Permitting the Prohibited and Prohibiting the Permissible: Rethinking Islamic Law

Muslims are experiencing problems, because they veered from the right path. The drift was precipitated by a reorientation from revelation to tradition. But tradition does not guide as well as revelation. The reorientation transpired during the emergence of autocratic rule. The reason for the reorientation was politics. Hawkish rulers required an endorsement of unlawful wars of territorial enlargement under the banner of Islam. Accordingly, they engaged like-minded ulama for the task. The ulama could not find a justification for waging wars of aggression in revelation. Thus, they turned to tradition. The turn from revelation to traditions was reflected in the recording of traditions. It was expedited by the repression of reason. But the repression of reason produced troubling side-effects. It resulted in a misunderstanding of the Book of Allah. Because of the reticence to engage reason in the interpretation of revelation, different verses in revelation struck exegetes as "unclear, ' "insufficiently detailed," and "contradictory." The reluctance to use reason detached the umma from its religion by preventing the umma from understanding the Book. For following the Book requires understanding the Book. Attaining knowledge in turn requires the engagement of reason. The ulama justified wars of aggression by transforming the teaching of revelation into a manifesto of war. The transformation was achieved by the weaponization of exegesis and jurisprudence. The ulama reinvented jurisprudence and exegesis as intellectual weapons of war. The turn from revelation to tradition was an epistemic paradigm shift of epic proportions. It represented a break from both revelation and tradition. The revelation-centric epistemological paradigm yielded to a tradition-centric paradigm. But that the tradition-centric paradigm is tainted by perceptions that contradict the teaching of revelation. The repression of reason by Muslim tradition ensured that revelation would be misunderstood. Reason is gift from Allah. To reject the blessing of reason reveals ingratitude, a form of kufr. Reason is disparaged by persons that feel threatened by it. The fear of reason precipitated the extermination of 5,000 rationalists by Musa al-Hadi during the mihna or Inquisition of 786. The killing of the philosophers confirms that "orthodoxy" was established by force rather than arguments. The persons that perpetrated this atrocity were not well versed in argumentation. Thus, they resorted to violence to force their perceptions on the umma through coercion, prohibited by revelation. The misunderstanding of revelation was compounded by traditional exegesis, which requires understanding revelation through the lens of tradition. Traditional exegesis treats tradition as a furqan of revelation. This is reflected in the perceptions that tradition "judges" revelation, and that revelation requires tradition more than tradition requires revelation. But treating tradition as the furqan of revelation reverses the relationship between revelation and tradition and subordinates revelation to tradition. The assumptions that render the traditional exegesis unreliable comprise the perception that reason is an adversary of revelation, that reason is subordinate to tradition, and that tradition "judges," "abrogates," and "replaces" parts of revelation. The repression of reason enabled the emergence of perceptions that defy revelation, the perceptions that revelation is "unclear," "incomplete," and "incoherent." Problematic assumptions encompass the perception that tradition is "equal" to revelation and that tradition is a root of the sharia. These perceptions generated unwelcome effects. The allegation that tradition is equal to revelation embedded scriptural shirk in exegesis. The perception that tradition may "abrogate" and replace the rulings of revelation by rulings from tradition embedded juristic shirk in traditional jurisprudence.

• | Author: Leslie Terebessy
• | Publisher: Independently Published
• | Publication Date: Mar 09, 2023
• | Number of Pages: 254 pages
• | Binding: Paperback or Softback
• | ISBN-13: 9798386388652