Showing posts with label islam and law. Show all posts
Showing posts with label islam and law. Show all posts

Tuesday, 21 February 2012

Types of Taqleed

Assalaamu'alaikum wa rahmatullah


How Many Types of Taqleed noh?

I. General one

The person who follows to a particular madzhab or school of jurisprudence or school of thought. He accepts the concessions and non-concessions in all of the matters pertaining the law and path. 

My note here, in Arabic the word deen means law or divine law. It is the same word used in Aramaic so I just translate it as the law or divine law of the Lord. Longer would be divine law of the Lord conveyed and transmitted through messengers and prophets of the Lord.   

Sheikh further clarifies that scholars and clerics differed about such a state. So, some among of the late-comers have reported that this is obligatory upon him due to his inability to perform ijtihad. Others report it as being forbidden for him due to it is a case of necessitating unrestricted following of other than the noble prophet Muhammad s.a.w. We would talk about ijtihad in other post if possible because we need to concentrate on a particular matter. Else people would confuse everything up and there come "self-claiming scholars" who pronounced Arabic in barbaric foreign tongue for example American English or etc, lol.

Ibnu Taimiyyah rahimahullah mentioned that: "The saying that it is obligatory, causes obedience to other than prophet Muhammad s.a.w in every matter of command and prohibition, and this is in opposition to the assembly of the scholars and clerics. And the allowance of it contains what it contains."

Ibnu Taimiyyah further says that: "Whoever sticks to a particular madzhab and then acts in opposition to it without making a taqleed on another scholar who has given him a ruling, nor does he use an evidence as a proofs or reasons which necessitates acting in opposition to his madzhab, nor does he have an acceptable Shari'a excuse which allows him to do what he has done. This person is counted as a follower of his desires, and committing illegal acts since he has no valid Shari'a excuse. It is evil and sinful."

If there becomes evident to him that something which requires preference to one saying (of imams) to another, either due to detailed proofs if he knows and understands them, or because he holds one of two people to be more knowledgeable about this matter and having more piety with regards to what he says, and so the muqallid leaves the saying of that one for the saying of another one, then it is permissible; rather, it becomes obligatory. This one is also from the document of Imam Ahmad bin Hanbal.  

II. The Particular one

This type of taqleed is when a person accepts a saying about a particular matter. This is permissible if such a person is unable to arrive at the knowledge by the ijtihad whether he is unable or able but with great difficulty. 

The God knows more than His creatures...

Sealed with prayers for mercy, peace, and love, amin!

Thursday, 3 November 2011

Sijjin: Reward for Those Who Boasts

Assalaamu'alaikum wa rahmatullah


We had just came across the word سجين sijjin in surat al-Fiil which talks about Abrahah and Elephant armies. What is more important in the surah? Is it the history of Abrahah to be proven right or wrong or is it for fun where we could laugh to Abrahah? Is it for us to curse Abrahah after his misfortune? Or is it the moral teachings that we should absorb from what had been told?

For a believer and faithful Muslim, Quran is not a book of history! We do not treat Quran as history books, scientific books, and etc! We treat it as His Word where moral teachings and conducts being taught by the God to His servants as the sign of His Mercy and Love to the universe.

According to the Qudsi Hadith it was narrated that Muhammad s.a.w had passing the word of the God through Archangel Gabriel which says: "When a servant of the God is arrogant in claiming merits of his practices in the hereafter, the God will answer them: 'Didn't I had made wide (easy) for you, your position and rank in the ceremony of teaching lessons? Didn't I made you a leader of the world? Didn't I made easy for you, your business? Didn't you being respected in the world?!'" 

The hadith implies that a boasting person will never get any special treatment in the world nor in the hereafter. The Arabic term for this evil characteristic is رياء riyaa'. As what had been mentioned in the glorious Quran about Abrahah. Although he had build up a church which is a religious matter and a meritorious deeds but he didn't build it because of Him. He build it because he wanted to the people to acknowledge on how powerful he was in making the people turning to the church build by him. He had to bear humiliation while in the world where he died once he arrived in Sana'a. The madzmumah characteristics which is boasting had made all the meritorious deeds being wiped away.

What I would like to also emphasize in this post to missionaries no matter of Christian faith or of Islamic path and it of course include myself though I am not a missionary... When we perform the evangelical work or da'awa, had we really asked our heart? What exactly is our intention? We want for example a Muslim to be an apostate just to satisfy our heart because we could make he or she turn away from their religion solely because of the God or simply to prove and boast around that our path is true and could not be defeated? The same goes to Muslim and Jews and everyone who call themselves human with the faith toward the God...

