“The best way to make fiqh complicated is to teach others that it is simple.” With this statement, Sheikh Abdul H. Murad wants to shine a spotlight on the systematic undermining of one of the religion’s most important sources of knowledge: the four schools of law.

In the modern era in which we live, there is no shortage of eloquent, but equally unqualified, individuals who advocate the “easy” solutions when they talk about the sources of Islam. When traditional Islamic literature is also scarcely available today, it becomes easy for many Muslims to accept simplified and easily understandable concepts of the religion. It is in this spirit that many Muslims today ask: Why do we need the four schools of law when we have the Quran and the Sunnah (read Hadith literature) of the Prophet, peace be upon him?

To answer this, we must first explain the concept of madhhab and its founder, the mujtahid. A mujtahid is a person who exercises unfettered ijtihad, which in turn means making legal decisions through independent interpretation of the Quran and Sunnah.

The word Madhhab, or school of law, is derived from an Arabic word meaning “to walk” or “to follow a path.” As we shall see, the primary sources of Islam, the Quran and the Sunnah, represent a great deal of interpretive potential. A school of law in this sense refers to a mujtahid’s choice among the multiple interpretive possibilities of the Quran and the Sunnah, in order to derive Allah’s rules and commands on a given question. Thus, a school of law represents an entire school of thought of a mujtahid such as Abu Hanifa, Malik, Shafi’i, or Ahmad.

In addition to these Imams who founded the various schools of law, the schools all include first-rate scholars, who checked the evidence of the Imams, as well as updated and continued their work in the face of new challenges afterwards. The four schools of law have thus been the subject of in-depth research and scrutiny throughout the centuries of the heyday of Islam. This research has made the schools of law unique and confirmed their authenticity. This is further confirmed by the overwhelming majority of Quranic and Hadith experts who have adhered to one of these four schools of law, among them Imams Bukhari, Muslim, Abu Dawud, Ibn Kathir, ibn Hajar al-Asqalani, ibn Abidin, Sayyuti and Nawawi.

The Mujtahid Imams thus functioned as the transmitters of the Holy Law. They operationalized the Quran and Sunnah into the specific Sharia regulations that form the framework for the life of Muslims, and which are collectively referred to as fiqh or “jurisprudence.” This jurisprudence constitutes only one part of our din or religion, as the religious knowledge that each of us possesses is of three types: General knowledge of Islamic foundations, such as the tawhid (oneness) of Allah, the Prophet (peace be upon him) as the last messenger, the Day of Judgment, etc.

The second type of knowledge encompasses the general ethical principles of Islam such as avoiding evil, showing kindness to one’s fellow human beings, enjoining good deeds, and forbidding immoral ones, to name a few. We can and should all derive these two types of knowledge directly from the primary sources of the Quran and Sunnah, as it is obligatory for every Muslim to reflect on Allah’s message to man.

The third type of religious knowledge, on the other hand, deals with the more specific rules and laws surrounding a given religious-practical issue. In other words, this knowledge deals with how an action should be ranked in relation to the principles of halaal (compulsory), makruh (undesired), haram (forbidden), etc. In addition to this, all guidelines related to, for example, prayer, fasting, almsgiving, etc. are included. However, due to the nature and scope of the Quranic and Hadith texts, people’s cognitive capacity to understand and derive laws on this point varies. All Muslims have nevertheless been asked to implement these in their lives in obedience to Allah. A natural question here would then be: Is ijthad the duty of every Muslim?

In order for a society to function, we have a division of labor. Every member of society benefits from the expertise of others, whether it be electronics, medicine, engineering, or law – simply because the individual has neither the time nor the capacity to acquire all the knowledge on his own. This applies to religion to an even greater extent. If each of us were given the responsibility of evaluating all the texts on every issue, a life study would hardly be sufficient, which would further prevent one from, for example, earning a living. That is why Allah in Surah Al-Nahl commands those with insufficient knowledge to seek it from the qualified:

“Ask only the People of Reminder if you do not know.” (Quran, 16:43)

The people of the admonition refer to the scholars, according to the tafsir (exegesis) experts. And in Surat al-Nisa,

“If they had referred it to the Messenger and those in authority among them, those who are well-equipped to convey knowledge would have conveyed it.” (Quran, 4:83)

Where the excerpt “those who are well-suited to bring forth knowledge” expressed through the words “alladhina yastanbitunahu minhum”, refers to those who have the ability and competence to draw conclusions (deduce) directly from the primary sources, and which in Arabic is called istinbat. Similar verses and hadith texts enjoin the believer who is not at the level of istinbat, to follow someone who meets these requirements.

One can thus see that the slogans of “following the Quran and Sunnah instead of madhhab” are nothing but a blank slate. Although all Muslims agree that only the Quran and Sunnah are infallible, the same cannot be said about the understanding of these. It is worth noting that everything we have received from the Prophet (peace be upon him), whether it is the Quran or the hadith, has been given to us through the Islamic scholars. The question, therefore, is not whether we should use the scholars as sources for our knowledge, but rather which scholars we should seek this knowledge from.

