The Islamic history is meaningless?
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Peace all
History is written, amended, edited and sanctioned by Rulers and/or Victors, it is rarely accurate.
However, factual evidence, such as archives, documents, archaeological findings, forensic evidence, etc.
are always more trustworthy, but more difficult to get a hold of. -
To your original question. Islam has a very rich history. If you want to read about the contribution of Islam over the centuries I recommend a book by the name of 'Islamic Jurisprudence' by C.G. Weeramantry. It was after reading this book that i started to see religion as a positive force rather than a negative one. It kinda changed my worldview if you know what i mean.
cool, thanks for the recommendation... i will check these books out D
peace handshake
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Slam zees,
Thanks for your kindness about the book, but on the other hand there are many Muslims on this blog rejected all the saying of the Prophet Muhammad. Because of Islamic history is consisted of Islamic faith, so we cannot deny the practiced of the Prophet wrote in hadith. One said that " Who guarantees Bukhari, Muslim and others " and I also got the information that even the Prophet cannot guarantee any person. could you clarify this point?
Wassalam
You are right there when you say that Islamic history is the story of our faith. After the Quran was revealed there has been a long chain of interpretations(which comprise of our history) starting from the prophetic hadith and ending with the interpretations of the four schools of thought. If hadith which is the earliest interpretation to date is taken as a human activity liable to errors than i believe there is no harm in considering them (what is wrong is to consider them as infallible). The subsequent interpretations are to be treated as such as well. Interpretations do shape our religion. To just cut them off like they never existed is not the right thing to do. What is the right thing to do is to evaluate them critically as against the Quran and human reason before accepting them. The major error that was made by our islamic interpreters over the centuries was that they did not critically evaluate the previous interpretations while making their own interpretations thereby carrying forward the previous interpretative mistakes to the next generations. After that new interpretations were outlawed by a popular decree known as the closing of the gates of Ijtihad. After which we have been languishing in darkness with reformists calling for the reviving the of the right to interpret their religion. In my personal opinion what Islam needs is reform and not only reform but serious reform. I am a reformist by the way.
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something you said (Zees)
"he major error that was made by our islamic interpreters over the centuries was that they did not critically evaluate the previous interpretations while making their own interpretations thereby carrying forward the previous interpretative mistakes to the next generations. After that new interpretations were outlawed by a popular decree known as the closing of the gates of Ijtihad. After which we have been languishing in darkness with reformists calling for the reviving the of the right to interpret their religion. In my personal opinion what Islam needs is reform and not only reform but serious reform. I am a reformist by the way."
you believe no islamic 'scholar/interpreter' critically evaluated previous interpretations? That seems to odd to comprehend
you seem like a reformist except i don't understand what actions you're trying to undertake.
there are people who actively seek knowledge about their religion, would you not call them mujtahideen?
Not everyone is intrinsically motivated to evaluate, critique and learn. so what then?
how do you establish ijtihad if some people believe they are undertaking the process? Remember also not everyone is vocal on their opinions due to fear of majority...
also not every sunni follows a madhab, my family for example..
Salam
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hi all, islamic history was distorsed by islamic enemies,
they goals was brought the moslems to confuse all about they history.
ex the shiffin war, jamal, and all the fitna cases has the views that all sahaba is kufr and miss the quran.
we need the real effort to deconstruct the islamic history to clear the sahaba of nabi from distortion -
Peace,
Respectfully.We must be aware and acknolwedge that most of the hadith narrated by all those men are not from the messenger/prophet Muhammad but rather attributed to him. Back then, a person would say i heard my grandpa say this and that from the prophet Muhammad and the story/line/sentence/word was immediately taken as The Truth, without checking.
This is where they've failed, unfortunetaly.
May God guides us all.