The point is where is our sincerity because of the God when we did such an act? Many people looks like devoting themselves to the God and they look down to others as if others are ungodly but who we are to determine everyone's fate in the end? We read many stories from Bible or from Quran. But what had we learned? Is it only history part like what is shown in National Geography and some discussion by "scholars" or "historians" or "archeologists"? About radiocarbon tests? Are these things making a human behaving like a human-being? Or is it morality teaching passed by the God through His prophets and messengers by revelation?

In other hadiths, Muhammad s.a.w mentioned: "Indeed the paradise is talking. "Says paradise: "I am illegal for those who are skinny, a boast, slanderer and spite."

Scholars of Islam had divided arrogance into two which are the peculiar boasting and mixed boasting. Perhaps everyone including myself, pastors, evangelists around the world could also take this with consideration and by heart even if we consider each other as infidels : )

Peculiar Boasting 

It refers to someone who intended to get worldly benefits from his or her practices.

Mixed Boasting

Refers to a person who does everything with the intention to get benefits of world and hereafter. How many God that we want to serve and asking for benefit? LOL

Scholars also explained that there is no specific measurement for merit being decreased because of boasting. On the other hand, certain thing is that meritorious deeds could be decreased or rejected because of boasting. The reward for those who have this characteristic is being cast down into the Sijjin as what had been mentioned by a hadith which means: 

"When angels bringing the record of servants to the heavens with happiness, but the God suddenly says: 'Cast those practices into the Sijjin. The person is not performing those practices because of Me but for others.'"

In other narrations, it has been explained that during the Resurrection, there will be a calling which every creatures could listen to it... It sounds: "Hey you who worship human-being! Stand up! Take back all of the merits from what you did because of them. I refuse to accept anything associated with others (those who did that are polytheists!)."

Imam al-Ghazali said in the Ihyaa' Ulumuddin explained that a boast who will be rewarded with the consequences are those who boast in the meaning of the most evil boast. The person who boast are hypocrites showing that he or she is a faithful person and claimed that they are the believer of only the God orally or verbally, but the fact is that they actually never believe in Him nor even fear His torments. This characteristic is classified as a kind of hypocrisy. The boast of hypocrites will be rewarded the same as those who are stingy. It means that the person is stingy in the testament toward the God and His prophets and messengers.

This characteristic also contains a light polytheism in which if we keep it and exhibits it before the God, it will be worse and leading to greater polytheism, associating the God with others. Imam al-Ghazali further mentions, those who are still clinging to this characteristic will be dumped with evil consequences and will be classified as ingrates (infidels). If it still happens, a person then has no right to receive peaceful paradise or even smell the paradise. Muhammad s.a.w advised the nations of the period of the end, not to mention our own goodness or our people or our family because it could lead us to boasting and showing off. When a person boasts, it will lead to other soul diseases such as feeling surprised of ourselves or proud of our self. Then we begin to look down to others and we have 'supremacy' thoughts.

So, every believers must also realize that every good deed being performed actually comes from the God as He is the Creator Who decides the journey of servants in the life. Although we are encouraged to perform charity, we are reminded to avoid from polluting it with boasting. A person who is grateful to the God are actually a person who strive for goodness and charity while those who boast to others always think that they are better than others. 

Scholars had suggested that only sincerity could kill boasting characteristic in one self. As what had been mentioned by the God recorded in the glorious Quran: "And they are commanded to worship (serve) the God and sincere for Him in religion which is straight and to perform prayers and (serving the poor with) tithe. And that is the precious law (religion)." (Surah al-Bayyinah verse 5) 

The God further says which means: "Indeed We revealed to you the scripture (Quran) with truth, thus worship the God and purify obedience only for Him! 2 Remember that, pure (of polytheism) is the religion (and law) of the God. Whoever takes other than that and says: 'We are not worshiping them but only hoping for them to make us closer to the God.' Despite, the God will decide among them on what they had problematized. Indeed the God never guides those who are lying and not grateful 3." (Surah al-Zumar)

I wish that this is not only a good lesson for myself but for others no matter of what religion we are. Because each time we always see people who claim themselves as zealots and we could see people chopping each others head, attacking here and there not only in the real world but also in the net. So, what kind of characteristics that lead people to this? Then ask ourselves are we really monotheists who believe solely in the God? This is the core of Islamic Creed... The Creed toward the God which leads us to morality and civilized human-being. 

Our Lord please be in contact with noble prophet Muhammad s.a.w and his family as You had been in contact with our patriarch Abraham a.s and his family. Dear Lord, please bless noble prophet Muhammad s.a.w and his family as You had blessed our patriarch Abraham a.s and his family. In the universe, only You dear the God who worth the Praise and Glory. Sealed with prayers for mercy, peace, and love, amin!

Sunday, 23 October 2011

Jurisprudence : What is Fiqh or Jurisprudence?

