KR

Self-diagnosis and self-medication are fine, but you alone are liable for your actions. You cannot blame a medical professional for any harm that ensues, even though that physician may have said the same thing in another context. Likewise, all what pro se ifta - self-administering fatwa - means is that you are removing the mufti from the equation and taking full responsibility for your practice in the eyes of Allah. An over reliance on analogy and broad principles might land you in error. Similarly, online fatwa websites might offer a fatwa that might be unsuitable or incorrect for your circumstances. This is a problem that most online fatwa websites seldom acknowledge or highlight. Also, a mufti (a proper one, not a parrot) might be able to offer you an easy opinion that you might not be aware of. In fact, if you are lucky, a mufti might be able to assume the responsibility for issuing you a dispensation fatwa that others might not. This is also why it is recommended for Joe Bloggs Al-Fulani to built a rapport with his local scholar, who would then be more open to finding a better solution for him, rather than going in cold and him not knowing whether you will abuse his fatwa or not. This is why there are countless warnings against ifta, not because it is wrong per se - in fact it is a communal obligation - but because it is a highway to Hell if misused or abused. This is also why parrot ifta is extremely dangerous. The religious mandate in ifta is Shariah-wide, Madhhab-agnostic. Ifta in the understanding of the Quran and Sunnah was naturally not confined to a particular process or school. It is about the end result, i.e., the fatwa that the questioner takes home. Ifta is a synthesis between evidence and scholarly precedent. A parrot mufti thinks he is on the Haqq when constricting himself to a school and passes fatwa accordingly, not realising that his first and foremost duty and loyalty is to the Shariah by finding an answer that is suitable and digestible for the questioner, not the internal machinations of his Madhhab. A mufti is in a position of responsibility and care that cannot be fobbed off just because he is trained in one school only. Half knowledge is the most dangerous form of knowledge. Highlighting the importance of precedence, Banuri (d. 1397 AH) was of the view that if an opinion of found in another school, then that is to be given preference over a new rule derived from the analogies of your own school. Coming back to the issue of the mufti understanding both his responsibility to a questioner and his duty to being aware of various religious views across the spectrum, the discussion between Ibn ‘l-Qasim (d. 191 AH) and his son - when they had moved from Madinah to Egypt after his lengthy tutelage under Imam Malik (d. 179 AH) - sheds some light: أَخْبَرَنَا عَبْدُ الْوَارِثِ بْنُ سُفْيَانَ قَالَ حَدَّثَنَا مُحَمَّدُ بْنُ عِيسَى قَالَ حَدَّثَنَا أَبُو بَكْرٍ قَالَ حَدَّثَنَا مُحَمَّدُ بْنُ الْأَصْبَغِ يُعْرَفُ بِابْنِ مَلِيحٍ قَالَ حَدَّثَنَا مِقْدَامُ بْنُ دَاوُدَ عَنْ عَمِّهِ سَعِيدِ بْنِ تَلِيدٍ أَنَّ عَبْدَ الرَّحْمَنِ بْنَ الْقَاسِمَ أَفْتَى ابْنَهُ عَبْدَ الصَمَدِ - وَكَانَ حَلَفَ بِالْمَشْيِ إِلَى مَكَّةَ فَحَنِثَ - بِكَفَّارَةِ يَمِينٍ. قَالَ: وَحَلَفَ مَرَّةً أُخْرَى بِصَدَقَةِ مَا يَمْلِكُ وَحَنِثَ فَأَفْتَاهُ بِكَفَّارَةِ يَمِينٍ، وَقَالَ لَهُ: إِنِّي قَدْ أَفْتَيْتُكَ بِقَوْلِ اللَّيْثِ، فَإِنْ عُدْتَ فَلَا أُفْتِكَ إِلَّا بِقَوْلِ مَالِكٍ -الاستذكار لابن عبد البر Note how he is prepared to pass fatwa according to different views on different occasions to the same questioner, and that his initial answer is ostensibly not even his own. Note also how the questioner - his son - does not self-administer the fatwa of Layth to himself, but rather he relies on the fatwa of his father and throws the burden of responsibility on him. That is what both sensible muftis and mustaftis do.