Peace.salam,
the salaf has aware about fake of hadits, so they create the greatfull discipline so called mustholah al hadits in its the salaf can found and trace back the originator of hadits via matan and sanad analyses, some doctors like imam ahman bin hanbal, muslim, bukhori etc applicated those discipline to mesh the hadist/himawan
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History isn't just about "fake hadith, battle of the camel, fitna of khawaraj or whatever, etc"
History is beyond that! history, think about cultural artifacts of muslims of the time, architecture, colour, art, technology..
all people have history and its all significant in its meaning. if you're purely looking at it for hadiths perspective then it seems the history of the formation of hadith has had influence on the 4 imams for a specific purpose. you wouldn't know that without history.
everything plays it's purpose, history isn't always clear and can be distorted but it gives an idea or an image that we can gauge off.
salam.
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something you said (Zees)
you believe no islamic 'scholar/interpreter' critically evaluated previous interpretations? That seems to odd to comprehend
you seem like a reformist except i don't understand what actions you're trying to undertake.
there are people who actively seek knowledge about their religion, would you not call them mujtahideen?
Not everyone is intrinsically motivated to evaluate, critique and learn. so what then?
how do you establish ijtihad if some people believe they are undertaking the process? Remember also not everyone is vocal on their opinions due to fear of majority...
also not every sunni follows a madhab, my family for example..
Salam
What I refer to in this instance were the earliest interpretations which were not critically evaluated by any of the scholars. These earliest interpretations are popularly known as the hadith interpretations and they were not critically evaluated because they were sanctified by Imam Shafi and made a law onto itself. Imam Shafi believed that sunnah was a ideal concept rather than a living concept and based on this fact he made the mistake of making hadith interpretations as a source of law by attributing them all to the prophet. This act in itself was the first nail in the coffin of Ijtihad(or the closing of the gates of Ijtihad). The errors that were inherent in the hadith interpretations were carried forward and were even made part of the law without due examination of these earliest interpretations. Needless to say that these created problems for the coming generations and these problems coupled with the later developments resulted in the closing of the gates of Ijtihad.
Being a reformist I want what all the reformists want which is to revive the original system of Islam that was based upon Ijtihad(independent reasoning) and Ijma(Consensus of community) as opposed to the system that is in practice today which is based upon taqlid(blind following) and Imamat(infallible imam). According to this system which is prevalent today Imams and sheiks depend upon the knowledge of previous interpretations to guide people and glorify the past imams and are ready to fight anyone tooth and nail if anyone dares to mention change in the old ways. One can surely see what has that brought us today with all the chaos and turmoil in the Muslim world. These taqlidi muslims or sheiks or imams form the majority of the muslim or sunni world today. They oppose Ijtihad on the ground that no one today is fit enough to perform Ijtihad. Given that there are some people who are performing Ijtihad but they live on the borders of the society and are condemned by the mainstream Muslims. This is what we wish to change to make ijtihad acceptable by the mainstream Muslims today. Mujtahid is anyone who based upon the knowledge of Quran and the critical evaluations of the previous interpretations and in tandem with human reason attempts to update the Islamic laws. When it comes to laws the taqlidi muslims remain in firm control of it and are in no mind of giving up the activity to the mujtahids. My family does not follow any particular madhab either, which is a good thing in itself as it means that you are not blindly following a madhab but are doing what you deem right. That is the spirit of Ijtihad.
Something I copied from a reformist book,
??he actual content of the Sunna of the early generations of Muslims was largely the product of Ijtihad when this Ijtihad, through an incessant interaction of opinion, developed the character of general acceptance or consensus of the Community, i.e. ijma?.??
?Reformists condemns the post-Shafi?i consensus that the Sunna is not a living practice of interpretation, that instead it goes back to the ideal Sunna of the Prophet?
