one of the earliest commands addressed to the Prophet ﷺ:

“O you who wraps himself [in his garment], stand in prayer during the night, except a little, half of it, or slightly less than that, or slightly more, and recite the Qur’an with measured recitation.” (Qur’an 73:1–4)

The language of these verses is unmistakably imperative. The Prophet ﷺ was commanded to devote a substantial portion of every night to prayer and recitation of the Qur’an. Authentic reports further establish that this obligation was not confined to the Prophet alone. A group of the early believers faithfully observed this command alongside him, standing for long stretches of the night in worship and recitation despite the immense hardship they endured during the Makkan period.

Near the conclusion of the same sūrah, however, Allah revealed:

“Indeed, your Lord knows that you stand nearly two-thirds of the night, or half of it, or one-third of it, together with a group of those who are with you. Allah determines the night and the day. He knows that you cannot sustain it, so He has turned to you in mercy. Therefore, recite whatever is easy of the Qur’an.” (Qur’an 73:20)

The contrast between the opening and concluding passages is immediately apparent. What had initially been a defined legal obligation requiring prolonged nightly worship becomes a concession permitting whatever amount is manageable. The obligation itself has been relaxed through subsequent revelation. The Qur’an even explains the reason for this change: Allah knew that maintaining such an extensive nightly obligation indefinitely would impose excessive hardship upon the believers, and He therefore granted them relief through His mercy. The legislative transition is thus stated explicitly within the text itself.

The Sunnah confirms this understanding with remarkable clarity. ʿĀʾishah (رضي الله عنها) narrates in Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim that the opening verses of Sūrat al-Muzzammil made the night prayer obligatory, whereupon the Prophet ﷺ and his Companions observed it continuously for approximately one year. Thereafter, Allah delayed the revelation of the concluding verse until the appropriate time before revealing it as a concession that transformed the obligation into a voluntary act. Similar reports are narrated from Ibn ʿAbbās and numerous early authorities, all of whom understood the passage as describing the replacement of one legal ruling by another.

This example is particularly significant because it demonstrates that abrogation is not confined to rulings involving social relations or legal penalties. Acts of worship themselves may also undergo legislative development. The obligation of prolonged nightly prayer served a profound spiritual purpose during the earliest stage of the Prophet’s mission. The small community of believers was being prepared to shoulder the immense responsibility of conveying the final revelation to humanity. Long hours of prayer, reflection, and Qur’anic recitation cultivated patience, sincerity, reliance upon Allah, and unwavering spiritual discipline during a period marked by persecution and hardship. Once this formative objective had been accomplished, Allah lifted the obligation while preserving the immense virtue of voluntary night prayer.

The wisdom of this legislation is therefore immediately apparent. The earlier command was neither excessive nor temporary because of any deficiency within it. Rather, it was perfectly suited to the circumstances in which it was revealed. Likewise, the later concession did not reflect a retreat from the earlier ideal but the completion of a particular stage in the spiritual formation of the Muslim community. Both rulings were manifestations of divine wisdom, each governing the believers for precisely the period intended by Allah.

Some have attempted to avoid classifying this passage as an instance of abrogation by arguing that the opening verses merely encouraged night prayer rather than imposing it as a legal obligation. This interpretation, however, is difficult to reconcile with both the language of the Qur’an and the authentic reports explaining its revelation. The repeated imperative commands in the opening verses naturally indicate obligation unless evidence establishes otherwise, and the narrations from ʿĀʾishah and Ibn ʿAbbās explicitly describe the early legislation as obligatory before the concluding verse granted relief. The cumulative force of the Qur’anic wording and the prophetic explanation, therefore, leaves little room for doubt.

The legislation of night prayer also demonstrates an important methodological principle that recurs throughout the doctrine of abrogation. The presence of both the earlier and later rulings within a single sūrah does not weaken the argument for legislative succession. On the contrary, it illustrates that the arrangement of the Qur’an should never be confused with the chronological order of revelation. Once this distinction is understood, the apparent difficulty disappears entirely. The opening verses established an obligation during the early Makkan period, while the concluding verse, revealed later and placed within the same chapter by divine instruction, relieved the believers of that obligation. The example, therefore, satisfies every criterion for legislative abrogation recognized by the classical jurists while simultaneously illustrating the intimate relationship between progressive revelation and the final arrangement of the Qur’an.

With the examples discussed thus far, a consistent pattern has emerged. The change of the qiblah, the gradual prohibition of intoxicants, the permission to fight, the legislation concerning illicit sexual relations, the temporary obligation of charity before private consultation with the Prophet ﷺ, and the obligation of night prayer all display the same essential characteristic: a revealed legal ruling governed the believers for a period of time before being replaced by another revealed ruling better suited to the next stage in the development of the Muslim community. The cumulative force of these examples is considerably stronger than any one of them considered in isolation. Together, they demonstrate that legislative succession is not an exceptional phenomenon confined to a single verse or isolated incident. It is an integral part of Qur’anic revelation, unfolding according to the perfect wisdom, knowledge, and mercy of Allah.

4. The Consensus of the Early Muslim Community

The Qur’anic examples examined thus far are, by themselves, sufficient to establish the occurrence of legislative abrogation. Nevertheless, the discussion does not end with the revealed texts. An equally important consideration is how the earliest generations of Muslims understood those texts. The Qur’an was first interpreted by the Prophet ﷺ, then by his Companions who witnessed its revelation, followed by the Successors who learned directly from them. If these generations unanimously understood certain verses to represent instances of legislative abrogation, their agreement carries considerable interpretive weight. The doctrine of naskh would therefore rest not only upon the wording of revelation but also upon the inherited understanding of those closest to its descent.

The historical record reveals remarkable consistency on this point. Reports concerning abrogation are transmitted from many of the foremost Companions, including ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb, ʿUthmān ibn ʿAffān, ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib, ʿAbdullāh ibn Masʿūd, Ubayy ibn Kaʿb, Zayd ibn Thābit, Ibn ʿAbbās, Ibn ʿUmar, ʿĀʾishah, Ḥudhayfah ibn al-Yamān, al-Barāʾ ibn ʿĀzib, and Abū Saʿīd al-Khudrī, among many others. This is not an insignificant collection of names. It includes the foremost jurists among the Companions, the leading authorities on Qur’anic recitation, the greatest exegetes of the first generation, and several of the Rightly Guided Caliphs themselves. Their discussions of naskh occur naturally within their explanations of the Qur’an and its legal rulings, demonstrating that legislative abrogation formed part of the inherited understanding of revelation from the earliest period of Islamic scholarship.

Some modern writers have attempted to weaken this evidence by observing that the Companions occasionally used the term naskh more broadly than later legal theorists. This observation is substantially correct but often misunderstood. The early generations sometimes employed the word to include specification, restriction, clarification, or the correction of an earlier interpretation alongside genuine legislative replacement. As the sciences of tafsīr and legal theory matured, these various interpretive concepts gradually acquired their own technical terminology, leaving the word naskh to denote the replacement of one legal ruling by another through subsequent revelation. This refinement of terminology, however, should not be mistaken for a change in doctrine. The broader linguistic usage of the Companions included genuine legislative abrogation; it did not exclude it. Consequently, acknowledging that the Salaf occasionally used the word in a wider sense does nothing to undermine the many instances in which they unmistakably referred to the replacement of one revealed ruling by another.

The importance attached to this discipline by the earliest Muslims is perhaps best illustrated by their insistence that no one should presume to interpret the Qur’an or issue legal verdicts without first mastering the science of the abrogating and the abrogated verses. Their concern was entirely understandable. A person unable to distinguish between rulings that remained operative and those that had been superseded could easily attribute to Allah legislation that He Himself had replaced, or mistakenly regard a temporary ruling as permanently binding. Such confusion would inevitably lead to errors in legal judgment and mislead others about the religion.

Among the most famous reports illustrating this concern is the narration concerning ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib (رضي الله عنه). It is authentically related that he encountered a man publicly addressing the people and asked him, “Do you know the abrogating and the abrogated verses?” When the man replied that he did not, ʿAlī responded, “You have destroyed yourself, and you have destroyed others.” The force of this rebuke should not be overlooked. ʿAlī did not criticize the man for ignorance of obscure theological questions or intricate juristic disputes. Rather, he regarded ignorance of nāsikh and mansūkh as fundamentally incompatible with the responsibility of teaching Allah’s religion. A teacher who cannot distinguish between operative and superseded rulings risks leading both himself and his audience into error.

An equally revealing statement is transmitted from Ḥudhayfah ibn al-Yamān (رضي الله عنه), who observed that only three categories of people should issue legal verdicts: a man who knows the abrogating and the abrogated verses of the Qur’an, a ruler who cannot avoid judging between people, or a reckless individual. When those present asked who possessed such knowledge, he referred to ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb (رضي الله عنه). The implication is unmistakable. Mastery of nāsikh and mansūkh was viewed as one of the defining characteristics of the most accomplished jurists among the Companions. Conversely, issuing legal opinions without such knowledge was considered a dangerous presumption rather than legitimate scholarship.

These reports assume even greater significance when viewed against the claims of some contemporary critics. To deny the very existence of legislative abrogation is not merely to disagree with later jurists over the interpretation of particular verses. It is effective to maintain that the Companions themselves misunderstood a discipline they regarded as indispensable for anyone qualified to interpret the Qur’an. Such a conclusion carries profound methodological implications. If ʿAlī, Ibn ʿAbbās, Ḥudhayfah, and the other leading Companions regarded knowledge of nāsikh and mansūkh as an essential qualification for scholarship, while in reality no such phenomenon existed, then one would be forced to conclude that the earliest and most authoritative generation of Muslims collectively misunderstood one of the foundational sciences of Qur’anic interpretation. The magnitude of such a claim should immediately caution anyone who advances it. It cannot rest upon speculative possibilities or isolated interpretations but demands evidence of the highest order. Indeed, the question arises whether those who deny abrogation believe that all of these authorities committed a clear and fundamental error. If so, the burden rests squarely upon them to produce equally clear and decisive evidence establishing that conclusion. Mere rhetorical observations or ambiguous scholarly quotations cannot bear such an extraordinary weight.

4.1 The Scholarly Consensus After the Companions

The understanding inherited from the Companions did not remain confined to the first generation. It was transmitted to the Successors, preserved by the great exegetes and jurists, and eventually codified within every major branch of the Islamic sciences. Consequently, the doctrine of legislative abrogation came to occupy a settled position not merely within works devoted specifically to nāsikh and mansūkh, but throughout the literature of tafsīr, uṣūl al-fiqh, fiqh, and aqīdah. The question that occupied later scholars was rarely whether abrogation existed. Rather, it concerned the identification of those verses that genuinely satisfied the conditions required for establishing it.

This historical continuity is of considerable importance. It demonstrates that the doctrine was not gradually invented or imposed upon the Qur’an by later jurists. On the contrary, the jurists inherited the concept from the earliest generations and devoted their efforts to refining its application. As legal theory developed, scholars became increasingly cautious in identifying instances of abrogation, often reducing the number of verses that earlier writers had classified under that heading. This development reflected greater methodological precision rather than growing skepticism. The existence of abrogation remained firmly established, while the criteria governing its identification became progressively more rigorous.

The founders of the four Sunni legal schools all accepted the doctrine without hesitation. Although they differed, as one would naturally expect, regarding the interpretation of certain individual verses, none questioned the occurrence of legislative abrogation itself. Imām Mālik, Abū Ḥanīfah, al-Shāfiʿī, and Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal each incorporated the doctrine into their legal methodology, and their students continued to do so in the generations that followed. The same is true of the great Qur’anic exegetes. Al-Ṭabarī, al-Qurṭubī, Ibn Kathīr, al-Baghawī, al-Jaṣṣāṣ, al-Rāzī, Ibn al-ʿArabī, and countless others discuss abrogation as an established feature of Qur’anic legislation while occasionally differing over whether particular verses should be classified as examples of it.

This distinction between disagreement over application and agreement over principle cannot be overstated. Every mature legal tradition contains debates concerning the application of shared principles. Physicians may disagree regarding the diagnosis of a particular illness while remaining united upon the principles of medicine. Likewise, jurists may differ over whether a specific verse has been abrogated, while agreeing on the existence of abrogation as a legislative phenomenon. Confusing these two levels of disagreement has led many modern discussions astray. The fact that scholars debated individual examples does not imply that they doubted the doctrine itself.

It is therefore misleading to cite isolated disagreements over particular verses as evidence that the doctrine of naskh lacked scholarly acceptance. Such disagreements are entirely consistent with the normal development of Islamic jurisprudence. Indeed, they often demonstrate the caution exercised by the scholars before declaring that one revealed ruling had superseded another. Since abrogation results in the cessation of a legal obligation established by revelation, the jurists insisted that it should never be affirmed lightly. Every effort was first made to reconcile the relevant texts through specification, contextual interpretation, or harmonization. Only when reconciliation proved impossible, and the chronological relationship between the texts had been firmly established, would they conclude that legislative abrogation had occurred. Their caution, therefore, strengthens rather than weakens the credibility of the doctrine.

This historical reality also clarifies Abū Muslim al-Iṣfahānī’s place within the broader scholarly tradition. His opinion is often invoked in modern discussions as though it demonstrates that the doctrine of abrogation has always been evenly contested among Muslim scholars. The historical evidence suggests otherwise. Classical scholars consistently treated his position as exceptional. They discussed it because of the prominence of its author and the sophistication of his arguments, not because they regarded it as representing a substantial current within the scholarly tradition. Indeed, many of them responded to his views in considerable detail precisely because they considered them departures from the established understanding of the Muslim community.

Several later scholars went further and explicitly transmitted consensus concerning the occurrence of abrogation. Among them was ʿAbdullāh ibn al-Ṣiddīq al-Ghumārī, who wrote that there is no disagreement among the scholars concerning the occurrence of naskh, and that the contrary opinion is not one to which significant weight can be attached. He adds a particularly striking observation: once the Qur’an itself has established the abrogation of the qiblah, what meaningful disagreement can remain concerning the existence of legislative abrogation? His point is not that every claimed example of abrogation must therefore be accepted without examination. Rather, the phenomenon itself has already been demonstrated by revelation. Once one instance is established beyond dispute, denying the very possibility of naskh becomes exceedingly difficult.

Similar statements appear throughout the classical literature. Ibn Kathīr, after mentioning the opinion of Abū Muslim al-Iṣfahānī, dismisses it as weak and forced, observing that its explanations of the recognized examples of abrogation are marked by unnecessary contrivance. Taj al-Dīn al-Subkī, al-Zarkashī, Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī, al-Zurqānī, and numerous others likewise addressed Abū Muslim’s arguments directly, often by name, before reaffirming the traditional understanding of the Qur’anic evidence. Their responses demonstrate an important historical fact. The classical scholars were fully aware of the arguments against abrogation. They did not overlook them, nor were they ignorant of their implications. They considered those arguments carefully, responded to them in detail, and nevertheless concluded that the cumulative evidence overwhelmingly favored the doctrine of legislative abrogation.

The significance of this historical record should neither be exaggerated nor minimized. Scholarly consensus is not, by itself, the primary proof for abrogation; that distinction belongs to the Qur’an and the authentic Sunnah. Yet once revelation has established the principle, the uninterrupted consensus of the Muslim scholarly tradition over many centuries provides powerful confirmation that the texts have been correctly understood. It also places a considerable burden upon anyone who seeks to reject that understanding. Such a person is no longer arguing merely against a particular interpretation of an isolated verse. He is challenging the accumulated judgment of the very generations who devoted their lives to preserving, explaining, and implementing the revelation itself.

5. The Denial of Abrogation

5.1 A Preliminary Methodological Observation

Before examining the specific arguments advanced against abrogation, it is necessary to consider the methodological implications of denying the doctrine itself. The issue extends far beyond the interpretation of a handful of Qur’anic verses. To reject legislative abrogation is necessarily to contend that a vast body of Muslim scholarship, extending from the Companions through the Successors and continuing across the major schools of law, legal theory, and Qur’anic exegesis, fundamentally misunderstood the legislative structure of the Qur’an. This observation does not establish the correctness of the traditional doctrine merely by appealing to scholarly consensus. The number of its adherents does not determine truth. Nevertheless, the scope of such a claim determines the standard of evidence required to sustain it.

If it is argued that the earliest generations of Muslims collectively erred in recognizing abrogation within the Qur’an, the supporting evidence must itself be correspondingly clear and decisive. It is insufficient to rely upon speculative reasoning, ambiguous statements capable of multiple interpretations, or rhetorical observations that raise possibilities without establishing demonstrable conclusions. The stronger and more deeply rooted an inherited interpretation becomes, the greater the evidentiary burden borne by anyone seeking to overturn it. This principle is neither unique to the Islamic sciences nor controversial within academic inquiry generally. Extraordinary claims demand evidence commensurate with their significance.

A related question therefore arises at the outset. What precisely is the nature of the error attributed to the earliest Muslim scholars? Is it suggested that they merely disagreed over the application of a subsidiary legal principle, or that they collectively misunderstood one of the fundamental mechanisms through which Qur’anic legislation developed? The distinction is critical. If the latter is intended, then the evidence must establish not merely that an alternative interpretation is plausible, but that the Companions, the Successors, the founders of the legal schools, and the leading authorities in tafsīr and uṣūl al-fiqh all arrived at a demonstrably incorrect understanding of a doctrine they regarded as central to the interpretation of revelation. Such a conclusion cannot be sustained by conjecture or interpretive possibility alone. It requires evidence of the highest order.

This consideration also exposes a common methodological weakness in contemporary discussions. The existence of a classical dissenting opinion is sometimes treated as though it automatically places that opinion on equal footing with the cumulative judgment of the scholarly tradition. Yet Islamic scholarship has never evaluated competing views in this manner. The mere existence of an opinion has never constituted evidence of its correctness. Rather, opinions are assessed according to the strength of their proofs, their consistency with the revealed texts, and their ability to account for the entirety of the available evidence. A dissenting view may therefore deserve careful examination without thereby displacing an interpretation supported by explicit revelation and sustained scholarly agreement.

With these methodological considerations established, the objections advanced against abrogation may conveniently be divided into two broad categories. The first consists of rational arguments that seek to demonstrate, on philosophical grounds, the impossibility or improbability of legislative abrogation. The second consists of textual arguments that reinterpret the relevant Qur’anic passages in an effort to avoid recognizing successive legal rulings. Examining each category independently allows the evidence to be evaluated on its own merits while avoiding the tendency to conflate philosophical assumptions with the interpretation of revelation.

5.2 Rational Objections to Abrogation

The most significant rational objection to abrogation rests upon a particular conception of divine perfection. Its proponents argue that if Allah replaces one legal ruling with another, this appears to imply either that the earlier ruling was deficient or that Allah’s knowledge, wisdom, or purpose has changed. Since change is impossible with respect to the divine attributes, they conclude that legislative abrogation must likewise be impossible. At first glance, the argument possesses a certain intuitive appeal. Upon closer examination, however, it rests upon a fundamental misunderstanding of the relationship between Allah’s eternal knowledge and the temporal unfolding of revelation.

