Islamic law is a very wide term applied to almost the entire human activity. Man-to-man relationship are all covered by Islamic laws. And also, part of the Islamic laws cover man-to-God relationship. It’s a very, very, I mean, lengthy answer that would be required by this question. If I am prepared, first of all, I am not prepared to give all the details of Islamic law, but even if I were prepared, it would take a month or so to describe it in detail.
But the fundamentals I can tell you, Islamic law is understood to have been based on four fundamentals. Number one, the word of God, who in Islamic terminology is called Shari’ah, the one who revealed the Shari’ah. Now, I am telling you this because so many people, even scholars of today, misuse this word and they say Shari’ah al-Islam, which is totally wrong. This is supporting the allegations of the Westerners, the Orientalists, that the law was invented by Hazrat Muhammad Mustafa sallallahu alaihi wa sallam, while he was not the source of law in this sense. Not a single jot of the law was invented by him.
He was only a demonstrator, the one who understood the law because it was revealed to him, to give us the philosophy of law, to teach us how to do it, how to practice it. So the first source of Islamic law and the fundamental source of Islamic law is Allah. The second source is Hazrat Muhammad Mustafa sallallahu alaihi wa sallam because it is his interpretation which is to be trusted, to be followed in complete, in every detail, in totality. You can’t doubt his word.
So although he is not a source, but he is an interpreter and demonstrator. The third source of Islamic law is Qayas. Now the Sunnah, as I have said, covers both the tradition and his act. The word Sunnah is sometimes differentiated, is taken to mean only the practice of the Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wa sallam. And according to the terminology of the Ahlul Hadith, the word Sunnah is the tradition of Hazrat Muhammad Mustafa sallallahu alaihi wa sallam as spoken word. But in reality it covers both, the spoken word and the practice.
So when I say the source, as source, Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wa sallam is to be included, I mean both his word and his practice. The third is Qayas or Ijma. By Ijma, they mean that if the entire Ummah, that is the entire Muslim population of the world, agrees to a principle that must be true, it’s impossible for the whole of the followers of Hazrat Muhammad Mustafa sallallahu alaihi wa sallam to go wrong. So this is a source in theory. In practice, we do not find any evidence that it ever happened or can happen except on the occasion of the first bai’at of Hazrat Abu Bakr Siddiq r.a. Nobody differed and everybody agreed.
So that was the only Ijtema known to our knowledge in that respect. And another Ijtema which has been pointed out by Hazrat Ijma, by Hazrat Masih Maud al-As’lato as-salam, which is, which relates the incident where Hazrat Abu Bakr went to Masjid-e-Nabwi and recited the verse about the demise of the Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wa sallam, ma muhammadun illa rasool qad khalat min qablahir rasool, inferring thereby that the Prophet Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wa sallam has died because every prophet before him has died.
So Hazrat Masih Maud al-As’lato as-salam pointed out that because nobody objected to this, not a single person did. So that is also an Ijma. So two Ijma took place at the time of Hazrat Rasool-e-Karim sallallahu alaihi wa sallam’s demise. After that, the whole Ummah went into a process of schism and division. The result was it was impossible, practically impossible for the Ummah to have Ijma on anything except for Kalima Tayyabah.
But unfortunately the Kalima Shahada now cannot be quoted as a point of Ijma for the Ummah because there are divisions about the Kalima as well now. We have evidence according to Shia books that some sects of the Shias believe that Ali has Safiullah or Ali Safiullah should also be added in this. Is it Safiullah? No, I’m sorry. Yes, yes. Wasiullah. Wasi Rasool. Wasi Rasool. Ali Wasi Rasool is a part of Kalima and is the fundamental article of faith.
So even if they be very few, but they of course believe in Hazrat Muhammad Mustafa sallallahu alaihi wa sallam and are a part and parcel of the Ummah. So the Ijma would go overboard. In our case, for instance, they also use this handle. They said according to the Ijma of Ummah, your explanation, your interpretation of Khataman Nabiyeen is wrong. How can this be called an Ijma because we were also, prior to our expulsion from Ummah, we were also a part of Ummah, which they turned out.