?The idea of Hadith that we have inherited is a latter one. The lawyers of the ancient schools of law like Abu Yusuf, Awza?i and Malik based their legal work on the ?living Sunnah? and through personal judgement interpreted their materials freely to elaborate the law. The emerging Hadith-movement, however, saw their task as reporting, with the purpose of promoting legal fixity and permanence. In the extant works of the second century, most of the legal and moral traditions are not from the Prophet but are traced back to the Companions; however as the decades passed these traditions came to be ascribed to the Prophet himself, perhaps inwardly propelled by their definition of authenticity. The early lawyers resisted this trend. They maintained different criteria.?
?The nature of the emerging Hadith-movement can be proven by one well-known fact, undisputed even by the most orthodox of Muslims. The classical traditionalists themselves argued that ?moral maxims and edifying statements and aphorisms may be attributed to the Prophet irrespective of whether this attribution is strictly historical or not.? (196544) Most of the Hadith corpus is, in fact, the Sunnah-Ijtihad of the first generations which after a serious struggle received the sanction of ijma?, or the adherence of the majority of the Community. In addition to the necessary chains of narrators growing backwards, the nature of the corpus changed also the living Sunnah had been primarily geared towards behavorial norms, but the Hadith came to incorporate legal norms, religious beliefs and principles as well. ?
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few things i don't understand, if imam shafi made this law, why wasn't there a big uproar if so why don't we hear about it.
how did imam shafi and the other imams get their title..
how would ijma happen?
When it comes to laws the taqlidi muslims remain in firm control of it and are in no mind of giving up the activity to the mujtahids.
i can understand why.. you threaten their beliefs. one they have no reason to doubt because so many people follow that path.
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few things i don't understand, if imam shafi made this law, why wasn't there a big uproar if so why don't we hear about it.
There was uproar about it. See here
http//mypercept.co.uk/articles/Rethinking_Tradition_Modern_Islamic_Thought.htmHis book "Risala" is almost entirely an argument for his view. If his view was blatantly obvious and mainstream, there would be no need to write a 300 page book detailing the case for it!
Why we dont hear about it? I like the wisdom it is the victor's history that goes to school.
As a sidenote, I bought the English translation of the book for a dirt cheap ?10 including delivery, and plan to read and critically review it in the future. So much to do in so little time.
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thanks for that, i'll look into it during the week.
thing is even if there was a big uproar his view was established, maybe he wasn't popular in his time but later after his death because of his works and justifications were there for people to see? maybe i'm just guessing
Zees, this dude used his own "ijtihad" to come up with a system of following islam however it's not accurate, he innovated an idea that is held so strong today.. ijtihad is important but i think knowing history is too.
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There was uproar about it. See here
http//mypercept.co.uk/articles/Rethinking_Tradition_Modern_Islamic_Thought.htmHis book "Risala" is almost entirely an argument for his view. If his view was blatantly obvious and mainstream, there would be no need to write a 300 page book detailing the case for it!
Why we dont hear about it? I like the wisdom it is the victor's history that goes to school.
As a sidenote, I bought the English translation of the book for a dirt cheap ?10 including delivery, and plan to read and critically review it in the future. So much to do in so little time.
Peace Wakas
Where did you buy the book for ?10?
peace
hope
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Peace,
Respectfully.We must be aware and acknolwedge that most of the hadith narrated by all those men are not from the messenger/prophet Muhammad but rather attributed to him. Back then, a person would say i heard my grandpa say this and that from the prophet Muhammad and the story/line/sentence/word was immediately taken as The Truth, without checking.
This is where they've failed, unfortunetaly.
May God guides us all.
Peace.in all time there is always born some ulema or the hadits guard. they spent all the time to clean and clarity the sunna from the distortion, many orientalist from the west spent the time to hit the sunna, they attributed the backward projection theory to weakness the common link of the hadits transmission, but unfortunately the old song of orientalist is not worthy if they faced to mustolahul hadits methodology.
himawan
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in all time there is always born some ulema or the hadits guard. they spent all the time to clean and clarity the sunna from the distortion, many orientalist from the west spent the time to hit the sunna, they attributed the backward projection theory to weakness the common link of the hadits transmission, but unfortunately the old song of orientalist is not worthy if they faced to mustolahul hadits methodology.
himawan
Yeah right...
it always "the west".. blame the west.. the west is 'shaytan'.. (the devil) etc..
