Islam's Reformers .pdf

have been following) disagrees with (a certain rule clearlystated in) an âyat or hadîth with an open meaning, you shouldfollow, concerning the matter in question, another mujtahidwhose ijtihâd appears to be in closer agreement with the Bookor the Hadîth. In this case, you should not be prohibited fromfollowing another madhhab. Scholars of later generations whohave perfectly learned the Sunna and the Works (of earlyIslamic scholars), who have thoroughly studied the words of (atleast) one of the scholars of Islamic fiqh, who know the hadîth, -and also the names of the blessed and trustworthy people whotransmitted the hadîth-, which a faqîh (scholar of fiqh) hasutilized as a document, and who are therefore authorized toserve their madhhab by comparing the seemingly contradictoryhadîths and deducing new rules and, (if necessary,) to deducenew rules by studying within the methods and principlesestablished by their madhhab, are called Mujtahid-i-fi-lmadhhad)(Mujtahid within a madhhab.) This way of followingis very blessed, too. Most Muslims follow the madhhab whichhas spread in their country or which they learn from their fathersor masters. This way of following is suitable for those who canread the books of only one madhhab and cannot study thesources utilized by the madhhab. Islamic teachings arecomposed of three parts, namely, zâhir, nawâdir and takhrîjteachings, the last one being the teachings deduced byscholars. All three of them exist in the sciences of fiqh,tasawwuf and ’aqâ’id. A scholar who is able to distinguish thethree kinds of Islamic teachings from one another in all of thesethree sciences and to deduce rules for each kind of theseteachings is called an ’âlim of Islam or mujtahid. Only such ani-kerîmas that invalidated others, which ones invalidated whichones, and so forth, learning all the contemporary scientificbranches, which in turn requires years of lucubration and selfsacrifice.This book would be too short to explain all therequirements. Our aim here is to help our readers to develop anidea as to the stupendous size of the job of ijtihâd. Thosescholars who devoted all their worldly lives to this unutterablypainstaking job of ijtihâd did us so great a favour by doing sothat any degree of gratitude would fall short of paying them theirdues. May Allâhu ta’âlâ lavish them with rewards in theHereafter! Please read the five fascicles of Endless Bliss andthe book The Sunni Path for detailed information.- 176 -