From Akhbaar abi hanifa… the faqeeh finds ways to keep the family together… الفقيه لا يخرب البيوت I have personally witnessed some deo molvis destroy families because of their unwillingness to give fatwas outside of the madhab…

I could point to numerous other factors why the Hanafi School should not be adopted by prospective students, but I will make the above the final one. Concluding, I hope this here is sufficient for a prospective student of Fiqh to mull over. For a seasoned Hanafi who might disagree with the above – which I am sure there might be some; they are entitled to their opinion, though the facts speak for themselves – I believe there is enough for us to be humble – and proud – about our school. وما علينا إلا البلاغ Disclaimer 1: The Hanafi School will nonetheless work very well for some student profiles. And some may not have a choice. The remarks above are not applicable to them. Still, any student would do well by doing his/her best to mitigate the aforementioned factors. Disclaimer 2: Some reasons highlighted are not exclusive to the Hanafi School. The focus in this thread however – which was an answer to a question – is on the Hanafi School. I'll leave graduates of other schools to wade in on their own respective schools at their discretion. Disclaimer 3: I acknowledge the specific unique rulings of ease the Hanafi School possesses, which all other schools adopt, as well as the weak opinion in other schools. But the question here was about the base school of training in Fiqh for prospective students. Disclaimer 4: Prospective students are advised to sought an array of views that will best inform them which school to select before they embark on their study. Both the pros and cons of each school are necessary. Certainly no school will be harmed if it is not chosen by a student. Nobody is giving a student a stipend for choosing a school, which was the case in the Mamluk Era with the school-based Awqaf, so the decision does not have to be tainted or compromised by monetary considerations like was the case for many back then. Consider the advice here akin to advice offered to a prospective spouse looking at marrying someone: people should be as honest as possible about the challenges and potential cons faced by students of a school. It is with that spirit that this has been written. Plenty has been written in favour of adopting the Hanafi School, both classically and in modern times, in books and online. Much of it is a miss. Certainly, the virtues of Imam Abu Hanifah are great, but will do little in terms of compatibility between prospective student and the inevitable ‘later Hanafi School’ programme they will go through. I thought this thoughts might help some make a more informed and balanced decision. Alternative perspectives on the suitability of the Hanafi School for a neutral student, and/or additional points of benefit/challenges when studying the school are always welcome. (End)

(11) Related to the previous point touching on formalities, the Ifta model as is set out in the Rasm ‘l-Mufti of the school, is not only outdated harking back to a Muslim Hanafi state’s civil code, it favours procedure in jurisconsultancy over legal flexibility and Maqasid-based Ijtihad, which is vital for a student in this era. Instead of that, Ifta has been training in parroting precedent, which is detrimental to the development of Muftis who, on occasions, come up with the most ludicrous of verdicts and post them online for the entire world to see. The issue of alternative modes of Ifta has been addressed elsewhere so I will not repeat here. (12) Not renowned for extensive implementation of the principle at its inception, the later Hanafi School has been wreaking havoc with itself when it comes to the application of Sadd ‘l-Dhari’ah, with no defined standards or parameters in place. What is worse is that once applied and agreed upon by a group of scholars within the school, reversing Sadd ‘l-Dhari’ah based on new data or compelling alternative data is seldom considered. This has adversely affected the relevance and quality of the school in later centuries, especially in the modern era. This has been addressed elsewhere so I will not repeat that here. (13) Hanafi Usul, known as the method of the Fuqaha, is inductive and inward looking, for the large part. Its Usul are geared for the defence of the school as its primary objective, not for deduction from the Quran and Sunnah, which is how the other school’s Usul is set up. As a result, the study of Hanafi Usul – or Rasm ‘l-Mufti for that matter – does not offer a pathway to Ijtihad. Any expertise in Ijtihad that is developed is through routes that fall outside these models of study. Yes they do help to an extent, but a Hanafi student is still in need of studying the Usul in accordance with the method of the Mutakallimun. This is why it is some later Hanafis who took the initiative to combine the two methods of Usul writing, like Ibn ‘l-Sa’ati and Ibn ‘l-Humam, to address this. deficiency. As a result of being the most self-indulgent of all the schools, and because the later school owned its defensive approach, it exercises an extremely hostile attitude to others, especially the Shafi’i School. This has led to strawmanning and misrepresentation of the other schools, through which the later Hanafi School writings come out quite poorly. Not only that, but the chances are that if there are four equal students, each studying their own respective school’s programme to a decent degree of proficiency, the Hanafi student will be the least acquainted with the true nature of the other schools. (End of the 13 points)