Wake up dude..Salam / Peace
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Tried it. No luck. No probs if you find a link please share. Thanks.
Peace
Hope
Peace Hope,
Click on this
?10
I don't live in the U.K. and it works for me.
There was uproar about it. See here
http//mypercept.co.uk/articles/Rethinking_Tradition_Modern_Islamic_Thought.htmHis book "Risala" is almost entirely an argument for his view. If his view was blatantly obvious and mainstream, there would be no need to write a 300 page book detailing the case for it!
Why we dont hear about it? I like the wisdom it is the victor's history that goes to school.
As a sidenote, I bought the English translation of the book for a dirt cheap ?10 including delivery, and plan to read and critically review it in the future. So much to do in so little time.
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few things i don't understand, if imam shafi made this law, why wasn't there a big uproar if so why don't we hear about it.
how did imam shafi and the other imams get their title..
how would ijma happen?
i can understand why.. you threaten their beliefs. one they have no reason to doubt because so many people follow that path.
There was considerable opposition to Imam Shafi and his hadith enterprise back then. It was essentially a war between the intellectual giants of the day. The objective of the war was to win over the masses, in which Imam Shafi proved himself to be more convincing than his counterparts. The ancient interpreters or the lawyers of the ancient schools of thought like Abu Yusuf, Awza?i and Malik based their legal work on the ?living Sunnah? and through personal judgement interpreted their materials freely to elaborate the law. They were vehemently opposed to Imam Shafi in his contention of equating sunnah with hadith interpretations and giving Hadith interpretations an equal footing with the Quran. The early interpreters defied this trend.
To them sunnah was a living process of interpretation rather than a mere static or constant (Hadith Literature) classifying the words and deeds of the prophet. Sunnah was a living process that was kick started by the prophet who interpreted the Quran during his life time and the activity was taken up by other learned men after the death of the prophet. Hence the interpretative process is a continuous activity that goes on and on till the end of mankind or that of Islam. This interpretative function comprises of the knowledge of the Quran along with critical evaluation of the previous interpretations used in tandem with human reason. Imam Shafi contended that the interpretative function of the prophet was over and above all other interpretations and that it represents as an ideal to other interpretations and was thus equivalent with the Quran as the words and deeds of the sacred prophet. This was another story that Hadith were simply not the words of the prophet but also contained the words of the companions of the prophet but this was deliberately ignored.
To claim that the interpretative function of the prophet was over and above the subsequent interpretations is the epitome of human stupidity. Though Muhammad was a prophet but he was one man, how can a single person attempt to explain all that there is in a holy book preserved for all of mankind for all time to come. Anyhow notwithstanding the fact that the intellectual position of Imam Shafi was tenuous he was able to win over the masses. This in itself proves that he was more deserving of showmanship than the truth anyway. One can easily see the phenomena nowadays with politicians rallying for our votes come up with a scheme to win over the masses and in the next election change their tactics rather than doing anything worthwhile for the people.
We don?t hear about it because we are essentially the people of taqlid(Blind Following) and our priests(sheiks and imams) go a long way to make sure that we don?t hear anything they do not want us to hear. We don?t study this in schools not at our homes nor anywhere else because of the overwhelming influence of the people of taqlid in our society and in our lives. It is only by individual effort that we can attempt to arrive at the truth. Majority of the Muslims I know don?t even know what Ijtihad is so how can one expect them to know the whole story. You can try this yourself and ask Muslims at random what ijtihad is and you will be surely taken aback by their ignorance. Wakas has put it nicely that it is surely the victor?s history that goes to school.
