Controversial Questions about Islam

Controversial Questions about Islam and Comments
in Islam is Divine revelations and inspirations and opinions guided
by them.
4. Consensus of Ijtihaad. The individual ijtihaad gains more strength
when these legal opinions gain the consensus of the scholars
during a distinguished generation or period of time such as the
generation of the Companions of the Prophet, the generations
that followed it. Therefore, the scholars concerned with ijtihaad
methodology list it after the Holy Quraan and the Prophetic
traditions in terms of strength.
This being the case, no wonder the Shari’ah (Islamic law) has
great flexibility sufficient to deal with the new issues and cases of
life, though it is based on stable foundations that go back to fourteen
centuries.
This flexibility manifests itself in many forms. Among these are
the following:
1. Acceptable multiplicity in accepting or rejecting some of the
Prophetic Traditions.
2. Acceptable multiplicity in interpreting some of the holy texts.
However, A person without the proper tools should not tamper
with interpretation of the Quraan or Prophetic traditions, because
he would be, unknowingly, liable to commit gross errors. An
example is a Prophetic tradition, which states that the fly has
disease in one wing and medication in the other. (1) A person, out
of ignorance, may say: “Why should we bother if the flies touch
our food?” This person forgets that the tradition is a fact which
could be used in one case when, for example, a fly falls in a
cup of water, especially under conditions of scarcity of water,
we make sure that both wings are dipped in the water for it to
be potable. Certainly, this does not mean to generalize this fact
randomly. This person also ignores that there are numerous
with the highly advanced techniques available today.
(1) al-Bukhari: bada al-khalq.
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