Assalaamu'alaikum wa rahmatullah

This is the Chinese or perhaps Sino-Japanese depiction of King Yama. Buddhists always talk about him when it is regarding punishment that a person will get as a way to cleanse up one's karmma. Usually elders will threaten youngers that King Yama will cut our tongue if we tell lies to others as lying will also bring bad karmma. King Yama is a judge and the guardian of hell. Hindu-Buddhist kingdoms in South East Asia also had used Brahminical texts such as Tharmmasastram to derive code of conduct and legislation provisions in the kingdom or anachakra ruled by a king or chakravarttin. One of the law practiced in ancient Buddhist kingdoms such as of ancient Malay kingdoms are like Sulo or impalement to execute a woman who commit adultery or treason against the king.

We have many branches of knowledge and sciences in the studies of religion after the noble prophet Muhammad s.a.w who is our seal of prophethood had returned to His Mercy. One of them is called as Fiqh. 

So, straight to the point, what is Fiqh brethren? Roughly it is a science related to the Islamic jurisprudence. It is an expansion of the code of conduct where we call it as Shariah and expounded from the glorious Quran. Shariah usually is supplemented by the tradition of prophets and we call tradition as Sunnah of prophets. Sunnah of prophets were re-introduced again by the noble prophet Muhammad s.a.w and some came from him according to the period where he live. Shariah which consists of the conducts of life from the sources of Quran and Sunnah then will be implemented through rulings and interpretations of jurists whom we call as Qadhi. 

Sometimes I would also refer to Jesus Christ as a future Qadhi. I will always wait for his arrival and rulings if I do not die yet. It actually signifies the end of the world : ) We already have our own guidelines and we do not need others to teach us especially in our own countries. The God is teaching us with basic rulings and the observance of morality is considered as apart of the prevention of evil and crimes. We don't need secularism or French concepts of looking at this world. French are just human-being and human-being are imperfect. We also don't need Karl Marx to teach us or whatever ideology proposed by these people. Those ideologies are anathematized and not natural. I would translate the word anathematize for my Malaysian compatriots as dilaknat.  We refuse to accept their ideas as they also refused to accept others' ideas. If they perceive others as barbarians, we also perceive them as barbarians. 

我詛咒歐鬼的思想... 他們多數人不接收啟示然後他們學的事沒有天的指導和聖靈... 別人都可以說出來他們的偏見對我們的道,我們的聖人和穆斯林所以我也想嘗試看感覺是怎樣,哈哈哈... 我感覺很蠢...  

Fiqh deals with the observance of rituals, morals and social legislation in Islam. For Orthodox Sunnah Muslims, we have four schools of Fiqh established by four honorable imams which are Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi'ie and Hanbali. Our Shi'a Muslim brothers have two major schools of Fiqh inherited from Ja'afar as-Sadiq and Isma'ili Fatimiyya. Those who are trained in this science will be called as Fuqaha' (sing. Faqih). I am following and learning the method of Hanbali and most of brothers in Saudi Arabia are also following Hanbali methods. My brothers in Malaysia, Yemen, Lower Myanmar, Indonesia, and Southern Thailand are following Shafi'ie methods. My brothers in China and India are following Hanafi and those in Northern Africa in general are following Maliki methods. 

Definitions of Jurisprudence

Fiqh literally means the science of something in order to understand something, common sense in it, and the thought for the honor of the science of law as the quote from the glorious Quran where the God mentioned again what the people of Sho'ayb (Jethro) said to Sho'ayb a.s : "They said, o Sho'ayb! We do not understand many of what you had said and we indeed only see you as a weak person in front of us. If not because of your family, we would have thrown you with stones. And you are not respected for us." (Surah Huud verse 91). And the word understand in the verse signifies anything which lead people to think and ponder.

Terminologically, Fiqh means the science on the rulings of the way of leading life, practices, benefits, based from valid and accurate proofs in accordance to the origin of the fiqh or understanding.  

So, basically when newspapers wanted to tell everyone about this, they should also check the books and sources regarding this from the root source and not just from internet googling or by reading something at the surface. Reporters today are just as ignorant and irresponsible as the mat rempits who illegally racing on the road and later banging young bitchy girls if they won the illegal race. Orientalists, they went to study these too but they were also bias. The same thing also happen to some Muslims who just google up this and that about other system of belief or faith or reading certain blog related to some nonsense conspiracy theories which denies the Wisdom of the God the Most Highest. 