Imams in sunnism get their titles by the virtue of knowledge that they possess. There is no other criterion in sunni Islam. In shiasm however imams get their titles by the virtue of their birth that is whether they are born in the lineage of the ?Ali? or not (This was before the occultation after the occultation the scenario is different). There is no actual title in Islam as per se but people are known by the extent of their knowledge. Imam Shafi and other imams of that time were knowledgeable men but than even knowledgeable men make mistakes as is abundantly clear.
Ijma or consensus happen when if for example there are 75 interpreters in some area or country and based on their individual interpretations they think a certain matter is to be dealt in such a manner. Naturally variances will be present in their interpretations (on account of their different reasoning or consideration of different variables that affect the matter on hand) as to how the matter is to be settled, so they come to a consensus among themselves as to how the matter or the law is to made to address the problem on hand. It is possible that not all 75 interpreters will agree so a clear majority should suffice. The decision that they have come to is relevant as long as the presence of new variables do not make them irrelevant in case of which the process is to be repeated again. With changing variables the process goes on forever as the law is updated according to changing times.
Some Quotes,
?How can anyone compel another person to ??follow him blindly? By claiming himself to be something(to be divine) that he is not.?
Ahmad ibn Hanbal said "Not one of the scholars of hadith touched an inkwell nor a pen except he owed a huge debt to al-Shafi`i."
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We don?t hear about it because we are essentially the people of taqlid(Blind Following) and our priests(sheiks and imams) go a long way to make sure that we don?t hear anything they do not want us to hear. We don?t study this in schools not at our homes nor anywhere else because of the overwhelming influence of the people of taqlid in our society and in our lives.
100% Agree on this... my sunni murrobi (priest / teacher on religion) repetitively stated that we must always recite this mantra "SAMINA WA ATONA" (We hear and we obey) on any rulings / concepts / commandment decided by "ulema"... they always try to turn us into 'zombies'.. and drop our 'brain' down the gutter... This also combined with the dogma of "ULEMA WARATSATUL ANBIYA" (The scholars is the inheritor of prophethood) for the justification on why we should "SAMINA WA ATONA" to them..
It is only by individual effort that we can attempt to arrive at the truth.
Again. .this is what happened to me.. once I had enough 'nerve' to really start using my own brain, faces the risk of turning into 'apostate' (thus condemned by hell fire based on my 'previous suniism' belief) and start to apply criticism to my own faith and way of thinking.. only by then the truth start to came out bit by bit...
Majority of the Muslims I know don?t even know what Ijtihad is so how can one expect them to know the whole story. You can try this yourself and ask Muslims at random what ijtihad is and you will be surely taken aback by their ignorance. Wakas has put it nicely that it is surely the victor?s history that goes to school.
Many of the muslims.. i rephrase that.. sunnis knew what Ijtihad is.. but they always being brainwashed that 'ijtihad' is only to be performed by the 'ulema' / 'priest' / 'scholars'... yet for 'common folks', we should SAMINA WA ATONA to them... since they're the inheritors of prophethood (ULEMA WARATSATUL ANBIYA).
Ijma or consensus happen when if for example there are 75 interpreters in some area or country and based on their individual interpretations they think a certain matter is to be dealt in such a manner. Naturally variances will be present in their interpretations (on account of their different reasoning or consideration of different variables that affect the matter on hand) as to how the matter is to be settled, so they come to a consensus among themselves as to how the matter or the law is to made to address the problem on hand. It is possible that not all 75 interpreters will agree so a clear majority should suffice.
Ijma is the bases of what we know today as "Democratic System"..
The differences with the "Sunniism Ijma of Ulema" is, in "Democratic System" the consensus should be taken from all of individuals within the population, and if a majority of them agreed, then it is settled. The process of 'ijma' is not limited to some 'elites' titled as "Ulema".. The modern 'democratic system' was based on a belief that 'all people are created equals and should be considered as such'.Salam / Peace