The curious will still ask, however, whether it is not sufficient to survey all the relevant Qur’anic and hadith texts on a given question, and then draw a conclusion. This is where we come into the question of the breadth and depth of knowledge that a mujtahid must possess in order to issue a ruling. The extent of knowledge required can be illustrated by referring to the numerous scholars who throughout history have memorized an astonishingly large number of hadith, yet have refused to give themselves the title of mujtahid. A student of Imam Ahmed, Muhammad ibn ‘Ubaydullah, heard a man ask the Imam:

“When a man has memorized 100,000 hadiths, is he a scholar of the Holy Law, a faqih?” and he said “no”. The man asked again, “200,000 then?” and he said “no”. “300,000 then?” and he said “no”. The man then asked: “400,000?” and Ahmed made a gesture with his hand to express “about that many”. (Ibn al-Qayyim: Ilm al-muwaqqi‘in, 4.205) Imam Ahmed, who himself memorized about one million hadiths, had, like other mujtahids, not only the breadth but also the depth of knowledge to derive the Sharia from the primary sources. By depth of knowledge here is meant the methodological techniques of unifying all the Quranic verses and hadiths that concern a given issue, even if they seem to contradict each other. Anyone who does not know this science, called usul al-fiqh, and tries to derive the Sharia will be subject to many unfortunate pitfalls.

The word “unify” is used here because, as most of us know, there are sahih hadith that apparently contradict other sahih hadith. So what does a mujtahid do? One of the main techniques that scholars use to explain this phenomenon is nas’kh or abrogation. An example of nas’kh is the prohibition of visiting graves, which the Prophet (peace be upon him) later abrogated with the following hadith: “I used to forbid you from visiting graves, but now you should visit them” (Muslim). The companions knew through ijma that the teachings of the Prophet (peace be upon him) had evolved over time to keep pace with their development in Islam. This was necessary to bring the companions from the pagan ignorance to the wise and enlightened path of tawhid or monotheism. Even more clearly illustrated is the progressive prohibition of wine, which was first discouraged in an early Quranic verse, later condemned, and finally declared forbidden.

Another form of nas’kh is the implicit one, which often challenged the intelligence of early scholars to the limit. An example is a hadith from the Muslim collection in which the Prophet (peace be upon him) requests his companions to sit behind him in prayer, when he himself sat due to illness. Surprisingly, in the same collection there is another hadith which narrates an instance in which the companions stood while the Prophet (peace be upon him) sat. This apparent contradiction is resolved by careful chronological analysis of the events, with one text being declared to abrogate the other.

As we see, this intricate science necessitates that a non-specialist show respect to the scholars of fiqh when he finds a hadith that apparently contradicts the position of the schools of law on an issue. A non-scholar reading through Sahih al-Bukhari will find a hadith where one thigh of the Prophet (peace be upon him) was uncovered on the ride back from Khaybar. And consequently, he will believe that the four schools of law were wrong in their position that the thigh is awra or “nakedness that must be covered.”

In fact, there are a number of other sahih hadiths that confirm that the Prophet (peace be upon him) explicitly ordered his companions to cover their thighs, precisely because they were awra. This is evident, for example, from the following sahih hadith: “The thigh is part of one’s nakedness” (al-Mustadrak). The Mujtahid imams of the four schools were aware of these hadiths, and united them through the following methodological principle that: “An explicit order from the Prophet (peace be upon him) takes precedence over an action by him.”

The reason for this is that some of the laws of Sharia did not apply to the Prophet (peace be upon him). For example, the Tahajjud prayer was only obligatory for him, while it is Sunnah (recommended) for us. Other examples are the permission for him alone not to break the fast between days of fasting, or to have more than four wives.

The above techniques are only a brief introduction to this vast science, to which scholars have devoted many large works. It is further seen that the techniques for, for example, identifying nas’kh, require in-depth knowledge not only of the science of hadith, but also of history and sirah (biography of the Prophet). In addition, scholars had to acquire knowledge of the views of the companions and other scholars regarding the context and authenticity of any hadith.

As one can quickly see, the implications of the slogan “back to the Quran and Sunnah” are quite large. And a person who embarks on ijtihad without the necessary qualifications is very likely to be misled, if not to invoke the consequences of the following hadith: “Whoever is given a legal ruling (fatwa) without knowledge, his sin will be attributed to the person who gave him the ruling” (Abu Dawud).

It is because of this danger of corruption of the religion that scholars have had to go through a very time- and resource-intensive process to develop a methodology that secures the primary sources from being misinterpreted and used by individuals with a personal agenda. This danger of corruption and its consequences are further emphasized in a hadith by Muslim:

“Verily, Allah does not take away knowledge from people by tearing it away, but rather by taking away the scholars, until there is no scholar left. People will then follow ignorant leaders, and they will then be questioned, and they will give their ruling without knowledge. They will then be misled, and mislead others.” (Muslim)

Although the call to return to the Quran and Sunnah is an appealing slogan, in reality this is a long step backwards. It is a call to abandon centuries of in-depth theological research by mujtahids, hadith experts, Quranic exegetes and other experts in Islamic science.

Also read Ijtihad and Mujtahid