|
Home
Search
Subscribe Online
Archives
About
Us
Cartoons
Online
Book Store
E-Greetings
Jobs @ MG
Advertise
on MG
Our
Team
Contact Us
Muslim
Matrimonials
Our Advertisers
| |
AT THE THRESHHOLD OF A NEW MILLENNIUM–II
By Zafarul-Islam Khan
Much of our internal problems may be
traced to the self-imposed decadence and the self-created ideological
vacuum. After the Mongol invasion in the thirteenth century, our scholars
closed the doors of ijtihad, i.e., independent reasoning and inference
about new issues and situations which keep arising because human society
by its very nature is in constant flux and in an ever-changing ferment.
Only animals are unable to plan any change in their lives. New situations
and challenges crop up all the time in every human society. And only those
societies succeed and grow which accept new challenges and take the
trouble of solving their problems in time.
Islam had foreseen this problem and to tackle it had created the
institution of ijtihad, reasoning or inference by scholars, as the fourth
source of Islamic rules after the Qur’an, Sunnah and ijmac, that is
consensus of the scholars. The institution of ijtihad had emerged during
the very life-time of the Prophet. Perhaps I do not have to remind you
that at the time of despatching Mu’adh, may Allah be pleased with him,
as governor of the Yemen in 9H/630-1CE, the Prophet asked him how he was
going to give his rulings. Mu’adh replied that I will rely on the Book
of Allah, then on the Sunnah of His Prophet. And if I do not find anything
in these sources I will use my reasoning. The Prophet was very pleased
with this reply.
The closing of the doors of ijtihad has meant that our fiqh, jurisprudence
and Islamic thought are stagnating for the past seven centuries. Whenever
our faqih needs an answer for a new issue or problem or situation he does
not consult the Qur’an and Sunnah. Instead, he looks it up in his yellow
books authored centuries ago. He somehow discovers a ‘similar’
situation there and, however great their disparity, applies it to the
present problem! Our fuqaha and muftis say it openly that they are mere
copyists (naqalah) and not mujtahids.
It is the need of the hour to open the gates of ijtihad and evolve an
institutional framework for this so that such ijtihads could amount to an
ijma’ (consensus) and not only the personal point of view of a scholar
here or there as the case is today. Only Qur’an and the proven Sunnah of
the Prophet are sacrosanct to a Muslim. All other human interpretations
and inferences over the last fifteen centuries are open to discussion to
see if they suit our present conditions and requirements. We cannot be
fettered by their interpretations which were necessarily conditioned by
their age and circumstances. In fact, there is no scope for ijtihad in
only two aspects, basic beliefs (‘aqa’id) and forms of worship (‘ibadaat).
All other areas, concerned with dealings and interactions among people (mu’amalaat)
are open to ijtihad to suit every new generation of Muslims. What suits us
today may not suit the next generations.
The last few centuries, after the closure of the gates of ijtihad, have
also stood mute witness to our subjugation, stagnation and scientific and
technological decadence. During the pre-colonial era Muslims were the
world pioneers in all field of knowledge, science and technology. For
close to a millennium we alone were the innovators, explorers and
inventors. The scientific and medical books of our ancestors were the
textbooks all over the world. Terms of many inventions and innovations
still remind of those glorious centuries. Here are just a few examples
which will suffice to demonstrate that we are not rootless and that our
journey back to glory will not be out of a vacuum:
Al-Biturji [Alpetrazius] (d. 1217 CE) of Seville (Ishbiliya) is father of
modern astronomy; Jabir ibn Hayyan [Geber] (d. c. 813] of Kufa is the
inventor of Algebra, which is named to this day after its inventor who is
regarded as father of Islamic alchemy and chemistry. He laid down the
theory of the constitution of metals and discovered nitric acid;
Thabit ibn Qurra (d. 901) of Baghdad is the inventor of anesthesia which
he called as ‘tanwim,’ i.e., to induce to sleep; ‘Ali ibn ‘Isa
al-Kahhal of Baghdad (first half of the tenth century) is the father of
ophthalmology and author of an important early text on the subject,
Tadhkirat al-Kahhalin; Ibn al-Nafis of Cairo (d. 1288) is the discoverer
of the system of the circulation of blood, which is wrongly attributed by
the Europeans to Michael Servetus who came three centuries later. Ibn
al-Nafis was the chief physician of Egypt; Abu Rayhan Al-Biruni of
Khawarizm [Maitre Aliboron] (d. 1051), one of the most original thinkers
and scientists of all times, is the founder of Indology. His Kitab al-Hind
is the first scientific and methodological work on India, based on
personal investigation and research. One of his original theories is
economy of nature which, in a nutshell, says that nature controls the rate
of increase or decrease of species and, by doing so, preserves its natural
harmony and the purposefulness of all things in nature. In his Kitab
Tahdid al-amakin, he predicted the theoretical possibility of the
existence of land between the eastern and western limits of the then
unknown parts of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. This was necessary in
his view in order to preserve the longitudinal symmetry of the earth. This
mass of the land he predicted is now known as the ‘Americas.’