The objection assumes that every revealed command is intended to remain permanently operative unless its replacement signifies a revision of the divine will. This assumption is unwarranted. It confuses the permanence of Allah’s eternal knowledge with the duration of individual legal rulings. From the perspective of Islamic theology, Allah eternally knows every command He will reveal, the precise moment at which it will be revealed, the period during which it will remain legally binding, and the ruling that will subsequently succeed it. The succession of legislation, therefore, reflects no change whatsoever in the divine knowledge. Rather, it represents the gradual manifestation, within history, of a legislative plan that has always been perfectly known to Allah.

This distinction is neither difficult nor unique to the doctrine of abrogation. Human beings routinely distinguish between a plan conceived in its entirety and its gradual implementation over time. An architect does not alter his knowledge of a building because it is constructed floor by floor, nor does a teacher revise the curriculum simply because elementary lessons precede advanced instruction. The sequence exists for the benefit of those receiving the instruction rather than because the instructor acquires new knowledge during the process. Such analogies, while necessarily imperfect, illustrate the conceptual error underlying the rational objection. Gradual implementation should never be confused with gradual knowledge.

The Qur’an itself repeatedly presents revelation as unfolding over time in accordance with divine wisdom. The gradual descent of the Qur’an, extending over approximately twenty-three years, was itself deliberate. Allah says:

“Those who disbelieve say, ‘Why was the Qur’an not revealed to him all at once?’ Thus We revealed it gradually so that We might strengthen your heart thereby, and We have recited it in a measured recitation.” (Qur’an 25:32)

The gradual revelation of the Qur’an, therefore, reflects divine intent rather than necessity. If revelation itself was sent progressively in accordance with changing circumstances, there is nothing philosophically problematic about the gradual unfolding of legislation within that revelation. Indeed, the two phenomena are inseparable. Progressive legislation is a natural consequence of progressive revelation.

Another rational objection maintains that if Allah knew from eternity that a particular ruling would eventually be replaced, then revealing the earlier ruling serves no meaningful purpose. This argument likewise overlooks the objectives of revelation. Divine legislation is directed not merely to establishing permanent legal norms but also to educating, testing, and cultivating a believing community. Temporary rulings may therefore serve profound pedagogical, spiritual, or social purposes, even though they are never intended to remain in effect indefinitely. The gradual prohibition of intoxicants provides an obvious example. The earlier stages of the legislation were not mistakes awaiting correction. They were integral components of the divine method through which a deeply rooted social practice was eliminated without imposing unnecessary hardship upon the first generation of Muslims.

The same reasoning applies to the change of the qiblah. Allah explicitly identifies one of its wisdoms when He says:

“We did not appoint the qiblah which you formerly faced except that We might distinguish those who follow the Messenger from those who turn back on their heels.” (Qur’an 2:143)

The earlier command therefore fulfilled a divinely intended objective before the later command replaced it. The existence of a subsequent ruling does not diminish the significance of the earlier one. On the contrary, the later legislation often depends upon the successful accomplishment of the purposes served by the earlier stage. Abrogation is thus not evidence of imperfection but one manifestation of divine wisdom operating within history.

Closely related to these objections is the demand that every instance of abrogation be accompanied by a fully demonstrable explanation of its underlying wisdom. While seeking the wisdom behind divine legislation is undoubtedly praiseworthy, the demand itself rests upon a methodological confusion. The occurrence of a legal ruling and the wisdom behind that ruling are distinct questions. The former is established through revelation; the latter belongs to the field of reflection and juristic analysis. The inability to identify every aspect of the wisdom behind a command does not constitute evidence that the command never existed. Otherwise, countless details of Islamic law and worship would become vulnerable to denial whenever their complete rationale remained beyond human comprehension.

For this reason, the proper order of inquiry must always be preserved. One first determines whether revelation establishes a particular ruling. Only thereafter does one investigate the wisdom underlying that ruling. Reversing this order allows subjective assessments of what appears reasonable to determine which revealed commands may be accepted, thereby subordinating revelation to human speculation rather than allowing revelation to guide human understanding. The classical scholars consistently rejected such an approach, insisting that divine wisdom is discovered through faithful engagement with revelation rather than imposed upon it from the outside.

Ultimately, the rational objections to abrogation derive much of their force from a false dilemma. They assume that legislative succession can only signify either ignorance or inconsistency. Islamic theology recognizes neither alternative. Allah’s knowledge is eternal, complete, and unchanging, while His legislation unfolds within time according to purposes known to Him from eternity. Once this distinction is maintained, the philosophical difficulty disappears. Abrogation no longer appears as a revision of divine knowledge but as one aspect of the perfect wisdom through which Allah guided the first Muslim community until the completion of His religion.

5.3 The Position of Abū Muslim al-Iṣfahānī

No discussion of the denial of abrogation would be complete without considering the views of Abū Muslim al-Iṣfahānī, whose name has become almost synonymous with this position in the classical Islamic tradition. Although his complete tafsīr has not survived, substantial portions of his opinions have been preserved through the works of later exegetes who quoted, analyzed, and responded to his arguments. As a result, his methodology is sufficiently well documented to permit careful evaluation.

It is important to appreciate the precise nature of his disagreement with the majority. Abū Muslim did not deny the chronological sequence of revelation, nor did he dispute that certain legal rulings governed the Muslim community at different stages of its development. Rather, he sought to reinterpret the relationship between successive rulings so that the term naskh became unnecessary. Wherever the majority of scholars identified legislative replacement, he attempted to demonstrate that the earlier ruling had not truly ceased to exist but remained operative in some limited, qualified, or exceptional sense. Consequently, many of his discussions revolve less around the historical facts than around their legal characterization.

This methodological tendency appears repeatedly throughout his interpretation of the principal examples traditionally cited as instances of abrogation. With respect to the change of the qiblah, he argued that Jerusalem retained a residual legal significance because believers might still face it under exceptional circumstances, such as uncertainty regarding the correct direction of prayer or situations in which necessity prevented accurate orientation toward the Kaʿbah. The argument, however, fails to engage the central issue. The question is not whether exceptional circumstances occasionally excuse deviation from the prescribed qiblah. Such concessions apply equally in every direction whenever necessary. Rather, the issue is whether Bayt al-Maqdis remained the divinely prescribed direction of prayer after Allah commanded the believers to face al-Masjid al-Ḥarām. On this point, the Qur’anic evidence leaves little room for ambiguity. The legal obligation governing the community changed over time through subsequent revelations.

A similar pattern emerges in his treatment of the temporary obligation to consult the Prophet ﷺ before privately seeking charity. Instead of acknowledging that the obligation had been abrogated, Abū Muslim argued that it simply ceased because its intended purpose had already been fulfilled. According to his explanation, the command existed to distinguish sincere believers from hypocrites. Once this objective had been achieved, the legislation naturally came to an end without requiring what he regarded as genuine abrogation.

At first glance, this explanation appears to offer a meaningful alternative to the traditional doctrine. Upon closer examination, however, the disagreement proves to be largely terminological. If Allah reveals a legal obligation, requires the believers to observe it for a period of time, and subsequently removes that obligation through another revelation after its objective has been fulfilled, then the legal status of the community has undeniably changed. Whether one chooses to describe that change as “abrogation,” “the expiration of a temporary ruling,” or “the completion of a legislative objective” does not alter the underlying legal reality. The believers were initially bound by one revealed command before becoming bound by another. That successive development of legislation is precisely what the overwhelming majority of jurists intended by the term naskh.

For this reason, many classical scholars observed that Abū Muslim often appeared to dispute the terminology more than the phenomenon itself. He readily acknowledged that different rulings governed different periods of revelation and that later legislation superseded earlier legal practice. His reluctance stemmed primarily from describing this process as an abrogation. Yet changing the terminology leaves the substance of the discussion largely intact. The successive operation of distinct legal rulings remains a historical fact established by the Qur’an and the Sunnah regardless of the label attached to it.

Other scholars went further, arguing that some of Abū Muslim’s explanations generate interpretive difficulties more serious than those they seek to avoid. Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī illustrates this point in his discussion of the legislation concerning charity before private consultation. If the command existed solely to expose hypocrites, then those who refrained from offering charity before consulting the Prophet ﷺ would necessarily have demonstrated hypocrisy. The historical reports, however, indicate that only a very small number of Companions actually fulfilled the command, while the sincerity of the remaining believers is beyond question. The explanation, therefore, produces implications that neither revelation nor history supports. The more straightforward understanding is that Allah imposed a temporary obligation whose purposes included encouraging charity, reducing unnecessary demands upon the Prophet ﷺ, and testing the sincerity of the believers before subsequently lifting that obligation through later revelation.

This pattern recurs throughout Abū Muslim’s discussions of the major examples traditionally associated with abrogation. Rather than allowing the natural meaning of the texts to establish legislative succession, he consistently searches for alternative explanations capable of preserving the earlier ruling in some restricted form. Such explanations occasionally succeed in demonstrating that particular examples require further analysis, and the classical scholars themselves frequently disagreed over whether specific verses had truly been abrogated. Nevertheless, the cumulative effect of this methodology is to place considerable interpretive strain upon passages whose most straightforward reading indicates precisely the legislative development recognized by the overwhelming majority of the Islamic scholarly tradition.

For this reason, the significance of Abū Muslim’s contribution should not be underestimated, but neither should it be exaggerated. His arguments compelled later scholars to articulate the doctrine of abrogation with greater precision and to distinguish genuine legislative replacement from specification, qualification, and other forms of textual interpretation. In this respect, his criticisms contributed positively to the refinement of legal theory. They, however, did not succeed in overturning the cumulative force of the Qur’anic evidence or the inherited understanding of the early Muslim community. Instead, they encouraged the classical scholars to define the doctrine more carefully, narrow its legitimate scope, and establish more rigorous criteria for identifying its authentic examples.

5.4 Textual Objections to Abrogation

Alongside the rational objections discussed above, critics of abrogation also advance a series of textual arguments based on their interpretation of the Qur’an. Rather than denying the possibility of legislative succession on philosophical grounds, these arguments seek to reinterpret the verses traditionally understood to establish the doctrine of naskh. In most cases, however, the disagreement does not concern the authenticity of the relevant texts but the manner in which they ought to be understood. The central question, therefore, is whether these alternative interpretations better account for the Qur’an as a whole than the understanding transmitted by the earliest generations of Muslims.

Among the most frequently cited verses is Allah’s statement:

“Whenever We abrogate a verse or cause it to be forgotten, We bring forth one better than it or one similar to it. Do you not know that Allah is over all things competent?” (Qur’an 2:106)

Those who affirm abrogation have traditionally regarded this verse as an explicit declaration that Allah may replace one revealed ruling with another. The wording itself is direct. It speaks of one revelation giving way to another, affirming that the replacement is either better or comparable, according to the wisdom of Allah. Read alongside the numerous Qur’anic examples of legislative succession, the verse provides the general principle under which those individual instances are understood.

Some interpreters, however, have argued that the verse refers exclusively to the abrogation of previous scriptures, such as the Torah and the Gospel, rather than to successive rulings within the Qur’an itself. According to this reading, Allah is describing the replacement of earlier religious dispensations by the final revelation granted to the Prophet Muḥammad ﷺ. While it is certainly true that Islam superseded previous revealed laws, restricting the verse to that meaning proves difficult for several reasons.

First, the wording of the verse itself is entirely general. Nothing within its language confines it to earlier scriptures. Had such a restriction been intended, one would naturally expect some textual indication directing the reader toward that specific interpretation. Instead, the verse speaks broadly of Allah’s authority to replace one revealed verse with another according to His wisdom. General wording should ordinarily retain its generality unless compelling evidence establishes a narrower meaning.

Secondly, the immediate context of the surrounding verses concerns objections raised against the Prophet ﷺ and the unfolding Qur’anic revelation. The passage addresses questions arising within the Prophet’s own mission rather than offering a historical survey of previous religious communities. Interpreting the verse as referring solely to earlier scriptures, therefore, introduces a thematic shift that the surrounding context does not naturally suggest.

Most importantly, such an interpretation struggles to account for the numerous Qur’anic examples already discussed. Even if one were to accept that Qur’an 2:106 primarily concerns earlier revelations, the change of the qiblah, the gradual prohibition of intoxicants, the legislation concerning night prayer, and the other examples examined above would still require explanation. The denial of abrogation, therefore, cannot ultimately rest upon the interpretation of a single verse. It must also provide a coherent account of the legislative development that the Qur’an itself repeatedly records.

A similar discussion surrounds Allah’s statement:

“When We substitute one verse in place of another, and Allah knows best what He reveals, they say, ‘You are but inventing it.’ Rather, most of them do not know.” (Qur’an 16:101)

Here again, the natural reading indicates successive revelation. The unbelievers objected precisely because revelation occasionally introduced rulings that differed from those previously revealed. Their accusation was not directed at replacing the Torah with the Qur’an, but at the unfolding Qur’anic revelation witnessed during the Prophet’s lifetime. The verse therefore answers their objection by affirming that Allah possesses complete authority over His revelation and knows better than His creation what He reveals and when He reveals it.

Some have attempted to interpret the expression “one verse in place of another” as referring merely to the succession of one revealed passage after another without implying any change in legal ruling. While linguistically possible in the abstract, such an interpretation appears considerably less persuasive when read alongside the historical circumstances of revelation and the established examples of legislative succession found elsewhere in the Qur’an. Once again, the alternative interpretation seems motivated less by the immediate wording of the verse than by a prior determination to exclude the possibility of abrogation altogether.

This observation points toward a broader methodological concern. A recurring feature of many modern critiques is that they begin by assuming abrogation cannot occur and then reinterpret every relevant text in light of that assumption. The classical approach follows the opposite direction. It begins with the revealed texts themselves, allowing their cumulative testimony to determine the governing principle. Where multiple Qur’anic passages, authentic prophetic traditions, and the understanding of the earliest Muslim community all converge upon the existence of legislative succession, that cumulative evidence ought not to be displaced by interpretations whose primary function is to preserve an assumption established independently of the texts.

None of this is to suggest that every verse traditionally classified as abrogated has been identified correctly. The classical scholars themselves exercised considerable caution in this regard and frequently disagreed over individual examples. Their willingness to scrutinize each alleged instance demonstrates that they did not invoke abrogation carelessly or indiscriminately. Yet acknowledging disagreement over particular cases is entirely different from denying the principle itself. The former reflects the normal process of scholarly investigation; the latter requires explaining away a cumulative body of textual evidence that, taken together, strongly supports the classical doctrine of legislative abrogation.

Ultimately, the textual objections derive much of their apparent force from considering individual verses in isolation. When the Qur’an is read as an integrated whole, however, a consistent picture emerges. General statements affirm Allah’s authority to replace one revealed ruling with another, while specific historical examples illustrate that authority in practice. The Qur’an, the Sunnah, and the earliest generations of Muslim scholarship therefore reinforce one another, producing a coherent understanding of revelation that neither rational speculation nor isolated textual reinterpretation can displace.

6. The Wisdoms of Abrogation

Having established the occurrence of legislative abrogation and addressed the principal objections raised against it, it remains to consider the wisdom that underlies the doctrine. This discussion occupies an important place within the Islamic sciences because critics frequently assume that if the wisdom behind every instance of abrogation cannot be immediately identified, then the doctrine itself becomes suspect. Such reasoning reverses the proper order of inquiry. The occurrence of a legal ruling is established through revelation, whereas its wisdom is discovered through reflection upon revelation. The latter therefore follows the former. Nevertheless, the Qur’an and the Sunnah disclose a number of recurring objectives that illuminate why Allah legislated certain rulings temporarily, only to replace them with others.

Among the clearest pieces of wisdom is the principle of gradual legislation (al-tadarruj fī al-tashrīʿ). The Qur’an was not revealed to an isolated individual but to an entire society whose customs, habits, and assumptions had developed over centuries. Lasting moral transformation rarely occurs through abrupt legal compulsion alone. Rather, hearts must first be prepared to receive and embrace the obligations that revelation ultimately imposes. The gradual prohibition of intoxicants illustrates this principle with exceptional clarity. The earliest verses reshaped moral perception by emphasizing the overwhelming harm associated with wine, the next restricted its consumption in relation to prayer, and only thereafter did revelation impose a complete prohibition. Each stage prepared the believers for the next until the final legislation was accepted with complete submission. The wisdom lay not merely in prohibiting intoxicants, but in cultivating a community prepared to abandon them willingly and permanently.

A second wisdom lies in testing the sincerity of faith and the reality of submission. The change of the qiblah provides the clearest example. Allah Himself explains that the earlier direction of prayer was instituted to distinguish those who truly followed the Messenger from those who would turn away. The significance of the test did not reside in Jerusalem or the Kaʿbah themselves, for both are entirely the property of Allah. Rather, the test concerned obedience. Would the believers follow the divine command simply because it came from Allah, even when it required abandoning a practice to which they had become accustomed? Legislative succession, therefore, became one of the means through which revelation manifested the essence of servitude. Genuine submission is measured not by attachment to a particular ruling but by unwavering obedience to the One who legislates.

Abrogation also reflects Allah’s consideration for the changing circumstances through which the Muslim community passed during the twenty-three years of revelation. The legal needs of a persecuted minority in Makkah were not identical to those of an established political community in Madinah. Commands requiring patience and restraint during the Makkan period served the interests of a vulnerable community lacking the capacity to defend itself. Following the Hijrah, permission to fight became both appropriate and necessary. Neither ruling was intrinsically superior to the other in every circumstance. Each perfectly served the objectives of divine legislation within the context for which it had been revealed. The transition from one to the other, therefore, illustrates the harmony between revelation and the historical realities experienced by the first generation of Muslims.

Another recurring wisdom is the gradual education and spiritual formation of the believers. The obligation of prolonged night prayer in Sūrat al-Muzzammil exemplifies this objective. During the earliest years of the Prophet’s mission, the believers required extraordinary spiritual preparation to withstand persecution and bear the burden of revelation. Long hours of nightly worship cultivated patience, sincerity, discipline, and intimate familiarity with the Qur’an. Once these objectives had been achieved, Allah relieved the community of the obligation while preserving the immense virtue of voluntary night prayer. The earlier legislation had fulfilled its purpose, and the subsequent concession reflected divine mercy rather than any deficiency in the original command.

Similarly, certain temporary rulings addressed immediate practical concerns before giving way to more permanent legislation. The obligation requiring charity before private consultation with the Prophet ﷺ served to regulate access to him, encourage generosity, and discourage unnecessary demands upon his time. Once these objectives had been realized, the obligation was lifted while the enduring commands to establish prayer, pay zakāh, and obey Allah and His Messenger remained. The temporary nature of the ruling, therefore, reflects not imperfection but precision. It remained operative for exactly as long as its intended purpose required.