So we were not a party to that Ijma at all. So Ijma is unfortunately a term of Fiqh which has been most misused, very unfortunately. But there are great scholars, Muslim scholars, who positively say that this is just a theoretical thing. It can never exist. It’s impossible for Ijma to take place. Moreover, they say that the concept of Ijma is rejected by the Holy Qur’an repeatedly because in the sense the Mullah takes it, because the Holy Qur’an repeatedly says that most often it is the minority which is in the right and the majority is in the wrong.
For instance, at the time of the claim of Hazrat Muhammad Mustafa s.a.w., he was won against the Ijma of the entire Arab and the Ijma of the entire Arab was wrong and that one vote of Hazrat Muhammad Mustafa s.a.w. was right. His faith was right and the faith of the opponents was wrong. But there was an Ijma against him that you are a fabricator and you are a liar and you have nothing to do with truth. Not to mention that if the entire world, because he was a prophet for the entire world, had gathered together like one being and declared him to be wrong, what would you think? What would be the value of that Ijma?
So examples like this have been quoted by great Muslim scholars to prove their case, that Ijma is just a hypothetical thing which never exists and if it did, against a minority, it wouldn’t prove anything. But anyway, this is supposed to be, in strict jurisprudence terms, a source of Islamic law. And the fourth is Qayas. Qayas also is based on the Holy Qur’an and on the Sunnah, but not directly. The spirit of Qayas is not, literally it means guess or to judge something based on something.
But in this term, Qayas only means that if you have no positive evidence of what should be done in a specific situation, conceive of a similar situation, and in the light of the Holy Qur’an and the tradition, project yourself into that situation and see what you think the Holy Qur’an would give, would decide on that issue or the Rasul-e-Karim sallallahu alaihi wa sallam, had he been alive, what would be his verdict on this. This projection of mind into a situation of the Holy Qur’an or of the Sunnah of the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam is called Qayas.
So the ulema quote one example at the time of the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam, one companion of the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam faced a situation while he was away from Medina and he had to give a judgment on something. So he projected himself into the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam’s mind and thinking, knowing his views so much, seeing him practice Islam so often, he could judge that perhaps the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam could do that, would do that. And just based on this projection he gave a verdict, when he returned home he was told that the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wa sallam had exactly given the same verdict in the same situation which he didn’t know.
So he tells us that that was by far the happiest day of my whole life. I was so happy, no words can describe, that I tried to think like Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wa sallam, I did think like Muhammad sallallahu alaihi wa sallam. So that is Qayas. Now these four are the sources of Islamic law. The other Imams, which are so often quoted, are like Imam Abu Hanifa, Imam Shafi, Imam Malik and Imam Humble, Ahmad bin Humble, they are all great scholars. Of course we revere them and respect them very highly, but they are not a source. They saw the sources and gave their verdicts.
So Hanafiism is like seeing Islam through the eyes of Hazrat Imam Abu Hanifa, Shafiism is seeing Islam through the eyes of Hazrat Imam Shafi and so on and so forth. But if you have a direct source of light looking at Islam, there is no point in seeing through the light of Imam Shafi, the sight of Imam Shafi, and shutting your own eyes to the direct source. That would be criminal. So this is exactly the verdict of the Promised Messiah sallallahu alaihi wa sallam about the Ahmadiyya jurisprudence.
He says, normally you may follow Imam Abu Hanifa, because most often than not, his judgement is correct. But if you have a direct evidence, based on the Holy Qur’an or the tradition of Hazrat Muhammad Mustafa sallallahu alaihi wa sallam or his practice, then reject Abu Hanifa and follow that. And if you have my word positive, then because I speak from heavenly light, from Allah’s guidance, so my word will never be against the Holy Qur’an or Hazrat Muhammad Mustafa sallallahu alaihi wa sallam.
So if you have my direct word against any Imam, leave that Imam and follow me. Because I am Imam Mahdi, the leader which has been appointed by Allah himself. So this is the principle of Islamic jurisprudence, with this tradition which I have made in the end. This is how we look at the Islamic jurisprudence. And a committee has been formed, it has worked, not entirely to completion, but partly it has worked and prepared some books on some chapters.