Al-Biruni was the first to discover that light travels faster than sound;
Ibn al-Haytham [Alhazen / Alhacen] of Cairo (d. 1039), a pioneer in the
field of optics and astronomy and the first to use camera obscura, was the
first to discover solar energy and put forward the idea of converting the
light of sun into energy in his Kitab al-manazir (Book of Optics) which
was used as a textbook in Europe until the middle of the eighteenth
century in its Latin and other translations. He discovered the second law
of reflection in catoptrics. Ibn Al-Haytham’s theory of vision held sway
until the seventeenth century; Abu’l-Qasim al-Zahrawi [Abucasis] (d.
1013) of Andalus, a great physician of his time, invented the modern
plaster-cast which is still used in hospitals the world over. Translations
of his encyclopaedic work on medicine and surgery, Kitab al-tasrif li man
‘ajiza ‘an al-ta’lif was a textbook in Europe until the eighteenth
century. He invented many surgical instruments which are still used in one
way or the other; Abu Yusuf al-Kindi [Alkindus] (d. c. 873), of Baghdad,
was the founder of the science of psychophysics which deals with the
quantitative relationship between psychological and physical events. He
was a great philosopher in his own right. He applied mathematical
principles to posology and discovered that the minimum noticeable compound
medicine taken for an invariable unity of efficacy is additional to
itself; Ibn Sina [Avicenna] of Central Asia (d. at Hamadan, 1037), an
extraordinary physician and scientist, presented the theory of the origin
of earth in which he ascribed the formation of the earth to the heat of
the sun and to a certain force which emanated possibly from its centre;
Dawud al-Kayseri (d. 1350), a sufi-philosopher, presented the theory that
energy is the base of all phenomena; Al-Ghazzali [Algazel] of Baghdad and
Nishapur (d. at Tus, 1111), a most original thinker and philosopher, was
the first to expose the exact stages of the embryonic development of the
human body, in accordance with his theory of knowledge. He was the first
to allude to the functioning of the heart and spoke of the ‘eye of the
heart’ and ‘pupil of the heart’ which corresponds to the Sinoartrial
Node in modern physiology and anatomy; Ibn Khaldun of Tunis (d.
808H/1406CE), is the founder of the modern discipline of sociology. His
monumental work, al-Muqaddimah (the Prolegomena) to his Universal History
is still a textbook in many oriental and occidental universities; Abu’l-Fida
(d. 732H/1331CE), the author of the great geographical work, Taqwim
al-buldan, made out a case for the sphericity of the earth and said that
if two men were to travel around the earth, one eastwards and the other
westwards, from a given point, they would meet each other on that point at
the same time.
There are many other Muslim scientists, philosophers and scholars who left
their mark on the body of knowledge, science and philosophy, like Ibn
Rushd (Averroes) (d. 1198), Ibn Bajah [Avenpace / Avempace] (d.1138), Ibn
Al-Jazzar [Algizar] (d. 1009), Ibn Jazlah [Bengesla / Bengezla] (d. 1100),
Ibn Zuhr [Avenzoar] (d. 1162), Ibn Wafid [Abengufit] (d. 1075), Ibn Yunus
[Ebn Junis] (d. 1009), Ibn Bakr ibn Tufayl [Abubacer] (d.1185 ), Ali ibn
Abi al-Rijal [Abenragel] (d. eleventh century), Abu Ma’shar al-Balkhi
[Abulmasar] (d. 881 ), Ahmad ibn Yusuf al-Misri [Ametus] (d. 912),
Al-Battani [Albategnius / Albetenius] (d. 929), Jabir ibn Aflah [Geber
Filius Aflac] (d. 1050 ), Khalid ibn Yazid [Calid Filius Jezidi] (d. 704
), Al-Khawarizmi [Alkhwarizi] (d. 846), Al-Razi [Rhazes] (d. 923 or 925),
Al-Zarqani [Arzachel] (d. 1100), Al-Sufi [Azophi] (d. 986), Ali ibn Radwan
[Haly ebn Rodan / Rodoham] (d. 1061), Ali ibn Abbas [Haly Abbas] (d.
1031), Ali ibn Isa [Jesu Hali] (d. eleventh century), Ammar al-Musali
[Canamusali] (d.c.1010), Al-Farabi [Alpharabius] (d. 950), Al-Farghani
[Alfraganus] (d. ninth century), Abu’l-wafa al-Buzjani (d. 998),
Al-Idrisi (d. 1166), Umar Khayyam (d. 1121), Nasiruddin Tusi (d. 1274),
Qutbuddin Shirazi (d. 1311), Kamaluddin Farisi (d. 1320), Jamshid Kashi
(d. 1436), etc. etc.
With the closure of the gates of ijtihad we ourselves have shut the gates
to our development and growth.
(Continued) q |
Subscribe
Now
|