These diverse examples demonstrate that there is no single universal wisdom underlying every instance of abrogation. Sometimes the objective is gradual legislation, at other times spiritual testing, educational formation, adaptation to changing circumstances, or the removal of hardship. Attempting to reduce every example to a single explanatory principle, therefore, oversimplifies the richness of Qur’anic legislation. Allah legislates according to His perfect knowledge of His servants, and the wisdom governing one legislative transition need not be identical to that governing another.

This distinction also clarifies an important methodological point. It is essential to distinguish between gradual legislation and its gradual implementation. The former refers to situations in which the legal ruling itself develops through successive revelations, as in the prohibition of intoxicants. The latter refers to the practical application of a legal ruling whose legislative status is already complete, but whose implementation may occur progressively due to practical considerations. Confusing these two concepts has generated unnecessary controversy in modern discussions. A society may implement certain aspects of Islamic law gradually, given circumstances, without implying that revelation itself remains incomplete or continues to legislate. Likewise, recognizing gradual legislation within the Qur’an does not automatically justify every contemporary appeal to gradual implementation. Each concept belongs to a distinct legal discussion and must be evaluated according to its own principles.

Ultimately, the wisdom of abrogation reinforces rather than weakens the doctrine itself. They reveal a Lord who educates His servants with perfect knowledge, who prepares them for greater responsibilities before imposing them, who tests the sincerity of their faith, and who legislates according to circumstances already encompassed within His eternal wisdom. Far from suggesting inconsistency or change in the divine will, legislative succession manifests the comprehensive knowledge through which Allah guided the first Muslim community until the completion of His religion. The gradual unfolding of revelation was itself one of the greatest manifestations of divine wisdom, and abrogation formed an integral component of that unfolding.

7. Abrogation of Recitation (Naskh al-Tilāwah)

The discussion of legislative abrogation naturally leads to a related yet distinct subject that has generated considerable debate in both classical and modern scholarship: the abrogation of recitation (naskh al-tilāwah). Indeed, many contemporary objections directed against the doctrine of abrogation are motivated less by opposition to legislative succession itself than by discomfort with this particular category. For this reason, the two subjects must be carefully distinguished. Legislative abrogation concerns the replacement of one legal ruling by another through subsequent revelation. Abrogation of recitation, by contrast, concerns verses whose recitation was removed from the Qur’an during the Prophet’s lifetime, regardless of whether their legal rulings remained operative or were likewise withdrawn. Conflating these distinct discussions has contributed significantly to confusion surrounding the doctrine as a whole.

From the perspective of the classical scholars, the possibility of abrogating recitation presents no theological difficulty. The Qur’an, like every other aspect of revelation, belongs entirely to Allah. He alone determines what is revealed, when it is revealed, how long it is to be recited as part of the Qur’an, and whether its recitation should continue or cease. Just as Allah possesses the authority to legislate a ruling for a particular period before replacing it with another, He likewise possesses complete authority over the recited text through which that ruling was originally conveyed. Both matters ultimately return to the same principle: revelation belongs exclusively to Allah, who administers it according to His perfect wisdom.

One of the principal objections advanced by modern critics is that the abrogation of recitation appears indistinguishable from textual corruption (taḥrīf). If a verse was once recited but is no longer part of the Qur’an, does this not imply that something has been lost from the divine revelation? The objection appears forceful only if one fails to distinguish between divine removal and human alteration. These are fundamentally different concepts. Taḥrīf refers to unauthorized human interference with revelation through omission, addition, distortion, or alteration. Abrogation of recitation, by contrast, refers to Allah Himself removing the recitation of certain revealed passages before the completion of the Qur’an. The former constitutes corruption because it contradicts the divine will; the latter constitutes revelation because it expresses it. Confusing the two is analogous to confusing the lawful repeal of legislation by the sovereign legislator with the unlawful alteration of that legislation by private individuals. Although the external result may appear superficially similar, the underlying authority is entirely different.

This distinction is confirmed by the way the Qur’an itself describes revelation. The Qur’an does not portray itself as a text compiled independently by the Companions according to their own judgment. Rather, it repeatedly affirms that Allah directs every aspect of its revelation and preservation. The Prophet ﷺ received revelation under divine supervision, instructed the scribes where each verse belonged, reviewed the Qur’an annually with Jibrīl (عليه السلام), and completed a final review during the last year of his life. Consequently, whatever remained within the Qur’an at the conclusion of that prophetic process constitutes the Qur’an by divine decree, while whatever Allah removed before its completion falls outside the final canonical text by that same divine decree. Preservation therefore applies to the Qur’an in its completed form, not to every stage through which revelation passed during the twenty-three years of its gradual descent.

A related objection asks why Allah would reveal words whose recitation He never intended to remain in the Qur’an permanently. The question resembles earlier objections concerning legislative abrogation and receives a similar response. The duration of a revealed text, like the duration of a legal ruling, belongs entirely to the wisdom of Allah. Some verses were intended to remain permanently within the Qur’an until the Day of Judgment. Others fulfilled temporary legislative or educational purposes before Allah removed their recitation through subsequent revelation. The temporary character of a particular revelation therefore reflects neither deficiency nor uncertainty. Rather, it reflects the comprehensive legislative plan known to Allah from eternity.

This discussion also illustrates an important methodological principle. The wisdom behind a particular instance of abrogation should not be confused with the evidence establishing its occurrence. Whether one fully understands why Allah removed the recitation of a particular verse is a separate question from whether authentic evidence demonstrates that He did so. The existence of unresolved questions concerning wisdom cannot overturn clear historical or textual evidence. Otherwise, countless aspects of revelation would become contingent upon the fluctuating limits of human understanding. The proper approach is first to establish what revelation teaches and only thereafter to investigate the wisdom underlying it.

For precisely this reason, the question of naskh al-tilāwah should not be permitted to obscure the much broader doctrine of legislative abrogation. Even if one were to examine the evidence relating to the abrogation of recitation separately, the Qur’anic examples of legislative succession discussed earlier would remain entirely unaffected. The change of the qiblah, the gradual prohibition of intoxicants, the legislation concerning fighting, the temporary obligation of charity before private consultation, and the obligation of night prayer all establish legislative abrogation independently of any discussion concerning recitation. It is therefore methodologically unsound to reject the entire doctrine of naskh merely because one wishes to re-examine one particular category within it. The various forms of abrogation must be evaluated on their own evidentiary grounds rather than collectively accepted or rejected.

8. Conclusion

The doctrine of naskh occupies a central place in the classical understanding of Qur’anic legislation because it provides the interpretive framework for properly understanding the progressive nature of revelation. Far from introducing inconsistency into the Qur’an, abrogation reflects the orderly and purposeful manner in which Allah guided the first Muslim community from the beginning of the Prophet’s mission until the completion of the religion. Revelation did not descend as a static legal code detached from the historical realities of the people to whom it was first addressed. Rather, it accompanied the believers through every stage of their spiritual, moral, social, and political development, legislating in accordance with circumstances already encompassed in the eternal knowledge and wisdom of Allah.

The cumulative evidence supporting this conclusion is both broad and mutually reinforcing. The Qur’an itself records successive legal rulings governing the same subjects, including the change of the qiblah, the gradual prohibition of intoxicants, the permission to fight after years of patient endurance, the development of the legislation concerning illicit sexual relations, the temporary obligation of charity before privately consulting the Prophet ﷺ, and the obligation and subsequent relaxation of prolonged night prayer. These examples are not speculative historical reconstructions but explicit legislative developments preserved within revelation itself. Each demonstrates that the legal responsibilities of the believers changed with subsequent revelation, in accordance with the wisdom of Allah.

The Sunnah confirms this understanding by explaining the historical context in which these rulings were revealed and by identifying the relationship between earlier and later legislation. The Companions, who witnessed the revelation firsthand, consistently understood these developments as genuine instances of legislative succession. Their students inherited this understanding, and the generations that followed refined its terminology without abandoning its substance. As the sciences of tafsīr and uṣūl al-fiqh matured, scholars exercised increasing caution in identifying authentic examples of abrogation, distinguishing them from specification, qualification, contextual clarification, and other interpretive concepts. This refinement strengthened the doctrine rather than weakening it, ensuring that the term naskh remained reserved for those instances in which one revealed legal ruling demonstrably replaced another.

The objections raised against abrogation ultimately fail because they rest upon assumptions that the revealed texts themselves do not support. Rational objections frequently conflate the gradual unfolding of legislation with a change in divine knowledge, overlooking the distinction between Allah’s eternal decree and its historical manifestation. Textual objections often depend upon interpretations that isolate individual verses from the broader legislative development recorded throughout the Qur’an. Likewise, attempts to reinterpret every recognized example of abrogation frequently preserve the historical phenomenon of successive legal rulings while objecting only to the terminology traditionally employed to describe it. In many cases, the disagreement proves to be semantic rather than substantive.

The wisdom underlying abrogation further reinforces the doctrine’s coherence. Progressive legislation prepared believers to embrace demanding obligations gradually rather than abruptly. Successive commands tested the sincerity of faith and cultivated complete submission to Allah rather than attachment to particular legal forms. Temporary rulings addressed the changing circumstances of the early Muslim community while guiding it steadily toward the completed Sharīʿah. Others provided spiritual formation, educational preparation, or relief from hardship after their intended objectives had been fulfilled. These diverse wisdoms reveal not inconsistency but the remarkable precision with which divine legislation accompanied the unfolding mission of the Prophet ﷺ.

The discussion of naskh al-tilāwah likewise illustrates an important theological principle. Revelation belongs entirely to Allah. He alone determines what is revealed, how long it is recited, and what ultimately forms part of the completed Qur’an. Distinguishing between divine removal and human alteration is therefore essential. The former belongs to revelation itself, while the latter constitutes the corruption from which Allah has promised to preserve His Book. Confusing these two fundamentally different concepts has contributed unnecessarily to modern misunderstandings of the doctrine.

Ultimately, the debate over abrogation is not merely a discussion of legal theory. It concerns one’s broader understanding of revelation itself. The Qur’an presents divine legislation as a living process through which Allah educated, tested, and guided the first Muslim community until the religion reached its perfected form. Recognizing this progressive character does not diminish the perfection of revelation. On the contrary, it manifests the harmony between Allah’s eternal knowledge and His wise governance of human history. Every stage of legislation fulfilled its appointed purpose, every temporary ruling remained operative for precisely the period intended by Allah, and every subsequent revelation advanced the community toward the completion of Islam.

For these reasons, the classical doctrine of legislative abrogation remains the most coherent explanation of the Qur’anic evidence. It is rooted in the explicit language of revelation, confirmed by the authentic Sunnah, understood by the Companions, transmitted by the earliest generations, refined by the jurists and legal theorists, and sustained by the overwhelming current of the Islamic scholarly tradition. While legitimate scholarly discussion will undoubtedly continue concerning the classification of individual verses and the evidence relating to particular categories of abrogation, the occurrence of legislative succession within the Qur’an itself rests upon foundations too substantial to be displaced by speculative reasoning or isolated reinterpretations. Properly understood, naskh is not a problem requiring explanation but one of the clearest manifestations of the wisdom, mercy, and perfection of Allah’s final revelation.

Recommended Reading:

Denying the Occurrence of Naskh (Abrogation) in the Qur’ān

But if the question is whether other religious civilizations historically imposed special taxes on religious minorities, the answer is clearly yes. The better way to phrase the issue is this: jizyah as an Islamic legal institution is distinct, but religion-based or minority-based taxation existed before Islam and outside Islam. Pagan Rome, Zoroastrian Persia, and Christian Europe all developed systems in which religious minorities, especially Jews and Christians, were subjected to taxes that marked their subordinate or protected status.

One of the clearest pre-Islamic examples is the Roman Fiscus Judaicus. After the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple in 70 CE, the Roman emperor Vespasian imposed a special tax on Jews throughout the Roman Empire. Encyclopedia.com describes the Fiscus Judaicus as a fund into which money was paid from a special tax levied on Jews by Vespasian after the destruction of the Temple. This tax replaced the half-shekel that Jews had previously sent to the Temple in Jerusalem, but redirected the money to Jupiter Capitolinus in Rome. The Jewish Encyclopedia states that the redirecting of this money was an affront to Jewish religious feeling.

Another important case is the Sasanian Empire, which was officially Zoroastrian. Here, the situation is more complex because the Sasanian poll tax was not always simply a tax on religious minorities. Encyclopedia Iranica explains that the Arabic word jizya or jezya is likely connected to the Middle Persian gazītak, a Sasanian tax. It also states that the Muslim conquerors retained and adapted many local fiscal practices from the societies they conquered, and that Islamic jizyah varied considerably depending on local conditions.

This does not mean Islamic jizyah was merely copied from the Sasanians. Islamic law gave the tax its own scriptural, legal, and communal framework. But it does mean that the broader practice of a poll tax, especially one associated with subject populations, was already part of the Near Eastern imperial world before Islam. Encyclopedia.com’s entry on kharaj and jizya makes this point directly, saying that although jizya is mentioned in the Qur’an, the poll tax probably continued earlier Persian and Byzantine policies. It also notes that in Sasanian Persia, all subjects except the aristocracy had to pay a poll tax according to wealth.

More specifically, Encyclopaedia Iranica’s article on the Sasanian fiscal system states that Christian sources report that, in certain periods, the Sasanians imposed a double personal tax on Christians, although this was later abolished under Shapur II. This shows that under a Zoroastrian empire, Christians could be subjected to an extra personal tax as Christians, or at least as a distinct religious community within the empire.

Christian imperial societies did impose differentiated legal and fiscal burdens on Jews and other minorities at different times. Medieval Christian Europe offers several strong examples of religiously targeted taxation, especially against Jewish communities. In the Holy Roman Empire, Jews were placed under the legal doctrine known as Kammerknechtschaft, translated as “servitude to the imperial chamber.” The Jewish Encyclopedia explains that this meant Jews paid taxes to the German emperor in addition to the taxes they paid to local territorial authorities.

This taxation was linked to legal protection. Bavarikon, a Bavarian cultural and historical resource, explains that the transfer of Jewish protection rights and taxes led imperial cities to take on protective roles. These cities guaranteed the lives and property of Jewish community members, helped with debt collection, and sometimes granted Jews local rights or citizenship.

This is very similar in structure to the logic often associated with jizyah: a religious minority pays a special tax and, in return, receives protection and recognized legal status. Of course, the Islamic and Christian systems differed in theology, legal theory, social practice, and consistency. But the basic idea that a religious minority could pay money in exchange for protection and tolerated residence was not uniquely Islamic.

England provides another example. Medieval English Jews were repeatedly subjected to special taxation by Christian kings. The Jewish Encyclopedia defines tallage as a tax arbitrarily imposed upon a community collectively responsible for the entire sum, and states that it was frequently levied on English Jews during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. It gives the example of the “Saladin tallage” of 1189, which was imposed on Jews in connection with the crusade against Saladin.

The significance of this example should not be missed. A Christian king imposed a major tax on Jews to help fund a crusade against Muslims. This is not merely taxation in the neutral sense. It was a religious minority being used as a fiscal resource by a Christian monarchy for a religiously charged military campaign. The Jewish Encyclopedia also notes that England had an “Exchequer of the Jews,” a special division of the Court of Exchequer in England from 1200 to 1290, where taxes and legal cases involving Jews were recorded and regulated.

The broader pattern is confirmed by the Jewish Encyclopedia’s entry on taxation, which describes numerous taxes imposed on medieval German Jews. It says that twelve taxes, which could almost be termed official, were generally levied upon German Jews in the Middle Ages. This again shows that religiously marked fiscal burdens were not unusual in Christian Europe. Jewish communities were often tolerated, protected, exploited, restricted, and taxed all at once.

Islamic jizyah was not the only religion-based tax in world history, but what makes it distinctive is that Islamic jurists integrated it into a broader legal framework. In the Islamic model, non-Muslim subjects paid jizyah in connection with dhimmah, protection, communal recognition, and exemption from certain Muslim obligations, most notably military service in the classical framework.

It would be inaccurate to pretend that all these systems were identical. The Roman Fiscus Judaicus was punitive and humiliating after the Jewish revolt. The Sasanian poll-tax system was tied to imperial class and fiscal structure, even if Christians could be affected as a religious minority. Medieval Christian Jewish taxes were often arbitrary, extractive, and dependent on the ruler’s political needs. Islamic jizyah, by contrast, was theoretically embedded in a juristic system that defined rights and duties for protected non-Muslim communities. Whether that system was applied justly or harshly depended heavily on time, place, ruler, and circumstance.

In summary, other religions did not have “jizyah” in the exact Islamic legal sense, because jizyah is an Islamic term and belongs to Islamic law. But other religious civilizations did impose comparable taxes on religious minorities. The practice of taxing a subject religious community in exchange for protection, tolerated residence, or as a mark of subordination was not unique to Islam. It existed before Islam in Rome and Persia, and it continued outside Islam in medieval Christian Europe.

Therefore, anyone who presents jizyah as though it were an unprecedented Islamic invention is oversimplifying history. The more accurate conclusion is that jizyah belongs to a wider pre-modern world in which states commonly organized people by communal identity and legal status. Islam gave this tax its own legal theory and limits, but the broader phenomenon of religiously differentiated taxation was neither new nor exclusive to Muslims.

It was ascertained in the previous two parts (1, 2) that those who fell under the designation of apostasy during the time of the Companions were of two categories: one category abandoned the religion, cast it off entirely, and returned to the worship of idols, or followed the false claimants to prophethood; and another category remained upon the religion but denied zakāh or refused to pay it.

It was also ascertained that the Companions unanimously agreed on fighting the apostates in all their categories. As for the first category, no disagreement occurred among the Companions regarding their disbelief and the obligation of fighting them, and none of them had any difficulty with that. As for the second category, some of the Companions initially had difficulty fighting them, but the matter eventually ended with their agreement on the obligation to fight them.

In this part, we will discuss the third issue: clarifying the motivating reason for the Companions’ fighting the apostates and identifying the operative cause of those wars.

Numerous evidences indicate that the primary motive that led the Companions to fight the apostates in all their categories was that they had departed from Islam and violated its major foundations, whether all of them or some of them, and that the political dimension was not their primary motive.

As for the first category, namely those who abandoned adherence to Islam altogether and followed the false claimants to prophethood, such as Banū Ḥanīfah, for example, the scholars unanimously agreed that the basis upon which the Companions fought them was that they had apostatized from the religion, and that the Companions fought them only because of the retreat and apostasy that had occurred from them.

