Answer to an Enemy of Islam

It is not a guilt to believe that al-Imâm ash-Shâfi’î was the
highest of the imâms. But he himself said that al-Imâm al-a’zam
Abû Hanîfa was higher. [1]
Religion reformers, in order to demolish the four madhhabs
and thus to demolish Ahl as-Sunna, whereby to demolish Islam,
dwell very much upon the talfîq (unification) of the madhhabs,
that is, gathering the facilities and discarding the rest. In all their
books, they put forward — it can be seen from the examples which
they give of the scholars of Ahl as-Sunna — that the ijtihâds of the
three îmâms in the Hanafî madhhab have been unified or the
ijtihâds of different madhhabs have been unified when there was
difficulty. We, too, say that both the cases are permissible. As
explained in detail in the preceding article, the ijtihâds of imâms
belonging to a madhhab mean the ijtihâd of the imâm who
founded that madhhab. To unify them does not mean to go out of
the imâm al-madhhab’s ijtihâd. Religion reformers, in a clever way
with their own logic, write the things that are permissible and, by
putting them forward, want to have their own corrupt and
destructive thoughts be accepted as faith and ’ibâdât.
35– Rashîd Ridâ wants to clinch his ideas by repeating his
assertions. He says again:
“I do not admit qiyâs in ’ibâdât. Every Muslim who
looks at the documentary evidences and admits the
opinions accordingly is a mujtahid, too. Also those scholars
who were attached to maddhabs have disagreed with them
in some matters. Al-Baghawî, al-Awzâ’î and al-Ghazâlî
disagreed with their îmâm though they were in the Shâfi’î
madhhab, and az-Zamakhsharî disagreed with Abû Hanîfa.
After the Four Caliphs began the time of sovereign rulers;
religious teachings were corrupted.”
According to the religion reformer, there is no qiyâs in Islam;
all Muslims are mujtahids; by observing the documentary
evidences of discordant matters, they will find out the correct way;
in other words, they will employ qiyâs! His two assertions
contradict each other. If he had been able to understand the
meanings of ijtihâd and qiyâs in the books of usûl al-fiqh, he
would not have fallen into this contradiction. The Egyptian
religion reformer is rather strong in Arabic, his mother tongue,
and he is educated to some extent. Certainly, he can easily read
[1] See below, p. 86, for al-Imâm ash-Shâfi’î’s such comments about al-
Imâm al-a’zam.
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