The Search for God's Law: Islamic Jurisprudence in the Writings of Sayf al-Din al-Amidi

815 Pages·2010·2.55 MB·English

by  Bernard G Weiss

The Search for God’s Law

The Search
for God’s Law
Islamic Jurisprudence in the
Writings of Sayf al-Dīn al-Āmidī
Revised Edition
Bernard G. Weiss
Utah Series in Turkish and Islamic Studies
University of Utah Press
Salt Lake City
International Institute of Islamic Thought
Herndon, Virginia
Copyright © 2010 by The University of Utah Press. All rights reserved.
Utah Series in Turkish and Islamic Studies
M. Hakan Yavuz, Series Editor
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ISBN 978-0-87480-938-1 (alk. paper)
ISBN 978-1-60781-971-4(ebook)
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Weiss, Bernard G.
The search for God’s law : Islamic jurisprudence in the writings
of Sayf aI-Dīn aI-Āmidī / Bernard G. Weiss.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 978-0-87480-938-1 (alk. paper)
ISBN 978-1-60781-971-4(ebook)
1. Islamic law—Interpretation and construction. 2. Islam and
state. 3. Āmidī, cAlī ibn cAbī cAlī, 1156 or 7-1233. I. Title. LAW
340.5’9-dc20 90-48326
Printed and bound by Sheridan Books, Inc., Ann Arbor, Michigan.
For my wife Felicia,
partner in the toil that produced this book