The scholars’ statements repeatedly affirmed this meaning. Among the things indicating this is Imām al-Shāfiʿī’s comment on the dialogue that took place between ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb and Abu Bakr, where he says: “In Abu Bakr’s statement, ‘This is among its rights. Were they to withhold from me a young she-goat from what they used to give to the Messenger of Allah, ṣallá Allahu ʿalayhi wa-sallam, I would fight them over it’ = there is an awareness on the part of both of them that among those whom they fought were people who continued to adhere to faith. Were it not for that, ʿUmar would not have hesitated regarding fighting them, and Abu Bakr would have said: They have abandoned lā ilāha illā Allah and have become polytheists.”[1] Thus, he affirms that the apostates who returned to polytheism were not doubted by the Companions concerning fighting them because of the polytheism into which they had fallen. He affirms that the motive behind the Companions’ fighting was not rebellion against the state, but rather departure from the religion or failure to adhere to some of its major foundations.

In clarifying this, al-Qāḍī ʿIyāḍ says, after mentioning that the apostates were of three categories: “Abu Bakr and the Companions, may Allah be pleased with them, deemed it necessary to fight all of them: the first two categories because of their disbelief, and the third because of their refusal regarding zakāh.”[2]

Al-Khaṭṭābī also says, after mentioning some categories of the apostates, namely those who acknowledged the obligation of zakāh but refused to pay it to Abu Bakr: “It was concerning these people that disagreement arose, and uncertainty occurred for ʿUmar, may Allah be pleased with him. He therefore consulted Abu Bakr, may Allah be pleased with him, debated with him, and cited as evidence the statement of the Prophet, ṣallá Allahu ʿalayhi wa-sallam: ‘I have been commanded to fight the people until they say: Lā ilāha illā Allah. Whoever says it has protected from me his life and his property.’”[3]

Regarding those who apostatized from Islam, he says: “The Companions designated these people as disbelievers. For this reason, Abu Bakr was of the view that their women and children could be taken captive, and the majority of the Companions agreed with him in this. ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib took a slave-girl from the captives of Banū Ḥanīfah as a concubine, and she bore him Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī, who came to be known as Ibn al-Ḥanafiyyah. Then, before the era of the Companions had come to an end, they reached a consensus that the apostate should not be taken captive.”[4] What al-Khaṭṭābī intended by his statement, “the majority of the Companions agreed with him,” was not their agreement regarding the ruling of disbelief or the obligation of fighting them, but rather their agreement concerning the issue of taking captives. This is made clear by the concluding part of his statement.

Al-Baghawī transmitted al-Khaṭṭābī’s previous statement, adding an important passage that is absent from the original and which clarifies his intent unmistakably. Concerning the category that abandoned Islam and apostatized from it, he says: “ʿUmar, may Allah be pleased with him, had no doubt regarding the killing of these people, nor did he object to Abu Bakr concerning them. Rather, the Companions unanimously agreed to fight and kill them. Abu Bakr was of the view that their women and children could be taken captive, and the majority of the Companions agreed with him in this.”[5]

Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr, commenting on the ḥadīth of Abu Hurayrah, says: “His statement, ‘and those among the Arabs who disbelieved disbelieved,’ does not conflict with ʿUmar’s position, because ʿUmar’s statement pertained only to those who said, ‘Lā ilāha illā Allah, Muḥammad is the Messenger of Allah,’ yet withheld zakāh, interpreting the saying of Allah Most High, {Take charity from their wealth} [al-Tawbah: 103], by claiming: The one commanded with this is only the Messenger of Allah and no one else.”[6]

Here, Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr explains that ʿUmar was debating Abu Bakr only with respect to a specific category of the apostates. The reason for his objection was that they had not committed disbelief, not that they had not rebelled against the state. In Abu Bakr’s response to him, he clarified that what rendered fighting them permissible was their failure to uphold one of the rites of Islam, not that they had rebelled against the state or posed a threat to its security.

Al-Māwardī says: “As for Abu Bakr, may Allah be pleased with him, he fought two groups. One group had apostatized from Islam alongside Musaylimah, Ṭulayḥah, and al-ʿAnsī, and none of the Companions disagreed with him regarding fighting them.”[7]

Ibn Taymiyyah, affirming the preceding conclusions, says: “It is well known that Musaylimah al-Kadhdhāb was less harmful to the Muslims than this man”—one of the Mongol rulers—“yet he claimed to be a partner with Muḥammad in prophethood. On this basis, the Companions deemed it lawful to fight him and his apostate followers.”[8] Reinforcing the same point, he also says: “The affair of Musaylimah al-Kadhdhāb, his claim to prophethood, the following of Banū Ḥanīfah in al-Yamāmah, and al-Ṣiddīq’s fighting them on account of that are matters that are mutawātir and widely known to both the learned and the common people.”[9] Indeed, he even relates a consensus, stating: “We do not know of anyone who objected to the fighting of the people of al-Yamāmah, or denied that Musaylimah al-Kadhdhāb claimed prophethood and that they fought him on account of that.”[10]

While discussing the virtues of Abu Bakr, he says: “Among the greatest virtues of Abu Bakr, in the eyes of the first and the last generations of this ummah, is that he fought the apostates. The greatest of the apostates were Banū Ḥanīfah, and his fighting of them was not because they refused to pay zakāh; rather, he fought them because they believed in Musaylimah the Liar.”[11]

As for the other category, namely those who withheld zakāh, some scholars maintained that the basis for fighting them was their rebellion (baghy) and their declaration of armed hostility against the Companions. They consequently ceased distinguishing between fighting rebels, fighting a defiant group (al-ṭāʾifah al-mumtaniʿah), and fighting the Khawārij, treating them all as belonging to the same category and citing each as evidence for the others. For this reason, many jurists cite the Companions’ fighting of those who withheld zakāh, as well as ʿAlī’s fighting of certain Companions at the Battle of al-Jamal, as evidence for the permissibility of fighting rebels.[12]

However, many jurists, especially the earlier ones, distinguished between the Companions’ fighting against those who withheld zakāh and the fighting of rebels. In their view, a group that denies the obligation to pay zakāh or refuses to comply must be fought from the outset, even if it has not initiated hostilities. A rebellious group, on the other hand, may not be fought first unless it is the one that initiates the fighting.

In explaining the reality of this view, Ibn Taymiyyah says: “Many of the leading scholars who authored works on the Sharīʿah did not discuss, in their writings, the fighting of those who departed from the foundational creedal and practical principles of the Sharīʿah, such as those who withheld zakāh, the Khawārij, and others, except under the same category as fighting those who rebel against the Imām, such as the participants at al-Jamal and Ṣiffīn. This is an error. Rather, the Qurʾān, the Sunnah, and the consensus of the Companions distinguish between the two categories, as has been stated by the majority of the leading authorities in jurisprudence, Sunnah, ḥadīth, taṣawwuf, theology, and others.”[13]

While discussing the ruling on fighting the Mongols, he explained that they did not fall under the legal category of rebels, but rather belonged to the same category as those who withheld zakāh, who were fought because of the religious principles from which they had departed. He says: “The correct view is that these people”—the Mongols—“are not rebels acting based on a mistaken interpretation (taʾwīl), for they possess no valid interpretation whatsoever. Rather, they belong to the same category as the seceding Khawārij, those who withheld zakāh, the people of al-Ṭāʾif, the Khurramiyyah, and others like them, who were fought because of the aspects of the laws of Islam from which they had departed.”[14]

He further affirmed that Abu Bakr’s fighting of those who withheld zakāh was not because they refused to pay it to Abu Bakr personally, but because they refused to pay it altogether. He says: “As for those whom he fought on account of withholding zakāh, they were a different group. They were not paying it at all and said, ‘We will not pay it to you.’ Rather, they refused to discharge it altogether. He therefore fought them for this reason; he did not fight them merely to compel them to deliver it to him. The followers of al-Ṣiddīq, such as Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal, Abu Ḥanīfah, and others, maintain that if they were to say, ‘We will pay it, but we will not hand it over to the Imām,’ then it would not be permissible to fight them, because al-Ṣiddīq only fought those who refused to discharge it altogether, not those who said, ‘I will pay it myself.’”[15]

Evidence That the Companions’ Motive for Fighting the Apostates Was Religious

Numerous contextual indicators and a wide range of evidences demonstrate that the Companions’ fighting of the apostates in all their categories, whether those who abandoned the religion altogether or those who withheld zakāh, the first category because of their apostasy and departure from the religion, and the second because of their refusal to perform an outward act of worship that was motivated by religious considerations. These evidences confirm that their fighting was not driven by political or economic objectives, nor because they had withdrawn from the authority of the state. Rather, it was because they had either abandoned Islam altogether or refused to uphold one of its fundamental rites. Among these evidences are:

The First Evidence: Abu Bakr’s statement to the Companions, “By Allah, I will most certainly fight anyone who differentiates between prayer and zakāh,” and his reliance upon the saying of Allah: {But if they repent, establish prayer, and give zakāh, then they are your brothers in religion. And We make the signs clear for a people who know.} [al-Tawbah: 11]. This demonstrates that the factor which truly motivated the Companions to fight the apostates was the religious dimension rather than the political one. Had it been otherwise, Abu Bakr would have said: “By Allah, I will fight anyone who wages war against us,” or, “anyone who rebels against the Islamic state.”

Moreover, Abu Bakr linked the ruling of zakāh to the ruling of prayer. This indicates that the Companions were unanimous that, had they abandoned prayer, they too would have deserved to be fought. Yet prayer has no economic or political dimension.

Furthermore, had the reason for fighting those who withheld zakāh been rebellion (baghy), armed hostility (ḥirābah), or insurrection against the state, ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb would never have hesitated concerning the obligation of fighting them, since such matters are explicitly and clearly addressed in the Qurʾān. This indicates that, in his view, the basis for fighting them lay in their abandonment of one of the rites of the religion while still remaining upon its foundational profession.

The Second Evidence: Abu Bakr’s letters to the apostates. When the apostasy occurred, Abu Bakr issued a general proclamation and ordered that it be read to all the apostates. It stated: “From Abu Bakr, the successor of the Messenger of Allah, to whomever this letter reaches, whether among the common people or the elite, whether he has remained upon his Islam or turned back from it... News has reached me that some of you have turned back from your religion after having professed Islam and acted upon it... I have sent to you so-and-so with an army composed of the Muhājirūn, the Anṣār, and those who followed them in excellence, and I have instructed him not to fight any of you until he first calls you to the call of Allah... and not to accept from anyone anything except Islam.”[16] A similar text is also found in Abu Bakr’s letter to Banū Asad.[17] Likewise, in Abu Bakr’s letter to Khālid when ordering him to march against Musaylimah al-Kadhdhāb, he wrote: “When you arrive among them, do not begin fighting them until you first call them to the call of Islam, and strive for their rectification... Know that you are fighting people who have disbelieved in Allah...”[18]

All of these letters demonstrate that the reason warranting the Companions’ fighting of the apostates was that they had disbelieved in Allah and renounced the religion of Islam. Had the reason for fighting them been political, he would instead have said: “Call them to return to the authority of the state and submit to the rule of the law.”

The Third Evidence: Abu Bakr’s commissions and instructions to the commanders of the military expeditions. When the armies departed from Madīnah, Abu Bakr issued each commander a written commission, which included the following: “This is the commission of Abu Bakr, the successor of the Messenger of Allah, to so-and-so when he dispatched him among those whom he sent to fight those who had turned back from Islam.”[19]

Had they been fought for political reasons, the commission would instead have read: “when he dispatched him among those whom he sent to fight those who had rebelled against the state and violated the law.”

The Fourth Evidence: The Companions’ judgement concerning those killed during the Wars of Apostasy. Abu Bakr ruled that they would be in the Fire. Ṭāriq ibn Shihāb narrates: “A delegation from Buzākhah, belonging to Asad and Ghaṭafān, came to Abu Bakr seeking a peace settlement. Abu Bakr gave them the choice between a war of annihilation and a humiliating peace. They said to him: ‘We know what a war of annihilation is, but what is a humiliating peace?’ He replied: ‘That your armour and horses be taken from you, that you be left to follow the tails of camels until Allah shows the successor of His Prophet and the Muhājirūn a matter by which they may excuse you; that we keep whatever spoils we seized from you, that you return whatever you seized from us, that you pay blood-money for those of ours whom you killed, and that those of you who were killed are in the Fire.’”[20]

A person who is fought merely for rebelling against the state is not judged to be in the Fire, since rebellion does not necessarily entail disbelief.

All of these evidences therefore point to a single conclusion: that the Companions fought the apostates because of the religious dimension, namely, apostasy from Islam and renunciation of it, or because they failed to uphold one of its fundamental rites.

It should be noted here that identifying the religious dimension as the primary motive behind the Companions’ wars against the apostates does not preclude the existence of other political or economic objectives in those wars. However, such objectives remain secondary and derivative rather than primary.

The Political Interpretation of the Companions’ Fighting of the Apostates

Despite the clarity of the evidences and the abundance of indications demonstrating that the religious dimension was the Companions’ primary motive for fighting the apostates, a different interpretation emerged in the modern era. This view was developed by certain secular writers, such as ʿAlī ʿAbd al-Rāziq and others,[21] as well as by many Islamists who adopted a contemporary conception of freedom through which they reinterpreted every established ruling of the Sharīʿah that conflicted with it, such as offensive jihād (jihād al-ṭalab), the punishment for apostasy, and similar issues.

According to this view, the Companions’ primary motive for fighting the apostates was not religious but political. In their understanding, the Wars of Apostasy were not waged in order to bring back those who had changed their beliefs and left Islam, nor to compel those who refused to perform one of Islam’s fundamental obligations. Rather, they argue that these wars were fought because the apostates, as citizens, had abandoned their obligations and responsibilities as members of the state, sought to secede from the authority of the state, declared war against it, and thereby became a threat to its security and stability.[22]

Some have even attempted to deny that what occurred among the Arab tribes constituted apostasy from, or abandonment of, the religion itself. Muḥammad ʿImārah, for example, argued that the Ridda movement was not directed against the religion of Islam but against the Islamic state. In explaining this view, he maintained that none of the false claimants to prophethood disputed the oneness of Allah, the prophethood of Muḥammad, ṣallá Allahu ʿalayhi wa-sallam, or the reality of divine revelation. Rather, according to him, they merely rejected the Prophet’s exclusive and sole claim to prophethood out of tribal partisanship and envy. “What we are dealing with here,” he writes, “are tribal rebellions that fractured the unity established by the nascent Arab-Islamic state, which was governed by Quraysh. They were therefore secessionist movements against that unity. Since this unified state was led by a Prophet, the leaders of these rebellions likewise claimed to be prophets... It was, therefore, a political apostasy that sought to justify itself and conceal its shame beneath the tattered cloak of religious claims to prophethood.”[23]

This political interpretation of the Wars of Apostasy stands in direct conflict with the true nature of those wars and is inconsistent with the manner in which the Companions dealt with them. As has already been demonstrated, numerous texts establish that the Companions’ motive for fighting the apostate tribes was not that they had declared their withdrawal from the authority of the state, nor that they had become a threat to its security. Rather, it was because they had declared their departure from the religion or had openly refused to uphold an act of worship that constituted one of Islam’s fundamental principles and pillars. The proponents of the political interpretation of the Wars of Apostasy have offered no response to these evidences and proofs. Instead, they have simply ignored and disregarded them as though they did not exist.

Nevertheless, the advocates of this modern interpretation have attempted to justify their position by relying upon a number of arguments, all of which ultimately reduce to three principal justifications:

The First Justification: It is argued that if the Wars of Apostasy were fought for religious reasons, this would mean that the Companions acted in contradiction to the revealed texts prohibiting compulsion, such as the saying of Allah: {There is no compulsion in religion.} [al-Baqarah: 256].

This justification is incorrect and rests upon a misunderstanding of the intended meaning of the verse. The sound view is that this verse has no connection whatsoever with the case of apostasy. Rather, it pertains to entering Islam. The exegetes differed regarding its interpretation and mentioned seven opinions,[24] but all of those opinions revolve around the question of entering Islam. None of them interpreted it as relating to the case of leaving the religion and apostatizing from it.

This is further confirmed by the occasion of its revelation. Ibn ʿAbbās said: “A woman would often have children who did not survive, so she would vow that if a child of hers lived, she would make him a Jew. When Banū al-Naḍīr were expelled, some of the children of the Anṣār were among them. The Anṣār then said, ‘We will not let our children go,’ whereupon Allah, Mighty and Majestic, revealed: {There is no compulsion in religion. Truth stands out clearly from falsehood.} [al-Baqarah: 256].”[25]

Even if one were to concede, for the sake of argument, that this verse encompasses the case of leaving the religion, the Muslim ummah has reached a consensus that the apostate is excluded from its general wording. In transmitting this consensus, Ibn Ḥazm states: “For no one from the entire ummah has differed that this verse is not to be understood according to its apparent generality, because the ummah is unanimous regarding compelling the apostate with respect to his religion.”[26]

The Second Justification: It is argued that the motive behind the Arab tribes’ apostasy was tribalism, which led them to revolt against Quraysh’s rule over the state, and that they did not genuinely apostatize from the religion itself. Since this was the case, it is claimed, the Companions’ motive in the Wars of Apostasy was merely to bring them back under the authority of the nascent Islamic state.

This justification has become highly influential, and nearly all proponents of the modern interpretation rely upon it. Yet it is among the strangest and most remarkable of their arguments. First, it plainly contradicts the explicit texts transmitted from the Companions themselves concerning the true nature of what the Arab tribes had done. Among these is the report of Abu Hurayrah, may Allah be pleased with him, who said: “When the Messenger of Allah, ṣallá Allahu ʿalayhi wa-sallam, passed away, Abu Bakr assumed leadership, and those among the Arabs who disbelieved disbelieved...”[27] Here is Abu Hurayrah, who is unquestionably more knowledgeable than modern writers regarding the condition of the apostates, explicitly stating that what occurred was apostasy from the religion and disbelief in it.

Moreover, this justification attributes an intention to the Companions based upon the intentions of those who opposed them. Even if we were to concede that those Arab tribes rebelled solely for tribal reasons, and that their objective was merely to revolt against the state, what justification is there for assuming that the Companions’ intentions must therefore have been identical to theirs? Is there any rational or historical evidence that establishes such a conclusion? Is there any evidence demonstrating that opposing sides in a conflict must always share the same intentions and objectives? How can we set aside the explicit statements of the Companions themselves, disregard their own words and proclamations in which they explained their motive for fighting the apostates, and instead infer the Companions’ motives from the condition and intentions of the apostates themselves?

The proper method for determining the Companions’ objective in the Wars of Apostasy is to return to their own statements and conduct, and from them derive the purpose that motivated their fighting of the apostates. It is not to analyze the actions of an entirely different group of people and then infer from those actions the intentions of others whose objectives, purposes, knowledge, and understanding were altogether different.

The Third Justification: Reliance upon the statements of certain jurists who suggested that the Companions fought those who withheld zakāh on the grounds of rebellion (baghy), as previously cited.

Even if we set aside the question of whether those jurists correctly interpreted the Companions’ fighting of those who withheld zakāh, relying upon their statements to generalize a political interpretation to all the Wars of Apostasy is unsound. Indeed, it represents a clear disregard for the detailed and explicit positions of those very scholars. The jurists who maintained that the Companions fought those who withheld zakāh because of rebellion did not extend that reasoning to every category of apostates. Rather, they explicitly stated that the Companions fought those who abandoned the religion and followed the false claimants to prophethood, such as Banū Ḥanīfah and others, because of their apostasy and departure from the religion, as has already been demonstrated through their own statements.