My past experience as a "deviant Muslim" boy for few years in my life had also helped me to understand many things and I found that bashing others are just making people mind restless and later it affects the environment around. These kind of people would put some information in their sites or books and they later including their opinions based from their hatred to others, irrationality, unstable emotion or based from their perception game. Nothing is better than whatever they think because the thing which they prefer will eventually come to their favor. They could not propagate anything without telling that others are less better than them. Later others who had never read root sources and sharing the same hatred would also use the points from that and spread it worldwide. Again, these sick people no matter Muslims or non-Muslims need heart and soul purification. They would also easily being affected by diseases and die early I could assure this because not only glorious Quran talked about people who bite their fingers because of baseless anger but also the teachings that I had followed for some times which was Buddhism : )

Regarding science in religion, Ibnu Khaldun in his book Muqaddima (Introduction) had divided science into two branches :

I. Rational ones which have been generated by human intellect. Another one is revelational which is received through revelation and transmitted to others such as what happened to prophets for example the noble prophet Muhammad s.a.w who had received knowledge through revelation and not from studying it in school and he then transmitted it orally to his companions, contemporary, people around him, and later generations.

II. Excludes the use of intellect as far as its reception, reporting, and transmission are concerned. It relates to injunctions of secondary report, derived from usool or origin, calls it into play one's intellect and ability to exercise analogical reasoning. Fiqh is included in this second category. It is a product of later generations since companions of prophet Muhammad s.a.w do not need its formulation into a new branch of science as the law-submitter or the prophet and messenger of the God was still around with them. They may straight away ask the prophet s.a.w for clarification or looking at how he acts when they are not clear on something.

Sources for Legislation Reference

Many people can understand about British Common Law on how the decisions were derived. Whether from past cases as examples for rulings of court or from the jurists decision like some raping cases in the United States. I do watched American short series but I can't remember all of them. Some scene, I still could remember. 

I also learned legal language which involved the Common Law and Tort Law during our translation and interpretation class where one of our lecturer is a Sikh lawyer whose name is Harpal Singh. Well, many students especially girls love him and he is a single guy in the middle age. For me, he is a generous guy who donated a lot to students in order to make class more lively and interactive. I gave all of the food that I get from his class to my roommate, brother Zaydi simply because his father name is Hussein and I want him to be my imam in prayer services in our room. I think he must thought that I was crazy, hahaha. I was also fasting to calm down my mind at that time but I could not waste the food so I just offer them to my roommate and sometimes if I have vegetarian meals I would also offer them to some Hindu friends neighboring my room. At least my acquaintance and friends are healthy and they could save their money, I would be very happy : ) I treated brother Zaydi badly in the beginning simply because he is a Kelantanese and I was also influenced by bad talks of people around. It has to do with misconception and generalization too that we become racist, no? We never have any contact with majority of certain people that we don't really like so we created some negative image for something that we had never experienced. Just get a life and do beneficial things like enhancing amity among human, environment, and animals instead of spreading hatred just because of differences and misconception...

From what I had also learned in our masjids and school for final exam for the course of Islamic Rulings and Legislation, our sources for rulings and details must be obviously come from :  

1. The Glorious Quran.
2. Sunnah or the prophetic traditions and Orthodox Sunnah Muslim have four major methods.
3. Ijma' (agreement) between jurists and ulamas.
4. Qiyyas or common sense for matters which had never happened during prophetic era like smoking which kills others because of the smoke is harmful for human health and environment or rulings regarding the selling of harmful drugs or cracks. It needs human intellectual consideration and jurists need to think or using their head. It also needs researches and evidences.
5. Sources of rulings and legislation from the Ahlul Bayt.     

The Root of Fiqh

What is the root of Fiqh? It refers to methods which had been implied within the derivation of the development of legal provisions of the way from detailed and discreet proofs. On the other hand, the root of Fiqh which places the root or basic methods to develop jurisdiction and legal provisions according to clear Divine guidance and guidelines. The relevance of Fiqh is for jurists to derive legal provisions and rulings with clear evidence in order to implement the execution of nature laws from it.

While for the root of Fiqh, its motive is to to find clear evidence from where emerged the object of evidence on the legal provisions. And each that had been stated from the agreement and consideration based on common sense which falls under the name (of legal opinion) which includes :

1. Plaudits : It is reversing the jurisdiction of the way for example on the provisions on what had been perceived to face is stronger and reversing the jurists.

2. Sent Interests : The meanings or the matters which are linked to the jurisdiction and developed upon it and causing damage or harmful to human society however yet it is always being discussed. 

3. Known to people : It means legal opinions which is based on customs and norms. Custom or norms which is known to people, whatever had been in the character of speech, verbal, their way of thinking, and whatever is accepted and not accepted by the norms of society being repeated until it is accepted by the jurists and there are also other sources to derive opinion on jurisdiction between trained jurists in addition to whatever had already existed in agreement of jurists and various of considerations whether the past or through any other methods proposed by jurists. Sometimes those in India or Pakistan also seeking Brahmin priests to derive law and the effect is that, we can see people without nose or ears because those priests are using Tharmmasastram and Puranas in the derivation of customary law. Media then capture the pics and showing it to lazy people or those who has no feet to come to talk with real people asking this and that.

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