Contents
Preface to the Revised Edition xix
Preface to the First Edition xxiii
Introduction 1
The Sharīca as a body of categorizations of human acts (al-ahkām al-sharcīya), 1—
The Sharīca as law and as morality, 3—The emphasis upon the Sharīca as law in
this book, 7—The Sharīca as exhortation, 10—Nonnormative categories of the
Sharīca, 10—The articulation of the Sharīca as a human task, 14—Fiqh and usūl al-
fiqh, 14—The approach to the study of Islamic jurisprudence taken in this book,
17—The historical development of Islamic jurisprudence, 17—Āmidī’s place
within that development, 21—Aristotelian influence on Āmidī, 23—Āmidī’s defi-
nitions of fiqh and usūl al-fiqh, 24—The subject matter, topics, postulates, and end
of the science of jurisprudence, 27—Āmidī’s life, 27.
Part I. Postulates 31
Chapter One. The Theological Postulates 33
Epistemology/methodology and substantive theology as the two facets of kalām,
35—Epistemological/methodological postulates, 35—Knowledge and its types, 35—
The reasoning process, 41—Dalīl (proof, indicator) as an instrument of reason-
ing, 41—The art of disputation, 45—Āmidī as dialectician, 46—The dialectical
format of the Ihkām, 47—Substantive-theological postulates, 49—Āmidī’s theology
as natural theology: its connection with metaphysics, 49—The argument for
God’s existence, 50—Arguments for the reality of the divine attributes, 52—
Āmidī’s criticism of the method of qiyās al-ghā’ib cala’l-shāhid, 53—Āmidī’s use
of syllogism and conceptual analysis in defending the reality of the divine attri-
butes, 56—The divine acts: creation as an exclusively divine act, human agency as
created agency, 60—God’s acts as free from the governance of ends, 62—God’s
speech as attribute, not act: internal versus verbal speech, 64—God’s speech and
the concept of revelation in Islam, 67—Āmidī’s cosmology, 68—Knowledge
viii Contents
derived from revelation and its rational foundation, 71—The attestation of
prophethood through miraculous signs, 72—The Qur’ān as the miraculous sign
of Muhammad’s prophethood, 73.
Chapter Two. The Fiqh Postulates 80
The interdependence of practical jurisprudence ( fiqh) and theoretical jurispru-
dence (usūl al-fiqh), 80—God as the sole categorizer of human acts: the rejection
of Muctazilī rationalist jurisprudence, 82—Why acts are not good or bad “by vir-
tue of their essences,” 85—Why an act cannot be said to be obligatory on rational
grounds, 88—The covenantal basis of the divine law, 91—Definition of a Sharīca
categorization (hukm), 91—The explication of the six types of Sharīca categori-
zations: explication-through-disjunction, 95—Explication through formal defi-
nition, 96—Compatibility of the two methods of explication, 101—The Sharīca
categorizations as law and as morality, 102—Implications for human freedom,
103—Use of the term “rules,” 104—The Sharīca categorizations and the concepts
of the command (amr) and the charge (taklīf), 104—Nonnormative categori-
zations (al-ahkām al-wadcīya), 107—What sorts of acts may be the object of a
charge, 108—What sorts of agents may be under a charge, 110.
Chapter Three. The Lugha-Related Postulates 113
Preliminary matters, 113—The origin of the Lugha: the Lugha as a body of sound-
meaning correlations, 116—The Lugha as sunna, 120—Semantic modification
through curf, 122—The knowledge of the Lugha, 123—The classification of voca-
bles (alfāz): the semantic interest, 126—The four methods of classifying nouns,
129—The haqīqa-expression and the majāz-expression, 130—Excursus on the
zāhir expression, 134—Notes on the term majāz, 137—wadc-based, curf-based, and
Sharīca-based expressions, 137—Whether majāz-expressions are to be counted as
part of the Lugha, 139—Whether Sharīca-based expressions are to be counted as
part of the Lugha, 142—Whether the Lugha really includes such things as syn-
onyms and homonyms, 143.
Part II. The Indicators Of God’s Law 147
The categories of valid indicators, 147—The hierarchical relationships between
these categories, 150—The relationship of these categories to the divine speech,
152—The discussion of the indicators within the structure of the Ihkām, 153.
Chapter Four. The Qur’ān And The Sunna 155
Definitions of Scripture (Kitāb) and Sunna: how Scripture and Sunna differ, 155—
Whether the criterion of tawātur-scale transmission enters into the determination
of a valid Qur’ānic indicator, 156—Controversies over meaningless expressions,
Contents ix
figurative expressions, and non-Arabic expressions in the Qur’ān, 157—Issues
pertaining to the Sunna: the concept of the impeccability of prophets, 159—The
four possible stances one may take toward another person, 163—Whether acts of
the Prophet are paradigmatic, 163—The problem of contradiction between one
act of the Prophet and another, 166—The problem of contradiction between an
act and a saying of the Prophet, 167—Whether the Prophet’s silence can consti-
tute an endorsement, 172.
Chapter Five. The Ijmāc 174
Explanation of the expressions “the Ijmāc,” “Ijmācic,” and “consensus” as used in
this book, 174—The Ijmāc as a category of texts, 175—Definition of the Ijmāc,
177—Historical background of the Muslim controversies over the Ijmāc, 179—The
logical order of Āmidī’s treatment of issues pertaining to the Ijmāc, 183—Whether
the Ijmāc is possible, 184—Whether an Ijmācic consensus, once it has occurred,
is knowable, 186—Whether the Ijmāc constitutes an authoritative indicator of
the law, 188—Rational versus textual arguments for the authority of the Ijmāc,
189—Whether the issue of the authority of the Ijmāc is mas’ala qatcīya or mas’ala
zannīya: the distinction between sure and probable indicators, 190—Problems
with the rational argument for the authority of the Ijmāc, 190—Qur’ānic indica-
tors of the authority of the Ijmāc, 194—Sunnaic indicators of the authority of the
Ijmāc, 196—Contrast between the “infallibility” of the community and the “infal-
libility” of the Prophet, 201—Contrast between the authority of the Ijmāc and the
authority of individual mujtahids, 203—The inconsequentiality of the Muslim
failure to reach a consensus upon the authority of the Ijmāc, 203—Whether the
participants in an Ijmācic consensus must be Muslims and contemporaries of each
other, 204—Whether commoners must be included along with mujtahids among
the participants in an Ijmācic consensus, 205—Whether an innovating mujtahid
must be included, 207—Whether the Ijmāc of the Companions is alone author-
itative, 209—Whether a consensus of the Companions is authoritative if quali-
fied mujtahids of the second generation living at the time of the conclusion of the
consensus were excluded, 212—Whether the consensus of the people of Medina
is in and of itself authoritative, 213—Whether the consensus of the family of the
Prophet, or of the first four caliphs, or of the first two caliphs, is authoritative
in and of itself, 214—Whether the opinion of the majority of mujtahids is con-
stitutive of the Ijmāc, 216—Whether a “large number” sufficient to rule out the
possibility of collusion is necessary for the constitution of an Ijmācic consensus,
217—Whether the silence of the mujtahids in the face of a known opinion is con-
stitutive of the Ijmāc, 219—Whether the establishment of an Ijmācic consensus
is conditional upon the demise of all the participants, 222—Whether an Ijmācic
consensus can be established without there being a prior indicator of the law that