They did not argue that all the Wars of Apostasy were fought on the grounds of rebellion, as the proponents of the political interpretation maintain. Rather, they were speaking about a specific category only, namely those who withheld zakāh. However, some contemporary researchers have appropriated this statement and made rebellion and defiance of the state’s authority the operative cause for the Companions’ fighting of every category of apostates. This is an erroneous generalization and an unwarranted extension of the evidence.

Even if we concede that those who withheld zakāh were fought on the grounds of rebellion, this still does not support the proponents of the political interpretation of the Wars of Apostasy. Their claim is that every war fought by the Companions against the apostates was motivated by political considerations. Yet, at most, the statements of those jurists regarding those who withheld zakāh establish only that some of the Companions’ campaigns were fought because of rebellion and insurrection against the state. The evidence upon which they rely is therefore narrower than the claim they seek to establish.

In light of the foregoing analysis, it becomes clear that the contemporary interpretation which explains the Wars of Apostasy in purely political terms is contrary to the transmitted evidences and historical proofs. Moreover, it is not founded upon sound arguments free from fundamental defects. It is therefore an erroneous and untenable interpretation.

[1] Al-Umm (4/215).

[2] Ikmāl al-Muʿlim bi-Sharḥ Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim (1/181).

[3] Maʿālim al-Sunan, al-Khaṭṭābī (2/165).

[4] Maʿālim al-Sunan (2/166).

[5] Sharḥ al-Sunnah (5/490).

[6] Al-Istidhkār, Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr (3/214).

[7] Al-Ḥāwī, al-Māwardī (13/101).

[8] Majmūʿ al-Fatāwá (28/522).

[9] Minhāj al-Sunnah al-Nabawiyyah (4/492). See also: the same work (4/494).

[10] Ibid., (4/492).

[11] Minhāj al-Sunnah al-Nabawiyyah (8/324).

[12] See: Aʿlām al-Ḥadīth fī Sharḥ Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī, al-Khaṭṭābī (1/742); Fatḥ al-Bārī, Ibn Ḥajar (12/277); Al-Ḥāwī al-Kabīr, al-Māwardī (13/221); Mughnī al-Muḥtāj, al-Khaṭīb al-Shirbīnī (4/123); Al-Kāfī fī Fiqh Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal, Ibn Qudāmah (4/54); and Kashshāf al-Qināʿ, al-Buhūtī (6/158).

[13] Majmūʿ al-Fatāwá (28/486).

[14] Majmūʿ al-Fatāwá (28/548).

[15] Minhāj al-Sunnah al-Nabawiyyah (8/324). See also: the same work (8/233).

[16] Tārīkh al-Ṭabarī (2/141); Al-Bidāyah wal-Nihāyah, Ibn Kathīr (6/348); and Majmūʿat al-Wathāʾiq al-Siyāsiyyah li al-ʿAhd al-Nabawī wal-Khilāfah al-Rāshidah, Muḥammad Ḥamīd Allāh (340).

[17] Majmūʿat al-Wathāʾiq al-Siyāsiyyah li al-ʿAhd al-Nabawī (347).

[18] Al-Riddah, al-Wāqidī (71); and Majmūʿat al-Wathāʾiq al-Siyāsiyyah li al-ʿAhd al-Nabawī wal-Khilāfah al-Rāshidah (349).

[19] Tārīkh al-Ṭabarī (2/142); and Majmūʿat al-Wathāʾiq al-Siyāsiyyah li al-ʿAhd al-Nabawī wal-Khilāfah al-Rāshidah (344).

[20] Narrated by Abu ʿUbayd al-Qāsim ibn Sallām in Al-Amwāl (254); Ibn Zanjawayh in Al-Amwāl through the route of Abu ʿUbayd (742); Ibn Abī Shaybah in his Muṣannaf (33400); and Saʿīd ibn Manṣūr in Al-Sunan (2/316). Its chain of transmission is authentic.

[21] See: Al-Islām wa-Uṣūl al-Ḥukm, ʿAlī ʿAbd al-Rāziq (114–117).

[22] See: Lā Ikrāha fī al-Dīn, Ṭāhā Jābir al-ʿAlwānī (149); Al-Ḥurriyyāt al-ʿĀmmah, ʿAbd al-Ḥakīm al-ʿAylī (431); Al-Ḥuqūq wal-Ḥurriyyāt al-Siyāsiyyah fī al-Islām, Raḥīl Gharābiyah (355); Al-Islām wa-Ḥurriyyat al-Fikr, Jamāl al-Bannā (205); Ḥurriyyat al-Fikr fī al-Islām, ʿAbd al-Mutaʿāl al-Ṣaʿīdī (65); Ḥurriyyat al-Iʿtiqād fī al-Qurʾān al-Karīm, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Ḥallalī (125); Ḥaqq al-Ḥurriyyah fī al-ʿĀlam, Wahbah al-Zuḥaylī (148); Qatl al-Murtadd: al-Jarīmah allatī Ḥarramahā al-Islām, Muḥammad Munīr Idlibī (121); and Nuṣūṣ al-Riddah fī Tārīkh al-Ṭabarī, Muḥammad Ḥasan Āl Yāsīn (90).

[23] Al-Dawlah al-Islāmiyyah bayna al-ʿIlmāniyyah wal-Sulṭah al-Dīniyyah (125–126). See also, regarding the denial that religious apostasy occurred among the Arab tribes: Nuṣūṣ al-Riddah fī Tārīkh al-Ṭabarī, Muḥammad Ḥasan Āl Yāsīn (92–101).

[24] See: Fatḥ al-Qadīr, al-Shawkānī (1/470).

[25] Narrated by Abu Dāwūd in his Sunan, no. (2682), and authenticated by Muḥammad Nāṣir al-Dīn al-Albānī.

[26] Al-Muḥallá (11/195). See also: Al-Muḥallá (7/346).

[27] Narrated by Muḥammad ibn Ismāʿīl al-Bukhārī, no. (1399).

There is some truth in this argument, and it should be acknowledged honestly. But this limited economic point does not prove the moral, social, or Islamic conclusion that women should be pushed into the workforce for the sake of GDP and military competition. The argument commits a major error by equating GDP with national strength. GDP measures market activity. It does not measure all useful activity, all moral activity, all socially necessary activity, or all civilizationally valuable activity. A mother raising children, educating them, managing a household, caring for elderly parents, supporting her husband, and transmitting religious and moral values may be doing work of enormous importance. Still, much of this work goes uncounted in GDP.

Unpaid household work, such as cooking, cleaning, and caring for children, is not included in official GDP calculations, even though tracking its value provides important insights that complement GDP. Therefore, when someone says that a woman at home is “not contributing to GDP,” he has not proven that she is not contributing to society. He has only proven that GDP is a limited measurement.

This point is crucial. Suppose a woman cares for her children at home. GDP may count much of that as zero. But if she places those children in paid childcare and takes a paid job, GDP rises because money is now changing hands. Does that automatically mean the country has become stronger? Not necessarily. It may simply mean that unpaid family production has been converted into market production. The child still needs care. The household still needs labor. The elderly still need support. Meals still need to be cooked. Emotional stability still needs to be maintained. Religious formation still needs to happen. The question is not whether these tasks disappear when women enter the workforce. The question is who does them, how well they are done, at what cost, and what is lost when they are devalued.

The International Labor Organization estimated that in 2023, 708 million women were outside the labor force due to unpaid care responsibilities.[1] A modernist may see that number and immediately think: “What a waste of labor.” But an Islamic mind should pause and ask: why is care work being treated as waste? Why is the market treated as a real contribution while motherhood, household care, and family preservation are treated as idleness? This is where the argument reveals its hidden ideology. It does not merely say that women may work. Islam already allows that under proper conditions. Rather, it assumes that paid labor is the superior form of contribution and that unpaid family labor is a secondary, inferior, or economically backward role.

Islam rejects that assumption. The family is not a private lifestyle preference subordinate to the state’s economic ambitions. It is one of the foundations of the ummah. Marriage, motherhood, fatherhood, lineage, modesty, moral upbringing, and household stability are not sentimental extras. They are part of the very structure of Islamic civilization. A society that raises GDP while weakening the family may become richer in market terms while poorer in human terms. It may have more workers, but fewer stable homes. It may have more consumption, but less tranquility. It may yield more tax revenue, but at the cost of weaker children. It may have more economic activity, but less barakah.

The argument also ignores opportunity cost. It imagines that if women enter the workforce, GDP simply rises, the state becomes wealthier, and the military becomes stronger. But reality is more complicated than that. Every social arrangement has trade-offs. If women are pushed into full-time market work, who bears the cost of childcare? Who absorbs the stress of the double burden when women work outside and still carry much of the domestic load? What happens to fertility if marriage and motherhood become increasingly difficult? What happens to children if the household becomes permanently exhausted? What happens to men if their role as providers is weakened or made economically unnecessary? What happens to wages if the labor supply expands faster than good jobs? What happens if many women are pushed not into high-value productive work, but into low-paid, stressful, consumer-service jobs that add to GDP without meaningfully strengthening the country?

The demographic question alone should make people cautious. OECD countries have experienced a long-term fertility decline, and by 2022, the average total fertility rate across the OECD had fallen to about 1.5 children per woman, well below the replacement level of 2.1.[2] This does not prove that women working is the sole cause of low fertility. That would be too simplistic. Housing costs, delayed marriage, individualism, contraception, secularization, economic uncertainty, and cultural shifts all play a role. But it does show that a society cannot think only in terms of maximizing labor-force participation today while ignoring whether it is making family formation and childrearing harder tomorrow. A country’s long-term strength depends not only on this year’s GDP but on its future population, its families, its youth, its social trust, and its moral confidence.

A military does not run on GDP alone. It needs people, discipline, technical expertise, industrial capacity, logistics, command structure, morale, strategic clarity, domestic manufacturing, energy security, and political will. Higher taxes, public-spending cuts, and debt pressures can weaken or offset the expected economic benefits of defense spending.

This matters because the feminist-nationalist argument often moves too quickly from “more workers” to “more GDP” to “more military power.” But a country can have a bigger service economy, more offices, more shopping malls, more HR departments, more entertainment jobs, and more consumer spending without becoming militarily formidable. If a state wants military strength, the more direct questions are different. Does it have engineers? Does it have advanced manufacturing? Can it produce weapons domestically? Does it have cyber capability? Does it have air defense? Does it have disciplined procurement? Does it have strong families producing morally serious young men and women? Does it have social cohesion? Does it have a population willing to sacrifice? Does it have a leadership class that is not corrupt or strategically dependent on foreign powers? These are not solved by the slogan “women should work to raise GDP.”

From an Islamic perspective, the deeper problem is that the argument makes state power and GDP maximization into supreme values. Islam commands the believers to prepare for strength. Allah says, “Prepare against them whatever force you are able” (Surah 8:60). But the command to prepare strength does not mean that any means of increasing state power becomes legitimate. A Muslim cannot justify riba by saying it expands credit. He cannot justify gambling by saying it increases tourism revenue. He cannot justify alcohol by saying it creates jobs. He cannot justify immoral entertainment by saying it contributes to GDP. The means must be judged by the Sharīʿah, not merely by economic output.

The Islamic state, and Muslim society more broadly, are not supposed to become GDP machines. Wealth is important. Defense is important. Technology is important. But they are means, not ultimate ends. The objectives of Islam include the preservation of religion, life, intellect, lineage, wealth, and honor. A policy that increases wealth while damaging lineage, family stability, modesty, gender order, or religious life is not automatically a victory. The Muslim does not ask only, “Will this increase GDP?” He asks, “Is this pleasing to Allah? Does it preserve the family? Does it protect modesty? Does it strengthen or weaken the obligations Allah placed on men and women? Does it serve the dīn, or does it make the dīn serve the state?”

Islam assigns the primary financial burden of the household to men. Allah says in Surah 4:34 that men are qawwāmūn over women because of what Allah has given some over others and because they spend from their wealth. This verse is not a denial of women’s intelligence, dignity, agency, or ability to earn. Rather, it establishes a moral and financial structure in which men carry the duty of provision. A husband is obligated to provide for his wife and children. A wife’s wealth remains hers. She may own property, trade, inherit, give charity, and earn lawfully, but the family is not built on the assumption that she must become a second full-time breadwinner to satisfy the state’s demand for growth.

This is where the modernist argument quietly reverses the Islamic order. In Islam, the economy should serve the family. In the modernist argument, the family is made to serve the economy. In Islam, men are burdened with provision, so women are not forced into economic exposure. In the modernist argument, women are treated as an untapped labor reserve for the state. In Islam, motherhood and household care are honored as real contributions. In the modernist view, they are often treated as inactive unless monetized.

None of this means that women may never work. That would be an overcorrection and an inaccurate representation of Islam. Women may work when the work is halal, dignified, necessary, compatible with modesty, and does not conflict with higher obligations. Women may be teachers, doctors, scholars, business owners, administrators, researchers, writers, and professionals. In many fields, especially those serving women and children, female expertise is not only permissible but socially important. The issue is not whether a woman can ever earn. The issue is whether women should be ideologically pressured into the workforce in the name of GDP, state competition, and military rivalry.

There is a major difference between allowing women to contribute and conscripting women into a materialist vision of national strength. The first is Islamic when properly limited. The second is ideological. It treats women less as servants of Allah, wives, mothers, daughters, scholars, and moral agents, and more as economic inputs. It implies that a woman who prioritizes marriage, motherhood, and household life is failing to contribute to the nation. That implication is false and deeply un-Islamic.

A rational state should also ask whether it has already fulfilled its obligations toward male productivity before demanding more female labor. Are men properly educated? Are they disciplined? Are they employable? Are they able to provide? Are they being trained in engineering, trades, manufacturing, logistics, agriculture, technology, and defense-related industries? Are young men being made strong, responsible, and marriageable? Is corruption being reduced? Is wasteful consumption being discouraged? Is the state building a domestic industry rather than importing everything? If not, calling women into the workforce may become a convenient distraction from the harder work of addressing male underperformance, low productivity, poor governance, and economic dependency.

A serious Islamic strategy for national strength would not begin by copying feminist economic assumptions. It would begin by building productive men, stable families, disciplined youth, strong industries, moral culture, technical competence, and lawful wealth. It would honor women’s education and allow women’s dignified work, but it would not shame women for prioritizing the home. It would build the economy around the family rather than dissolving the family into the economy. It would pursue military strength through lawful industry, knowledge, preparation, justice, and social cohesion, not through the ideological absorption of women into the market.

The core error in the modernist and feminist argument is that it measures contribution by GDP, treats paid work as superior to unpaid family labor, subordinates the family to the state, and assumes that military competition can justify reshaping gender roles to align with market demands. Even if female labor-force participation increases measured GDP, it does not follow that women should be pushed into the workforce as a national duty. GDP ignores much of the work that sustains families. Military strength depends on far more than GDP. And Islam does not allow the pursuit of wealth and power to override the moral architecture of the household.

A Muslim society should be strong, wealthy, educated, technologically advanced, and militarily prepared. But it should not become so intoxicated by GDP that it forgets what real strength is. Real strength is not only factories, budgets, weapons, and labor statistics. It is also īmān, family, chastity, motherhood, fatherhood, justice, discipline, knowledge, and obedience to Allah. Women may work, but they are not GDP reserves waiting to be mobilized by the modern state. They are servants of Allah with their own dignity, obligations, rights, and honored roles. Any national-strength argument that forgets this is not merely economically incomplete. It is Islamically disordered.

Recommended Reading:

Is There Such a Thing as “Islamic Feminism”?

Rethinking Women's Empowerment Beyond the Workplace

What Is Meant by the Economic Empowerment of Women According to the United Nations?

Feminists and Women’s Choices

Is There a ‘Patriarchal’ Influence on Fiqh?

[1] See: Unpaid care work prevents 708 million women from participating in the labour market | International Labour Organization

[2] See: Society at a Glance 2024 | OECD

As previously noted, Amīr ʿUthmān ibn Muʿammar was the first Najdi ruler to support the daʿwah of Shaykh Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhāb and to put it into practical effect in al-ʿUyaynah. He continued to champion the daʿwah after the Shaykh’s departure to Dirʿiyyah, where Imām Muḥammad ibn Saʿūd subsequently adopted the cause, lending it his support and protection.

During the Shaykh’s residence in al-ʿUyaynah, he acquired followers and supporters, some of whom later migrated to Dirʿiyyah after he had settled there. Among them were Abdullah, Zayd, and Sulṭān, the sons of Muḥsin ibn Muʿammar, who remained in Dirʿiyyah because of a dispute between themselves and the ruler of al-ʿUyaynah, ʿUthmān ibn Muʿammar. Ibn Bishr describes them as being “at odds” with ʿUthmān, while Ibn Ghannām describes them as “opposed” to him, both expressions conveying essentially the same meaning. I do not consider it unlikely that political ambitions lay behind their decision, particularly since one of them, Sulṭān ibn Muʿammar, was able, fourteen years after leaving al-ʿUyaynah, to nominate a new ruler for the town in 1173 AH following the removal of its amīr, Mishārī ibn Muʿammar, by Dirʿiyyah.

A dispute arose between Amīr ʿUthmān and certain inhabitants of al-ʿUyaynah, who exploited some of his actions and interpreted them in whatever manner suited their purposes in order to discredit and vilify him. The first of these accusations concerned ʿUthmān’s dispatch of two horsemen from al-ʿUyaynah to escort and protect the Shaykh when he departed for Dirʿiyyah. His detractors claimed instead that the two men had been sent to assassinate the Shaykh on the road between al-ʿUyaynah and Dirʿiyyah.

