al_etidaal_gn

which is in my head, then I tell you it has been removed from me.” Then Umar
(Radiallahu anhu) released him and allowed him to return to his home in Basra.
However he also ordered that no one should associate with him.
Abu Uthman Nahdi says: “After the order of Umar (Radiallahu anhu) reached us,
even if a hundred of us were gathered in one place and Sabeegh (Radiallahu anhu)
arrived there, we all immediately dispersed. This proved to be very hard for Sabeegh
(Radiallahu anhu). Thereafter Sayyidina Abu Musa Al-Ashary (Radiallahu anhu)
wrote a letter to Sayyidina Umar (Radiallahu anhu), saying that Sabeegh (Radiallahu
anhu) had now reformed his ways and improved and that those previous ideas had
been discarded.” Then only Sayyidina Umar (Radiallahu anhu) gave the people
permission to associate with him. (Durr Manthoor)
There are so many other incidents like this from which it becomes quite clear that the
limits of dissent in the Shariat are fixed. It is not so that a person with zeal for
investigation and research may write or say whatever he likes or poke fun at the
ordinances of the Shariat or to ridicule the Sunnah of Allah’s most beloved Rasul
(Sallallahu Alayhi Wasallam), or to try and make a laughing stock out of some of the
most important commands. What injustice is this that one may have good a pen in
one’s hand and be devoid of any knowledge and still to set about when something is
not understood, to declare it wrong and exclude it from Islam? And to have the
audacity to call it the dissent of the Ulema!
The commandments of the Shariat are in various degrees of importance. Some are
very important. No man has the right to demote any commandment from its higher
rank of importance to any lower degree. Some again are of lower grade of importance
and none has the right to promote them in rank above its given rank. The ability to
distinguish between the ranks of commandments, as to which is the degree of
importance it holds, depends upon knowledge of Shariat.
It also depends upon proper comprehension of the rules of deducing commandments
from the Quran and Hadeeth. This again requires depth of knowledge and
understanding, i.e. three branches of knowledge, viz, principles of Fiqah (Usoole
Fiqah), principles of Hadeeth (Usoole Hadeeth) of principles of Tafseer (Usoole
Tafseer).
The jurists of Islam have agreed that for a person to reach the stage where he acquires
the right of Ijtihad, it is necessary for him to have sound knowledge of the Book of
Allah, sound insight into lexical meanings, proper insight and understanding of all
legal and technical meanings. Then also he must have knowledge of the modes of
reasoning i.e. general, particular common (mushtarak), the interpreted (mu’owwal),
outward meanings (zaahir), expounded meanings (mufassar), firm meanings (muhkam)
the hidden meanings (khafee), the complicated (mush-kil) the condensed
(mujmal), analogous meanings (mutashaabih), clear meanings (sareeh).
Then also there must be the knowledge of the manner in which the commands are
conveyed in the verses viz. IBARATUN NASS, by clear wording of the text,
Al- Eti’daal Fi Maraatibur- Rijaal 167