Many among the general public accepted this claim as true, and it was even recorded by some historians, such as Ibn Bishr, who wrote:

فأمر - يقصد الأمير عثمان بن معمر فارساً عنده يقال له الفريد مع خياله معه منهم طوالة الحمراني ، وقال : اركب جوادك وسر بهذا الرجل إلى ما يريد فقال الشيخ : أريد الدرعية، فركب الفارس جواده والشيخ يمشي راجلاً أمامه، وليس معه إلا المروحة، وذلك في غاية الحر في فصل الصيف، فقال ابن معمر لفارسه : إذا أنت وصلت إلى أخيه يعقوب فاقتله عنده، وكان يعقوب هذا رجلاً صالحاً قتل ظلماً بين الدرعية والعيينة، وجعل في غار جبل هناك على قارعة الطريق. ونسب الشيخ إلى إخوته لأجل الصلاح، فسار الفارس والشيخ أمامه وهو لا يلتفت ويلهج بقوله تعالى (ومن يتق اللّه يجعل له مخرجاً ويرزقه من حيث لايحتسب) وسبحان اللّه والحمد للّه ولا إله إلا اللّه واللّه أكبر، والفارس لم يكلمه، فلما هم بقتله كف اللّه عنه يده وأبطل كيده وقذف اللّه سبحانه في قلبه الرعب حتى ما استطاع أن يمشي قدماً، فحرف جواده وانصرف إلى «العيينة» وقال لعثمان : إنه أصابني رعب عظيم حتى خفت على نفسي

“The amīr, meaning ʿUthmān ibn Muʿammar, ordered one of his horsemen, a man known as al-Furayd, accompanied by one of his cavalrymen named Ṭawālah al-Ḥamrānī, saying: ‘Mount your horse and accompany this man to wherever he wishes to go.’ The Shaykh replied, ‘I wish to go to Dirʿiyyah.’ The horseman mounted his horse while the Shaykh walked ahead of him on foot, carrying nothing but a palm-leaf fan, despite the intense heat of the summer. Ibn Muʿammar then instructed his horseman: ‘When you reach his brother Yaʿqūb, kill him there.’ This Yaʿqūb was a righteous man who had previously been wrongfully killed between Dirʿiyyah and al-ʿUyaynah, and buried in a cave on a mountain beside the road. The Shaykh referred to him as his brother because of his righteousness. Thus the horseman proceeded while the Shaykh walked ahead of him without ever looking back, constantly reciting the verse, ‘And whoever fears Allah, He will make for him a way out and provide for him from where he does not expect’ [Qur’an 65:2–3], along with, ‘Glory be to Allah, praise be to Allah, there is no deity but Allah, and Allah is the Greatest.’ The horseman did not speak to him. When he finally resolved to kill him, Allah restrained his hand, foiled his plot, and cast such terror into his heart that he was unable to move forward another step. He turned his horse around and returned to al-ʿUyaynah, saying to ʿUthmān: ‘An overwhelming fear overcame me until I feared for my own life.’”

However, Ibn Bishr himself later became convinced that this allegation was false. Believing it to be a matter of scholarly integrity, he corrected the mistake into which he had fallen by relying upon a fabricated report. He therefore wrote:

أعلم رحمك اللّه أني قد ذكرت في المبيضة الأولى أشياء نقلت لي عن عثمان بن معمر وفرسانه، أنه أمرهم بقتل الشيخ في الطريق وغير ذلك، ثم تحقق عندي أنه ليس لها أصلاً بالكلية فطرحتها من هذه المبيضة

“Know, may Allah have mercy upon you, that in my first draft I mentioned certain reports conveyed to me regarding ʿUthmān ibn Muʿammar and his horsemen, including that he ordered them to kill the Shaykh on the road and other such claims. I subsequently ascertained that these reports have absolutely no basis whatsoever, so I removed them from this revised copy.”

This clearly indicates that numerous fabrications were invented against Amīr ʿUthmān ibn Muʿammar.

A second accusation arose when ʿUthmān ibn Muʿammar convened a meeting in al-ʿUyaynah in 1160 AH with Dahhām ibn Dawwās, the amīr of Riyadh, and Ibrāhīm ibn Sulaymān al-ʿAnqarī, the amīr of Tharmadāʾ. Through this meeting, ʿUthmān sought to reconcile the opponents of the daʿwah with its supporters. He sent an invitation to the Shaykh in Dirʿiyyah requesting that he attend. However, ʿUthmān’s opponents in al-ʿUyaynah sent word to Shaykh Muḥammad warning him not to participate, and he heeded their warning, contributing to the failure of the meeting.

In the aftermath, ʿUthmān ibn Muʿammar personally travelled to Dirʿiyyah and explained his position to the Shaykh. Thereupon, he was entrusted with command of the daʿwah’s army in recognition of his competence and as an expression of the confidence placed in him. During the Battle of al-Buṭayn against Tharmadāʾ, his opponents exploited his refusal to enter the town and his disagreement with his brother-in-law, ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz ibn Muḥammad ibn Saʿūd, over that decision, accusing him of siding with the enemies of the daʿwah. Finally, they seized upon the correspondence between him and Shaykh Muḥammad ibn ʿAfāliq, alleging that it was intended to undermine the reformist movement. Referring to these letters, Ibn Bishr wrote:

وقيل إنه أتاه كتاب من محمد بن عفالق يحرضه على معاداة المسلمين ونقض بيعتهم

“It was also said that he received a letter from Muḥammad ibn ʿAfāliq urging him to oppose the Muslims and break his pledge of allegiance.”

However, ʿUthmān ibn Muʿammar’s replies to two letters he received from Ibn ʿAfāliq make it clear that his position was supportive of the reformist daʿwah. In those replies, he defended it and encouraged Shaykh Ibn ʿAfāliq to embrace it. Nothing in his responses indicates that ʿUthmān adopted a hostile stance toward the reformist movement.

In any event, it appears that relations between Amīr ʿUthmān ibn Muʿammar, the commander of the daʿwah’s armies, and Dirʿiyyah eventually cooled. One indication of this may be the fact that ʿUthmān did not lead the army of the daʿwah at the Battle of al-Ḥabūniyyah in 1162 AH, nor in the smaller engagements that took place between Dirʿiyyah and Riyadh later that same year. This naturally raises the question of what caused the deterioration in relations between the leader of the daʿwah and one of its earliest, most prominent, and steadfast supporters.

The researcher is unlikely to find a clear, comprehensive, and convincing answer to this question in the available sources, particularly among the historians of the daʿwah such as Ibn Ghannām and Ibn Bishr, or among those who wrote close to these events, including al-Fākihī, Ḥasan al-Rīkī, and the author of Kayfa Kāna Khurūj Shaykh al-Islām Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhāb. The historians of the daʿwah, particularly Ibn Ghannām and Ibn Bishr, attribute this estrangement to ʿUthmān’s harassment of his opponents among the zealous supporters of the daʿwah in al-ʿUyaynah, although they do not specify the nature of that harassment or the reasons behind it.

Perhaps the underlying cause was the attempt by both ʿUthmān’s opponents and the more zealous supporters of the daʿwah to interfere in the political affairs of al-ʿUyaynah. This apparently did not sit well with ʿUthmān, who seems to have preferred keeping the general populace out of politics. These individuals complained about the situation to the Shaykh in Dirʿiyyah, who gave them the green light to confront the amīr. This is what Ibn Ghannām relates when he writes:

لما تزايد شر عثمان على أهل التوحيد وظهر بغضه لهم وموالاته لأهل الباطل، وتبين الشيخ صدق ماكان يروى عنه ، وجاء أهل البلاد كافة، وشكوا خشيتهم من غدره بالمسلمين، قال الشيخ حينئذ لمن وفد إليه من أهل العيينة : أريد منكم البيعة على دين اللّه ورسوله وعلى موالاة من والاه ومعاداة من حاربه وعاداه، ولو أنه أميركم عثمان، فأعطوه على ذلك الإيمان وأجمعوا على البيعة فمُلي قلب عثمان من ذلك رعباً وزاّد مافيه من الحقد، وزين له الشيطان أن يفتك بالمسلمين، ويجليهم لأقصى البلدان، فأرسل إلى ابن سويط وإلى إبراهيم بن سليمان رئيس ثرمداء يدعوهما للمجيء عنده لينفذ ماعزم عليه من الإيقاع بالمسلمين. ‎فلما تحقق أهل الإسلام ذلك، تعاهد على قتله نفر، منهم : حمد بن راشد وإبراهيم بن زيد ، فلما انقضت صلاة الجمعة، قتلوه في مصلاه بالمسجد

“When ʿUthmān’s hostility toward the people of tawḥīd intensified, his hatred for them became manifest, and his allegiance to the people of falsehood became apparent, and the Shaykh became convinced of the truth of what had been reported to him about ʿUthmān, delegations from all the surrounding settlements came and complained of their fear that he would betray the Muslims. The Shaykh then said to those who had come to him from the people of al-ʿUyaynah: ‘I want you to pledge allegiance to the religion of Allah and His Messenger, and to show loyalty to those who are loyal to Him and enmity toward those who wage war against Him and oppose Him, even if that be your own amīr, ʿUthmān.’ They gave him this pledge and unanimously agreed to it. When ʿUthmān learned of this, his heart was filled with terror, his hatred only increased, and Satan then adorned for him the idea of attacking the Muslims and banishing them to the furthest lands. He therefore sent word to Ibn Suwayṭ and to Ibrāhīm ibn Sulaymān, the chief of Tharmadāʾ, inviting them to come to him so that he might carry out what he had resolved against the Muslims. When the people of Islam became certain of this, a group of them pledged to kill him. Among them were Ḥamad ibn Rāshid and Ibrāhīm ibn Zayd. When the Friday prayer had concluded, they killed him in his place of prayer in the mosque.”

Ibn Bishr relates a similar account in the Dārat al-Malik ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz manuscript of ʿUnwān al-Majd. However, the Qassim Press edition reads:

ثم دخلت سنة 1163هـ وفيها قتل عثمان بن معمر في مسجد العيينة بعد صلاة الجمعة، انتدب لقتله أناساً من جماعته، ذكروا أنهم تحققوا منه نقض العهد وموالاة الأعداء وممالاتهم. وقيل إنه أتاه كتاب من محمد بن عفالق يحرضه على معاداة المسلمين ونقض بيعتهم، وكانت بنته تحت عبد العزيز وهو جد ولده سعود. وحين قتل عثمان وسعود رضيع لم يتم السنتين، ولكن ليس في الدين محاباة. فلما سلم من الصلاة قام إليه من ذكرناه فقتلوه، ومن مشاهير الذين تولوا قتله حمد بن راشد وإبراهيم بن زيد الباهلي وموسى بن راجح وكان ذلك في منتصف رجب من هذه السنة

“Then came the year 1163 AH. In that year, ʿUthmān ibn Muʿammar was killed in the mosque of al-ʿUyaynah after the Friday prayer. A group from among his own followers undertook to kill him, claiming that they had become certain he had violated the covenant and allied himself with, and shown loyalty toward, the enemies. It was also said that he had received a letter from Muḥammad ibn ʿAfāliq urging him to oppose the Muslims and break his pledge of allegiance. His daughter was married to ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, who was the grandfather of his son, Saʿūd. At the time ʿUthmān was killed, Saʿūd was still an infant not yet two years old. However, there is no favoritism in religion. After he concluded the prayer, those whom we have mentioned rose against him and killed him. Among the best-known of those who carried out the killing were Ḥamad ibn Rāshid, Ibrāhīm ibn Zayd al-Bāhilī, and Mūsā ibn Rājiḥ. This occurred in the middle of Rajab of that year,” meaning the year 1163 AH.

As for the author of Kayfa Kāna Ẓuhūr Shaykh al-Islām Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhāb, he writes concerning Shaykh Muḥammad:

وبعث إلى جماعة له بالعيينة ثمانية رجال، وذبح عثمان بن معمر وحوله عددٌ من عبيده

“He dispatched eight of his men to al-ʿUyaynah, and they slaughtered ʿUthmān ibn Muʿammar while a number of his servants surrounded him.”

One of the reports of the English East India Company, dated 1213 AH / 1798 CE, approximately fifty years after ʿUthmān’s death and around the time Ibn Ghannām composed his history, discusses the reasons for the Shaykh’s move from al-ʿUyaynah to Dirʿiyyah. It states that a dispute arose between Shaykh Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhāb and ʿUthmān ibn Muʿammar, may Allah have mercy upon them both, which ultimately led the Shaykh to have Ibn Muʿammar killed despite their familial relationship. Although this report conflicts with some local sources, it nevertheless agrees with certain others regarding ʿUthmān’s death.

As for Dr. al-ʿUthaymīn, he writes regarding ʿUthmān and his death:

ثم أصبح قائداً لجيوش الدرعية في غزوات متعددة، لكن بعض تصرفاته أثارت الشكوك حوله، وكانت نهايته أن قتل على أيدي المتحمسين للدعوة من جماعته

“He later became the commander of the armies of Dirʿiyyah in numerous military campaigns. However, some of his actions gave rise to suspicions concerning him, and his end came when he was killed by the zealous supporters of the daʿwah from among his own followers.”

In any case, I do not believe that the cause of his death was his abandonment of the daʿwah or a change in his attitude toward it, as some of the historians whose opinions we have surveyed have claimed. Rather, I consider it more likely that the matter stemmed from a dispute with some of the inhabitants of al-ʿUyaynah, who thereby succeeded in widening the rift between him and Dirʿiyyah until they ultimately achieved their objective.

After his death, Ibn Ghannām relates that the Shaykh travelled to al-ʿUyaynah to organize affairs following the death of its ruler. This was the first time the Shaykh had left Dirʿiyyah since arriving there in 1157 AH.

وعندما ناقش الشيخ حمد الجاسر مقتل عثمان بن معمر، قال : « لقد مضى الرجل لسبيله، وكما يقال : (الغائب حجته معه)، ولكنه فتح بكثير من تصرفاته للناقمين عليه أبواباً واسعة للنيل منه، ولا يعنينا الآن إلا أن تبدو الصفحـات الأولى من تاريخ الدعوة المباركة ناصعة البياض، وأن لا يتهم دعاتها ومناصروها بتنكرهم لمؤازريهم.

‎ويكاد متتبع تاريخ القضية أن يجزم بأنه لا يد للشيخ محمد ولا للإمام محمد بن سعود في قتل ذلك الرجل، وأن الأمر وقع في وقت لم تستقر فيه أوضاع الدولة الناشئة، ولم تثبت دعائم الدعوة. ومن المعروف أن كل حركة من حركات التغيير الاجتماعية يصاحب قيامها فوضى وعدم انضباط في كثير من أمورها قبل استقرارها، وكثيراً ما استغل ذوو الأغراض - من المناصرين لتلك الحركة أو من أعدائها - ذلك لتحقيق أغراضهم.

‎When Shaykh Ḥamad al-Jāsir discussed the killing of ʿUthmān ibn Muʿammar, he wrote:

“The man has long since departed this world, and as the saying goes, ‘The absent has his own defense.’ Nevertheless, many of his actions opened wide the door for those who resented him to attack his reputation. Our concern today is simply that the earliest pages of the history of this blessed daʿwah should remain unsullied, and that neither its callers nor its supporters should be accused of betraying those who stood by them.

Anyone who carefully follows the history of this affair can scarcely avoid concluding that Shaykh Muḥammad and Imām Muḥammad ibn Saʿūd had no hand in the killing of that man. Rather, it occurred at a time when the nascent state had not yet become stable and the foundations of the daʿwah had not yet been firmly established. It is well known that every movement of social change is accompanied, before it achieves stability, by a degree of disorder and lack of discipline in many of its affairs. Moreover, individuals pursuing their own interests, whether supporters of the movement or its opponents, often exploit such circumstances to advance their own objectives.”

As previously noted, ʿUthmān ibn Muʿammar was killed after the Friday prayer on the twelfth of Rajab, 1163 AH. With his death, the state lost a figure who had played several important roles in its early development. He was survived by two sons: Nāṣir, who was martyred in 1182 AH, and Abdullah, who died in 1225 AH. May Allah have mercy upon them both.

Recommended Reading:

Shaykh Muhammad b. Abdul Wahhab Discourse

أن الرجل إذا نسب المسلم إلى النفاق أو الكفر متأولًا وغضبًا لله ورسوله ودينه لا لهواه وحظِّه فإنه لا يكفر بذلك، بل لا يأثم به، بل يثاب على نيته وقصده. وهذا بخلاف أهل الأهواء والبدع، فإنهم يُكفِّرون ويُبدِّعون لمخالفة أهوائهم ونحلهم، وهم أولى بذلك ممن كفروه وبدعوه

If a person ascribes to a Muslim nifāq or kufr out of an interpretive judgment (taʾwīl) and zeal for Allah, His Messenger, and His religion, rather than out of personal desire or self-interest, then he does not become a disbeliever by doing so. Rather, he does not even incur sin for it. Instead, he is rewarded for his intention and objective.

This is unlike the people of desires and innovations, who declare others disbelievers and innovators merely because they oppose their own whims and sectarian creeds. Such people are more deserving of those labels than the very individuals whom they accuse of disbelief and innovation.

From among the widespread misconceptions held by both supporters and opponents alike is the assumption that the Shaykh rebelled against the Ottomans. The response to this claim may be presented from several angles:

First: Nothing has been transmitted from the Shaykh himself indicating any hostility toward the Ottoman state. Rather, what is authentically established from him is his respect for its governors.

This is evident in Shaykh Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhāb’s letter to the Sharīf of Mecca and the Ottoman governor, in which he writes:

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم. المعروض لديك -أدام الله أفضل نعمه عليك- حضرة الشريف أحمد بن الشريف سعيد، أعزه الله في الدارين، وأعز به دين جده سيد الثقلين.

إن الكتاب لما وصل إلى الخادم -يقصد نفسه-، وتأمل ما فيه من الكلام الحسن، رفع يديه بالدعاء إلى الله بتأييد الشريف لما كان قصده نصر الشريعة المحمدية ومن تبعها، وعداوة من خرج عنها؛ وهذا هو الواجب على ولاة الأمور. ولما طلبتم من ناحيتنا طالب علم امتثلنا الأمر، وهو واصل إليكم، ويجلس في مجلس الشريف -أعزه الله هو وعلماء مكة-. فإن اجتمعوا فالحمد لله على ذلك، وإن اختلفوا أحضر الشريف كتبهم وكتب الحنابلة، والواجب على الكل منا ومنكم أنه يقصد بعلمه وجه الله، ونصر رسوله…

“In the Name of Allah, the Most Compassionate, the Most Merciful. Presented before Your Excellency—may Allah perpetuate His choicest blessings upon you—is the noble Sharīf Aḥmad ibn al-Sharīf Saʿīd. May Allah grant him honour in both abodes and, through him, honour the religion of his grandfather, the Master of mankind and jinn.

When the letter reached this servant—meaning himself—and he reflected upon its gracious contents, he raised his hands in supplication to Allah, asking Him to grant success to the Sharīf, since his objective was the support of the Muhammadan Sharīʿah and those who follow it, and enmity toward those who depart from it. This is indeed the duty of those entrusted with authority. Since you requested from our region a seeker of knowledge, we complied with the request, and he is now on his way to you. He shall sit in the assembly of the Sharīf—may Allah honour him—and the scholars of Mecca. If they reach agreement, then praise belongs to Allah for that. If they disagree, then the Sharīf should bring forth their books together with the books of the Hanbalīs. It is incumbent upon all of us, both you and us, that our knowledge be sought solely for the sake of Allah and for the support of His Messenger…”([12]).[1]

Second: No military confrontation whatsoever occurred with the Ottomans until after the death of Shaykh Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhāb. During the Shaykh’s lifetime, the dispute remained purely scholarly. The fact that the Shaykh disagreed with the madhab officially adopted by the sultanate and called people to what he believed to be the truth is not something for which he may be censured, nor does it render him a rebel. Otherwise, one would likewise have to claim that Imam Aḥmad was a rebel merely because he opposed the Muʿtazilī doctrine adopted by al-Maʾmūn.

As for military conflict, its initial signs appeared during the reign of ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz ibn Muḥammad ibn Saʿūd—several years after the Shaykh’s death—in 1211 AH, when hostilities broke out between Saʿūd and the Mamluks of Iraq. This conflict came in response to the attacks launched by the Mamluk Sulaymān Pasha against Najdī territory and his plundering of their wealth, as attested even by opposing historians, as will be explained in detail. The genuine military confrontation between them and the Ottoman state—the one which critics regard as rebellion against the Ottoman state—occurred during the reign of Prince ʿAbdullah, known as ʿAbdullah al-Kabīr, the son of ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz ibn Muḥammad ibn Saʿūd. The first campaign, led by Ṭūsūn ibn Muḥammad ʿAlī Pasha, took place in 1228 AH, twenty-two years after the Shaykh’s death, and Ṭūsūn suffered a crushing defeat. The second campaign, led by Ibrāhīm Pasha, took place in 1233 AH, twenty-seven years after the Shaykh’s death.

Third: According to the jurists of the Muslim community, the Caliphate—or the supreme Imamate of the Ummah—is subject to certain conditions, one of which is that it may only belong to Quraysh. The scholars of Ahl al-Sunnah wal-Jamāʿah reached a consensus on this as a distinctive qualification of Quraysh with respect to the supreme Imamate. This consensus was opposed only by certain Muʿtazilah, Khārijites, and proponents of Shuʿūbiyyah.

As for rulers who seize power by force, they are recognised as those vested with authority only within the territories over which they have prevailed—for the purpose of preserving Muslim blood. They are therefore called sultans, not caliphs in the technical sense, even though they may be described as caliphs in the broader linguistic sense insofar as they are Allah’s deputies on earth, just like any other ruler. In this respect, none of them possesses any special distinction over another.

None of the historians described the Ottoman state as a caliphate. Rather, they referred to its rulers as sultans or as the Sublime Porte. When al-Shawkānī wrote biographical notices on some of their rulers, he referred to them as the kings of Rūm.([13])[2] The designation “caliphate” was only applied to the Ottoman state during the last century by certain writers.

From this, we conclude that the conflict between the Saudi state and the Ottoman state was a conflict between one de facto state and another de facto state. Neither possessed any inherent superiority over the other. However, the Saudi state possessed one distinguishing merit: it was an unequivocally Arab state descended from the Banū Ismāʿīl,([14])[3] one that implemented the Islamic Sharīʿah in its entirety. It was not a tomb-venerating syncretic state that embraced superstition and charlatanism while venerating Ibn ʿArabī, the proponent of monistic union and incarnation.

Fourth: The Ottoman sultan was merely a nominal ruler. Sulaymān Pasha al-Mamlūk rebelled against him, declared Iraq independent, and appropriated it for himself and his descendants. Likewise, Muḥammad ʿAlī Pasha rebelled against him and seized Egypt for himself and his descendants. The circumstances at that time resembled those of the later ʿAbbāsid period, when the Seljuks established an independent state of their own, the Ayyūbids established one of their own, and the Almoravids established theirs in the Maghreb.

Many of the wars fought by these states were unknown even to the ʿAbbāsid caliph. Nevertheless, some of these wars proved beneficial and brought victory to the Muslim Ummah, particularly the campaigns of the Ayyūbids in the East and the Almoravids in the West. The Almoravids fought the Zanātah tribes, who had deviated from the Sharīʿah, under the banner of an Imam, despite the continued existence of the weakened ʿAbbāsid Caliphate in Baghdad. They subsequently expanded throughout the Maghreb, and no one condemned them for doing so. On the contrary, they were praised for their achievements.

Likewise, in precisely the same manner, scholars and leading reformers praised the achievements of Āl Saʿūd in unifying the Muslim community across the Arabian Peninsula under a single banner, possessing strength and commanding authority, after the people had previously been fragmented into Bedouin tribes that raided and fought one another. They were praised by reformers such as Ṭāhir al-Jazāʾirī, Ibn Badrān al-Dūmī, al-Maʿṣūmī, Abū Bakr Khawqīr, Ṣiddīq Ḥasan Khān al-Qannūjī, Muḥammad Rashīd Riḍā, Jamāl al-Dīn al-Qāsimī, Maḥmūd Shukrī al-Ālūsī, as well as thinkers and litterateurs such as Muḥammad Kurd ʿAlī, Mālik ibn Nabī, Muṣṭafā Ṣādiq al-Rāfiʿī, Maḥmūd Luṭfī al-Manfalūṭī, the eminent scholar Aḥmad Shākir, his brother—the master of the Arabic language—Maḥmūd Shākir, the eminent scholar Maḥmūd al-Ṭanāḥī, and many others besides.

The list of such figures is exceedingly long. The point is that generation after generation, the scholarly tradition has consistently praised their achievements. This may be described as “that upon which practice has become established” (mā istaqarra ʿalayhi al-ʿamal), a significant principle among the scholars of the Sharīʿah to which they refer and upon which they rely.

Recommended Reading:

Shaykh Muhammad b. Abdul Wahhab Discourse

[1] ʿUnwān al-Majd by Ibn Bishr (1/177).

[2] Al-Shawkānī said in his biographical entry on the Ottoman Sultan Murād Khān II:

“The ḥadīth master Ibn Ḥajar neglected to mention the kings of Rūm, mentioning none of those who ruled there. Likewise, al-Sakhāwī omitted some of those who belonged to the ninth century while mentioning only a few of them. This is remarkable, for both of them include biographical entries for numerous individuals from other lands who are counted among the lesser kings and rulers of al-Andalus, Yemen, India, and other regions. Similarly, they omitted the majority of the scholars of Rūm, mentioning only a small number of them, despite including biographies of people who were far more distant geographically and of considerably lesser stature. Allah knows best the reason that prompted this. In this book, however, we have mentioned many of those whom they omitted.” Al-Badr al-Ṭāliʿ (2/163).

[3] Some Shāfiʿī scholars held that if no Qurashī could be found, then the caliphate should pass to the ancestors of Quraysh, such as Kinānah or the Banū Ismāʿīl. See Tuḥfat al-Muḥtāj (7/409). Perhaps the superiority of the Arabs—particularly Quraysh—lies in the fact that the supreme Imamate is an extension of leading the congregational prayer. In principle, it is the caliph who leads the Muslims in prayer. If the caliph were not at least an Arab, then how could he lead them in prayer?! Quraysh occupy the central position among the Arabs, and it was in their dialect that the Qurʾān was revealed. This, however, is not the sole wisdom behind restricting the caliphate to Quraysh, for the scholars have mentioned a number of additional reasons that may be consulted in their respective sources.

The problem with this argument is that it rests upon a speculative and highly contestable premise. It assumes that we possess sufficient knowledge to confidently predict how an eighteenth-century scholar would navigate a radically transformed political, military, legal, and social order. We do not.

Shaykh Muhammad b. Abd al-Wahhab lived in a world bearing little resemblance to our own. He did not inhabit an international order characterized by sovereign nation-states, constitutions, multinational treaties, international financial institutions, global trade networks, and organizations such as the United Nations. He did not face modern military realities in which attempts at revolutionary change may result not merely in localized conflict, but in devastating civil wars, drone strikes, foreign intervention, economic sanctions, and the destruction of entire societies. Would Shaykh Muhammad b. Abd al-Wahhab have regarded these factors as relevant considerations? We simply do not know with absolute certainty.

One could plausibly argue that he might have considered questions of ability (qudrah), incapacity (’ajz), coercive pressures, overwhelming external constraints, and the fear of greater harms. He may have distinguished between a ruler who willingly abandons divine legislation despite possessing the practical ability to govern otherwise, and a ruler operating within a global order that severely constrains what can realistically be implemented without inviting catastrophic consequences.

Likewise, he may have considered the attitudes and preparedness of populations themselves. Modern Muslim societies have been shaped by generations of secular education, nationalist ideologies, and legal systems inherited from colonial administrations or international agreements. Whether Shaykh Muhammad b. Abd al-Wahhab would have viewed such conditions as mitigating circumstances is not known with certainty. Whether he would have advocated gradual reform, patient da’wah, political accommodation, migration, or confrontation is equally not known with certainty.

Of course, Hijab may respond that Shaykh Muhammad b. Abd al-Wahhab simply would not have cared about such considerations. He may argue that his writings suggest a disposition more akin to contemporary extremist movements that exhibit little concern for consequences, capability, or geopolitical realities. But this response merely exposes the weakness of the fork itself.

For Hijab’s dilemma to succeed, it is not enough to say that Shaykh Muhammad b. Abd al-Wahhab might have made takfir of modern Muslim states. Rather, the force of the dilemma depends upon establishing that he would have done so with sufficient certainty to compel contemporary Salafis into choosing between endorsing his presumed judgments or condemning him. That burden has not been met.

Indeed, the difficulty with Hijab’s thought experiment becomes even more apparent when one broadens it beyond Shaykh Muhammad b. Abd al-Wahhab. Suppose someone were to ask: If Abu Bakr (may Allah be pleased with him) were transported into the twenty-first century, would he wage war against Muslim citizens who refuse to pay zakah to the government in the same manner that he fought the apostates and zakah-withholders in the aftermath of the Prophet’s death? Would he regard contemporary states as analogous to the nascent polity of Madinah? Would he assess modern military capabilities, international repercussions, and the likelihood of catastrophic civil conflict differently?

Likewise, if one were to transport the great jurists and theologians of the past into our age, we would be hard-pressed to predict with confidence how they would apply their rulings concerning offensive jihad, takfir, treaty obligations, political authority, and public welfare amidst a world characterized by nation-states, global institutions, weapons of unprecedented destructive capacity, and deeply interconnected economies. The principles they espoused may remain the same, but the application of those principles to novel circumstances often depends upon factual judgments, assessments of capability, competing harms and benefits, and considerations that differ substantially from those encountered in their own eras.

This point is particularly significant because many contemporary Salafis themselves invoke concepts such as ability, incapacity, fear of greater harms, and maslahah when discussing modern governance. Whether Shaykh Muhammad b. Abd al-Wahhab would have accepted these arguments, rejected them, or reformulated them is precisely the issue under dispute. Yet Hijab’s fork presumes the answer in advance.

The point, therefore, is not to claim that Shaykh Muhammad b. Abd al-Wahhab, Abu Bakr (may Allah be pleased with him), or any other historical figure, would necessarily have ‘moderated’ their positions. Nor is it to insist that Shaykh Muhammad b. Abd al-Wahhab would have excused contemporary Muslim states. Rather, it is to emphasize the limits of our knowledge. We know what these figures said and did within the contexts in which they lived. We do not possess the epistemic access required to confidently declare how they would have adjudicated realities they never encountered.

Hijab’s argument amounts to a speculative counterfactual prediction. Consequently, the so-called “Najdi Fork” fails to function as a genuine dilemma. It asks Salafis to affirm or reject conclusions derived not from the actual statements of Shaykh Muhammad b. Abd al-Wahhab, but from a speculative reconstruction of how he supposedly would have judged realities he never encountered. Such counterfactual exercises may make for provocative rhetoric, but they cannot bear the weight of the conclusions Hijab wishes to draw from them.

Recommended Reading:

Shaykh Muhammad b. Abdul Wahhab Discourse

When several brothers raised concerns about these statements, Daniel attempted to reinterpret Salek’s remarks by suggesting that Salek may have merely intended that the Prophet’s influence over the universe is exercised through supplication to Allah rather than through delegated power. However, Salek’s own language appears to undermine such an interpretation. His analogy between a master and a slave, coupled with his assertion that the Prophet ﷺ may do whatever he wishes with the universe, clearly suggests something far stronger than the mere efficacy of prophetic supplication.

Daniel also attempts to place Salek within the tradition of prominent Shafi’i scholars such as Ibn Hajar al-Haytami and al-Subki. Yet this comparison is difficult to sustain, as we have already shown. Moreover, Salek explicitly stated that one may ask the Prophet ﷺ for anything, including guidance (hidayah). Guidance, however, is ultimately an act attributable to Allah alone. Moreover, as discussed elsewhere, scholars such as al-Haytami and al-Subki did not advocate asking the Prophet ﷺ directly for matters that he cannot grant. Rather, they spoke of seeking his intercession and status with Allah.

As-Subki said:

ولا شك أن من أدب السؤال أن يكون المسئول مُمكنا. كذلك لا نسأل رسول الله ما لا يُمكن أن يجيب إليه

“Undoubtedly, it is part of good manners to ask that the requested matter be possible. Likewise, we do not ask the Messenger of Allah for something he cannot respond to.”

Even Shafi scholars who strongly opposed Ibn Taymiyyah, such as Ibn al-Jazari (d. 711 A.H.), considered requests directed to created beings for matters belonging exclusively to Allah’s lordship to constitute major shirk by scholarly consensus.

In the end, Daniel’s defense of Salek has become an exercise in obstinacy rather than scholarship. Salek’s words are plain enough, yet Daniel repeatedly searches for alternative meanings, qualifications, and comparisons that the statements themselves do not support. Rather than simply conceding that Salek ventured beyond what al-Subki, Ibn Hajar al-Haytami, and other Sunni authorities were willing to affirm, Daniel doubles down. Such stubbornness may satisfy committed followers, but it is unlikely to persuade careful readers. Indeed, one is left with the impression that Daniel’s determination to vindicate Salek has eclipsed his willingness to engage critically with the evidence. In attempting to save Salek’s reputation at all costs, he is ultimately placing his own credibility on the line.

First Passage:

وَفِي الْأَثَرِ: ” {مَنْ سَرَّهُ أَنْ يَكُونَ أَقْوَى النَّاسِ فَلْيَتَوَكَّلْ عَلَى اللَّهِ} “. وَعَنْ سَعِيدِ بْنِ جُبَيْرٍ: ” التَّوَكُّلُ جِمَاعُ الْإِيمَانِ ” وَقَالَ تَعَالَى: {وَمَنْ يَتَوَكَّلْ عَلَى اللَّهِ فَهُوَ حَسْبُهُ} وَقَالَ: {إذْ تَسْتَغِيثُونَ رَبَّكُمْ فَاسْتَجَابَ لَكُمْ} وَهَذَا عَلَى أَصَحِّ الْقَوْلَيْنِ فِي أَنَّ التَّوَكُّلَ عَلَيْهِ – بِمَنْزِلَةِ الدُّعَاءِ عَلَى أَصَحِّ الْقَوْلَيْنِ أَيْضًا – سَبَبٌ لِجَلْبِ الْمَنَافِعِ وَدَفْعِ الْمَضَارِّ فَإِنَّهُ يُفِيدُ قُوَّةَ الْعَبْدِ وَتَصْرِيفَ الْكَوْنِ وَلِهَذَا هُوَ الْغَالِبُ عَلَى ذَوِي الْأَحْوَالِ متشرعهم وَغَيْرِ متشرعهم وَبِهِ يَتَصَرَّفُونَ وَيُؤْثِرُونَ ” تَارَةً ” بِمَا يُوَافِقُ الْأَمْرَ. و ” تَارَةً ” بِمَا يُخَالِفُهُ

“It is mentioned in a report: ‘Whoever would be pleased to be the strongest of people, let him put his trust in Allah.’ … According to the soundest opinion, reliance on [Allah] [i.e., tawakkul] – just like supplicating Him, according to the soundest opinion on that as well – is a means of obtaining benefits and repelling harms. For it imparts strength to the servant and gives him the ability to exercise [some] control over the universe (tasrif al-kawn). For this reason, it predominates among those endowed with spiritual states [i.e., ahwal], whether they adhere to the sacred law or not; and by it they exercise control [over the universe] and exert influence (yataṣarrafūn wa yuʾaththirūn), sometimes in a way that accords with the [divine] command, and sometimes in a way that opposes it.”

[Ibn Taymiyya, Majmu’ al-Fatawa, Vol.10 549-550]

This is a misleading translation by Daniel, as it does not say, “and gives him the ability to exercise [some] control over the universe,” and “and by it they exercise control [over the universe] and exert influence (yataṣarrafūn wa yuʾaththirūn).” A more literal translation is below:

“It is reported: ‘Whoever wishes to be the strongest of people, let him rely upon Allah.’ ... According to the soundest of the two opinions, reliance upon Him—just as supplication to Him, according to the soundest of the two opinions, there as well—is a cause for procuring benefits and warding off harms. For it bestows strength upon the servant and (results in) tasrīf al-kawn (the directing/disposal of worldly affairs). Hence, it predominates among those who possess spiritual states, whether or not they adhere to the Sacred Law. Through it, they act and produce effects, sometimes in a manner consistent with the divine command and sometimes in a manner contrary to it.”

Daniel’s translation is tendentious in the way it renders key phrases. Ibn Taymiyyah describes tawakkul (reliance upon Allah) as a means of obtaining benefits and repelling harm, explicitly comparing it to supplication (duʿāʾ). While taṣrīf al-kawn can literally mean “disposing of cosmic affairs,” it need not imply that saints possess the intrinsic ability to control the universe. Likewise, the insertion of “[over the universe]” into wa-bihi yataṣarrafūna wa-yuʾaththirūn is interpretive rather than textual and gives the passage a stronger sense of cosmic governance than the Arabic itself requires. A more natural reading is that Ibn Taymiyyah is speaking about Allah bringing about extraordinary effects through the servant’s reliance upon Him, just as He may do through supplication, rather than affirming that saints exercise autonomous control over the universe.

Second Passage:

وَقَدْ قَالُوا: إنَّ عُلَمَاءَ الْآدَمِيِّينَ مَعَ وُجُودِ الْمُنَافِي وَالْمُضَادِّ أَحْسَنُ وَأَفْضَلُ. ثُمَّ هُمْ فِي الْحَيَاةِ الدُّنْيَا وَفِي الْآخِرَةِ يُلْهَمُونَ التَّسْبِيحَ كَمَا يُلْهَمُونَ النَّفَسَ؛ وَأَمَّا النَّفْعُ الْمُتَعَدِّي وَالنَّفْعُ لِلْخَلْقِ وَتَدْبِيرُ الْعَالَمِ فَقَدْ قَالُوا هُمْ تَجْرِي أَرْزَاقُ الْعِبَادِ عَلَى أَيْدِيهِمْ وَيَنْزِلُونَ بِالْعُلُومِ وَالْوَحْيِ وَيَحْفَظُونَ وَيُمْسِكُونَ وَغَيْرُ ذَلِكَ مِنْ أَفْعَالِ الْمَلَائِكَةِ.

وَالْجَوَابُ: أَنَّ صَالِحَ الْبَشَرِ لَهُمْ مِثْلُ ذَلِكَ وَأَكْثَرُ مِنْهُ وَيَكْفِيك مِنْ ذَلِكَ شَفَاعَةُ الشَّافِعِ الْمُشَفَّعُ فِي الْمُذْنِبِينَ وَشَفَاعَتُهُ فِي الْبَشَرِ كَيْ يُحَاسَبُوا وَشَفَاعَتُهُ فِي أَهْلِ الْجَنَّةِ حَتَّى يَدْخُلُوا الْجَنَّةَ. ثُمَّ بَعْدَ ذَلِكَ تَقَعُ شَفَاعَةُ الْمَلَائِكَةِ وَأَيْنَ هُمْ مِنْ قَوْلِهِ: {وَمَا أَرْسَلْنَاكَ إلَّا رَحْمَةً لِلْعَالَمِينَ}؟ وَأَيْنَ هُمْ عَنْ الَّذِينَ: {وَيُؤْثِرُونَ عَلَى أَنْفُسِهِمْ وَلَوْ كَانَ بِهِمْ خَصَاصَةٌ}؟ وَأَيْنَ هُمْ مِمَّنْ يَدْعُونَ إلَى الْهُدَى وَدِينِ الْحَقِّ؛ وَمَنْ سَنَّ سُنَّةً حَسَنَةً؟ وَأَيْنَ هُمْ مِنْ قَوْلِهِ صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ ” {إنَّ مِنْ أُمَّتِي مَنْ يَشْفَعُ فِي أَكْثَرَ مِنْ رَبِيعَةَ وَمُضَرَ} “؟ وَأَيْنَ هُمْ مِنْ الْأَقْطَابِ وَالْأَوْتَادِ والأغواث؛ وَالْأَبْدَالِ وَالنُّجَبَاءِ؟

[Ibn Taymiyya, Majmu’ al-Fatawa, Vol.10 549-550]

And [some scholars] have said: “Human religious scholars, despite the presence of opposition [to Allah’s command], are more excellent and virtuous [than angels].” Then [these righteous humans] in this worldly life and in the Hereafter are inspired to glorify [Allah] just as they are inspired to breathe.

As for beneficial effects that extend to others, benefits for creation, and the management of the universe (tadbīr al-ʿālam), it has been said that the sustenance of the humans (al-ʿibād) flows through their hands, and that they descend with knowledge and revelation, and that they protect and restrain, and perform other such actions attributed to the angels.

The response (to this claim) is: that righteous human beings possess the likes of these qualities – and even more than that.

It is enough for you to consider the intercession (shafā‘a) of the Intercessor [i.e. Prophet Muhammad], who is granted intercession for the sinners, and whose intercession on behalf of mankind is that they may be judged, and whose intercession is for the people of Paradise so that they may enter Paradise.

Then, after that, the intercession of the angels takes place. So where are [the angels] in comparison to His (Allah’s) statement:

“And We have not sent you except as a mercy to the worlds” [Qur’an 21:107]?

And where are they in comparison to “those who give preference to others over themselves, even though they are in need themselves” [Qur’an 59:9]?

And where are they compared to those who call to guidance and the religion of truth, and those who initiate a good sunna [practice]?

And where are they compared to his saying (peace be upon him):

“Indeed, among my nation are those who will intercede for more people than the tribes of Rabīʿa and Muḍar.”

And where are they compared to the Aqṭāb, the Awtād, Aghwāth, Abdāl, and Nujabā’?

[Ibn Taymiyya, Majmu’ al-Fatawa, Vol.4 379]

While the translation is largely linguistically accurate, it somewhat overstates Ibn Taymiyyah’s endorsement of the claims reported. Ibn Taymiyyah first recounts what others say about righteous humans benefiting creation, having sustenance flow through their hands, and participating in tadbīr al-ʿālam (the management of the universe). This is not an issue, since the phrase “through their hands” and the analogy to angels who lack volitional will make it clear that the power is not being delegated to the creatures in question.

When Ibn Taymiyyah responds by saying that righteous humans possess “the like of that and even more” (لهم مثل ذلك وأكثر منه), the crucial question is: what exactly does “that” refer to?

Significantly, Ibn Taymiyyah does not proceed to defend the notion that saints literally administer the cosmos. Rather, he substantiates his claim by citing examples such as the Prophet’s intercession, the intercession of believers, calling people to guidance, serving as a mercy to creation, and establishing beneficial practices. This strongly suggests that he is emphasizing the superior benefits that righteous humans confer on creation, rather than unequivocally affirming every previously reported metaphysical claim.

Indeed, Ibn Taymiyyah explicitly condemns the attribution of divine or cosmic powers to saints elsewhere, as we have shown before. Also, in al-Radd ʿalá al-Shádhilī fī Ḥizbayhi wa-Má Ṣannafahu fī Ādáb al-Ṭarīq, he criticizes certain followers of al-Shādhilī who claimed that the ghawth, quṭb, and universal saint know whatever Allah knows and are capable of whatever Allah is capable of. Ibn Taymiyyah writes:

فبينت له فسادَ هذا الكلام، وما فيه من الخروج عن دين الإسلام

“I explained to him the corruption of this statement and what it contains of departing from the religion of Islam.”

He further states:

ولا ريب أن هذا القول شرٌّ من قول النصارى من بعض الوجوه، فإنَّ النصارى ادَّعوا هذا الغلوَّ في المسيح وحْدَه، فمن قال: إن كثيرًا من الناس يعلم ما يعلمه الله، ويَقْدر على ما يقدر الله عليه، فقد قال في كثيرٍ من الناس ما يضاهي قولَ النصارى في المسيح ابن مريم

“There is no doubt that this statement is, in some respects, worse than the statement of the Christians. For the Christians only made such exaggerated claims concerning Christ alone, whereas whoever says that many people know what Allah knows and are capable of what Allah is capable of has said regarding many individuals something analogous to what the Christians said regarding the Messiah, son of Mary.”

Likewise, in Minhāj al-Sunnah, Ibn Taymiyyah rejects the claim made by some that the ghawth or quṭb is the one through whom the inhabitants of the earth receive guidance, victory, and sustenance, such that nothing reaches anyone except through that person’s mediation. He states unequivocally:

هَذَا بَاطِلٌ بِإِجْمَاعِ الْمُسْلِمِينَ، وَهُوَ مِنْ جِنْسِ قَوْلِ النَّصَارَى فِي الْبَابِ.

“This is false by the consensus of the Muslims, and it is akin to the saying of the Christians in this regard.”

He also condemns claims that a human being shares in Allah’s exclusive attributes, such as comprehensive knowledge or omnipotence, and criticizes those who assert that a saint, or even the Prophet ﷺ, “knows whatever Allah knows and is capable of whatever Allah is capable of.” Thus, whatever Ibn Taymiyyah means in passages speaking of taṣrīf al-kawn or tadbīr al-ʿālam, it cannot reasonably be interpreted as endorsing the doctrine that saints possess quasi-divine authority over the universe, since he explicitly condemns such beliefs as false, un-Islamic, and resembling Christian exaggerations concerning Christ.

Recommended Reading:

Re-Examining Claims About Tāj al-Dīn al-Subkī and Cosmic Control

Response to Daniel Haqiqatjou’s “Wahhabism” Documentary

Shaykh Muhammad b. Abdul Wahhab Discourse

Did Ibn Taymiyyah “Fall into Kufr” for Believing Hell’s Punishment Will End?

Ibn Taymiyyah and the Satanic Verses - Islamic Discourse

Among students of knowledge (both Salafis and their opponents), there is a widespread assumption that the Hanbalis are closer to the Asharis than to Ibn Taymiyyah, and that Ibn Taymiyyah is further removed from both camps. Some polemicists even go further, claiming that Ibn Taymiyyah was fundamentally the cause of the disagreement and a cause of the fragmentation of the Muslim community.

However, upon careful reflection (without prior ideological commitments), a fair-minded observer will find that Ibn Taymiyyah was more accommodating than the Hanbalis who preceded him and, in certain discussions, even closer to the Asharis.

Perhaps what opponents rely upon is Ibn Taymiyyah’s statement that some Hanbalis “agreed with certain principles of the Mutakallimun.” (وافقوا بعض أصول المتكلمين) They assumed that this expression necessarily means that these Hanbalis were closer to the Asharis. Yet this conclusion is not necessarily accurate.

Indeed, they adopted some foundational principles of the Mutakallimun, but they employed these principles in their own distinctive manner, in a way that rendered them more distant from the Asharis rather than closer to them. Similarly, the Karrāmiyyah and the Muʿtazilah also employed kalām principles in their own particular ways. This did not mean that they were thereby closer to the Asharis!

The clarification of this is as follows:

First: Concerning the negation of volitional acts (al-afʿāl al-ikhtiyāriyyah):

The Asharis maintained that utterances are originated and exist separately from Allah. In response, the Mutakallimun among the Hanbalis asserted that utterances and sounds are eternal with the eternity of Allah. Thus, they affirmed a multiplicity of eternals and contradicted clear rational principles. The Asharis consequently argued against them that this would imply that Allah was calling out to Moses from pre-eternity and was saying, “Perish the hands of Abu Lahab,” from pre-eternity, before Abu Lahab had even been created.

The Mutakallimun among the Hanbalis replied that there was no problem with this and accepted these corrupt implications, believing them to constitute the madhab of the Salaf. Indeed, most of them even held that the reciter’s utterance of the Qurʾan is also eternal, which constitutes disbelief according to the Asharis.

Thus, the two madhabs are entirely different, as one doctrine lies in the East, and the other in the West!

What, then, did Ibn Taymiyyah do to resolve this dilemma?!

He adopted a mediating position between the two camps and argued that fairness requires acknowledging that the Asharis are correct in holding that utterances are originated, since this is what sound reason entails. However, this does not mean that the Salaf erred in their opposition to the Muʿtazilah. Rather, utterances are originated, yet they are also uncreated.

Ibn Taymiyyah even relates, while explaining the issue of utterance that had perplexed much of the Muslim community, that he expounded upon it in a gathering attended by leading Asharis, who found his explanation commendable.

He said, may Allah have mercy upon him:

وأخذ أكبر الخصوم يُظهر تعظيم هذا الكلام كابن الوكيل وغيره، وأظهر الفرح بهذا التلخيص وقال : إنك قد أزلت عنا هذه الشبهة وشفيت الصدور ويذكر أشياء من هذا النمط

“The foremost opponents began to express admiration for this discourse, such as Ibn al-Wakīl and others. They openly rejoiced at this summary and said: ‘You have removed this doubt from us and brought relief to our hearts,’ mentioning other statements of a similar nature.”

Second: The fact that the Mutakallimun among the Hanbalis employed kalām does not necessarily mean that they were closer to the Asharis. Rather, they combined it with an excessive tendency toward affirmation of the attributes, to the extent that Ibn al-Jawzī himself refuted al-Qāḍī Abū Yaʿlá and Ibn al-Zāghūnī, accusing them of anthropomorphism and of reducing the divine attributes to the level of sensorial objects.

What is remarkable is that a contemporary Ashari may reject the statements of Ibn al-Jawzī and those of his own Ashari authorities, only to attribute tafwīḍ to the Mutakallimun among the Hanbalis. His sole evidence is a statement of Ibn Taymiyyah, which he does not understand, despite being hostile to him!

Third: Not all Hanbalis were Mutakallimun. Rather, some were traditionalists, and both groups harbored hostility toward the Asharis and declared them unbelievers. Their writings abound with declarations of unbelief and accusations of heresy (even if only in the sense of generic unbelief [kufr al-nawʿ]).

As for Ibn Taymiyyah’s position, it was more moderate and balanced. He rejected takfīr and affirmed that they exercised ijtihād. He has extensive discussions establishing the ijtihād of al-Bāqillānī, al-Juwaynī, and others, stating that they possessed commendable efforts, praiseworthy merits, and that they were virtuous and rational individuals.

He then said:

أما من اتبع هواه فأخذ يشنع على من خالفه فيما يراه هو بدعة ... فإنه يلزمه أكبر من ذلك أو أصغر فيما يعظمه هو من أصحابه، فقلّ أن يسلم من ذلك أحد في المتأخرين

“As for one who follows his whims and seeks to vilify those who disagree with him regarding what he deems to be an innovation..., then he himself will necessarily be implicated in something greater or lesser than that with respect to those among his own associates whom he esteems. Rare indeed is the later scholar who is entirely free from this.”

It is as though Ibn Taymiyyah is responding here to his Hanbali associates who vilify the Asharis. Reflect upon this!

He also said:

وقد كان بين الحنبلية والأشعرية وحشة ومنافرة، وقد كنت من أعظم الناس تأليفا لقلوب المسلمين وسعيا لاتفاق كلمتهم ، وأزلت عامة ما كان في النفوس من الوحشة وبينت لهم أن الأشعري كان من أجل المتكلمين المنتسبين إلى الأمام أحمد..

“There existed estrangement and mutual aversion between the Hanbalis and the Asharis. I was among those who exerted the greatest efforts to reconcile the hearts of the Muslims and to bring about agreement among them. I removed much of the animosity that had resided in their hearts and clarified to them that al-Ashʿarī was among the most eminent theologians affiliated with Imam Aḥmad...”

Until he said:

هذا مع أني دائما ومن جالسني يعلم ذلك مني : أني من أعظم الناس نهيا عن أن ينسب معين إلى تكفير وتفسيق ومعصية..... وما زال السلف يتنازعون في كثير من هذه المسائل ولم يشهد أحد منهم على أحد لا بكفر ولا بفسق ولا معصية كما أنكر شريح قراءة من قرأ { بل عجبت ويسخرون } وقال : إن الله لا يعجب.... وكما نازعت عائشة وغيرها من الصحابة في رؤية محمد ربه.. وقد آل الشر بين السلف إلى الاقتتال .
مع اتفاق أهل السنة على أن الطائفتين جميعا مؤمنتان ، وأن الاقتتال لا يمنع العدالة الثابتة لهم ، لأن المقاتل وإن كان باغيا فهو متأول والتأويل يمنع الفسوق .
وكنت أبين لهم أنما نقل لهم عن السلف والأئمة من إطلاق القول بتكفير من يقول كذا وكذا فهو أيضا حق ، لكن يجب التفريق بين الإطلاق والتعيين

“This is despite the fact that I have always maintained, and those who have sat with me know this of me, that I am among the strongest opponents of attributing unbelief, immorality, or sinfulness to any particular individual...The Salaf continually disagreed over many of these issues, yet none of them testified against another with unbelief, immorality, or sinfulness. Just as Shurayḥ objected to the recitation of one who recited, {Rather, you marvel while they mock} [Q. 37:12], saying: ‘Indeed, Allah does not marvel’.... Likewise, ʿAʾishah and other Companions disputed concerning whether Muḥammad saw his Lord.... Discord among the Salaf even escalated to armed conflict.

Yet the adherents of the Sunnah unanimously agree that both groups remained believers, and that fighting does not negate the established integrity attributed to them. For even the combatant who is guilty of rebellion is acting upon an interpretation, and interpretation precludes a judgment of immorality.

I used to clarify to them that what has been transmitted from the Salaf and the Imams regarding unrestricted statements declaring as unbelievers those who say such-and-such is also true. However, it is necessary to distinguish between unrestricted judgments and judgments concerning specific individuals.”

What many people do not realize is that Ibn Taymiyyah, may Allah have mercy upon him. was himself a cause for the moderation displayed by later Hanbalis as a result of his balanced stance. Ibn Qāḍī al-Jabal alluded to this in some of his epistles.

If you seek evidence for this, consider al-Dashtī, for example. He was severe toward the Asharis, despite having died in 661 AH, the very year in which Ibn Taymiyyah was born. This indicates that such a stringent approach remained prevalent up until the eve of Ibn Taymiyyah’s time. In contrast, one finds composure and moderation among the generations that followed Ibn Taymiyyah, such as the Āl Mufliḥ, al-Mardāwī, and others.

This suggests that the figure who most significantly influenced the moderation of the Hanbali outlook was, without doubt, Ibn Taymiyyah.

Had this observation been properly appreciated, much of the contemporary shouting and commotion would have subsided. It is a conflict that continues to be reproduced and fueled through selective discourses aimed at igniting discord among Muslims.

Recommended Reading:

How Did Ibn Taymiyyah Ease Hostilities Between the Hanbalis and Asharis?

The Hanbali School’s Aqeedah on Allah’s Attributes

The Influence of Ibn Taymiyyah on Hanbali Scholars

The Inclusion of Asharis within Ahlus Sunnah by Later Hanbalis

Ibn Taymiyyah Discourse

Dr. Ahmad is deeply rooted in the traditional sciences, having earned his BA, MA, and PhD (with High Honors) in Shariah and Islamic Jurisprudence from the Islamic University of Madinah, while also holding a degree in Computer Science from the University of Maryland. His credentials are distinguished by extensive talaqqi and the acquisition of numerous ijāzāt in the Qur’anic recitations from some of the foremost masters of our time, including Shaykh Ibrahim al-Akhdar, the Chief Reciter of the Prophet’s Mosque.

His teaching and research experience spans institutions such as the Islamic University of Madinah, Knowledge International University, Islamic Online University, Zidni Institute, and the Qur’an Ijazah program within the Prophet’s Mosque itself. He also served for many years as an English interpreter for the General Presidency of the Affairs of the Haramain, translating more than 160 sermons delivered from the pulpit of the Prophet’s Mosque.

Dr. Ahmad is currently offering a course on Al-Aqeedah At-Tahawiyyah, one of the most important classical primers on Sunni creed.

The course aims to provide students with a clear understanding of the text through:

• Careful analysis of Imam al-Tahawi’s theological statements;

• Identification of the Qur’anic verses, authentic hadiths, and scholarly consensus underpinning each doctrine;

• Practical guidance on translating theological concepts into lived religious practice.

Schedule

Sundays

11:30 AM – 12:30 PM (Eastern Standard Time)

6:30 PM – 7:30 PM (Makkah/Madinah Time)

Dr. Ahmad also intends to teach additional works in the future. Given the breadth of his training, his extensive experience in both traditional instruction and academic research, and his commitment to grounding discussions in textual evidence, I believe his channel is well worth following even for those who may not currently be interested in studying al-ʿAqīdah al-Ṭaḥāwiyyah itself.

Those interested in joining or learning more may visit his Telegram channel:

https://t.me/+TQV_ctWGtPwWNNdo

Even if you do not plan to enroll personally, I would encourage readers to share news of this course with friends, family members, students, and anyone seeking a serious engagement with Islamic creed. Helping others gain access to beneficial knowledge is itself a noble endeavor, and one never knows how far a simple recommendation may travel or what good may come from it.

Drawing on the New Testament, the Church Fathers, and the major theological controversies of the early centuries, the book examines how Christian understandings of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit developed over time and eventually culminated in the formulations associated with Nicaea and Constantinople.

The work engages seriously with the historical sources and contributes to ongoing discussions about the development of Christian doctrine.

The book is now available on Amazon:

The Making of the Trinity: From Christ to Constantinople

Congratulations to Jake on the publication of this substantial work. I look forward to seeing the discussions it generates and its contribution to da’wah efforts to Christians.