(9) This is related to the eighth point. The influence of Central Asians on the school’s development between 450 and 800 AH is far more pronounced than that of the Iraqis, Syrians, and Egyptians. This is evident in the pedagogy and the outlook of the school. The rigidity inherent in that strand has also permeated the school, sometimes to the detriment of the intellectual well-being of Hanafis who continue to take their positions as universal when in fact they could be contextualised – like their views on stubbornly sticking to a school. Their unique positions are taken as normative; any other approaches are taken as heterodox at worst, and ‘non-conforming with the normative’ at best. Rigidity – or adherence to the so-called Mu’tamad, or “Mufta Bihi” as per parlance – has been favoured over plurality. This rigidity extends to even the Hanafi Imams, whose have been subjected to the whims of later Hanafis appointed themselves as judge and jury over which opinions of the Imams should be taken as most authoritative, and in some instances the other view(s) is rejected. Prospective students who want to embrace the plurality of the school might be disappointed if they do not get the right teachers. (10) According to some, like Thanwi, the Hanafi School is the superior school because it has been tried and tested as the language of empire, spanning the Abbasid, Mughal (and its predecessor the Delhi Sultanate), Seljuks, Timurids, and Ottoman Empires among other relatively lower profile ones like the various Khanates, the Ghurids, the Emirate of Afghanistan of the 19th century, the Golden Horde, Kashgaria, et al. This is false. Most states were quite pragmatic, conveniently adopting views from other schools wherever and whenever required, especially those rulers who presided over Muslim populations from other schools. For example, the Abbasids preferred the views of Ibn Abbas over Abu Hanifah. the Ottomans themselves went through an evolution: they initially forced the top scholars of other schools to become Hanafis; when that did not work, what emerged was a healthy industry of multi-Madhhab institutions, though the judiciary was largely based on the Hanafi model. As time went by, the vicissitudes of time meant the Ottoman Hanafis were forced into reform, which is represented in the Mecelle-i Ahkâm-ı Adliye that incorporates a significant number of non-Hanafi views, or non-mainstream Hanafi views. But that legal reform had come too late, when the European powers had eclipsed the Ottomans. (The Hanafi School is like a corporation that imbibed all the characteristics of formality and structure. One might even say it is like tanker that takes an age to change course – sometimes to disastrous consequences, like in the Fatawa pertaining of Musaharah and divorce, changing track only when Muslims start falling into apostacy or – worse still – become Salafi. ) The same is the case – perhaps to an even worse extent – for the Mughal Empire – whose Fatawa Alamgiri compilation was somewhat of a disaster (that is another point) – where a ruling by scholars could be overruled by a Farman by the Mughal Emperor. This strange compensatory superiority complex (in relation to the aforementioned inferiority complex) gives rise to a psychological paradox in the school that has centuries old, and it is something that will probably never be resolved. I can say with some confidence that this is not a problem faced by other schools.

(7) This is related to the sixth point. Hanafi pedagogy is very light on acknowledging the distinction between the different geographical and cultural strands of the school. Also, Hanafi students are not exposed to the very real differences in legal approaches between the Iraqi and Central Asian strands of the school. Within the Central Asians, there are further sub-strands: the Bukharan, the Samarqandi, and the Balkhi strands, among others. Furthermore, the later Hanafi School also has rich regional traditions that developed in the Sub-Continent, Iraq, Syria, and Egypt. But regions such as Russia and China are largely ignored, or have fallen by the wayside, oftentimes brought to the fore by Orientalists – who ironically serve as a bridge between these ‘Hanafi regions’ – before any Muslim Hanafi scholar. The notion of the Hanafi School being the largest in terms of its followership rings hollow when most Hanafi students and scholars cannot even access the other. Even as the immigrant populations from the Sub-Continent lose touch with the native language of the Sub-Continent, there will be a detachment that ensues, with Urdu-only speakers and English-only speakers within the school having no access to one another’s works. This is on top of how detached many Hanafis have become from the Persian works of the. . . school. There is no school that is more compartmentalised and mutually detached within itself than the Hanafi School. In this regard, the Hanafi School is extremely tough to gain mastery in. (8) This is related to the seventh point. Most Usuli positions discussed in later Hanafi Usul texts hail from the Iraqi Mu’tazilites, as highlighted by Dr Haytham Khaznah. On the other hand, most Fatawa in Fiqh hail from Central Asia. The two regions were not aligned until at least 500 AH, and then the process of amalgamation started, but that too took around a couple of centuries in order for scholarship to be fully shared with each other. The later Hanafi School, post-amalgamation, is a Talfiq of epic proportions. It should be noted that both the Iraqi and the Central Asian sub-schools are fully fledged schools of law in their own right. They ought to be studied separately across the Fiqh and Usul subjects. But somehow, they are presented as one and united. Although the overall Hanafi affiliation in both is the same, the differences between the two are slightly more than, let’s say, the difference between rugby union and rugby league. That should be acknowledged and the two both deserve their own streams of study and progression.

(5) This is related to the fourth point. Due to the excessive anti-Ahl ‘l-Hadith sentiment in the period immediately after the Imams of the school, later Hanafi attempts to rehabilitate themselves as defenders of the science of Hadith have largely fallen flat. Beyond offering commentaries on hadith, the school has an unsavoury tendency of remoulding hadiths in the defence of the school, a problem acknowledged by Muhammad Shafi Usmani (though most among contemporary Hanafis have paid no heed to his advice). After the formulative period, only a few Hanafis truly married Fiqh with Hadith as how it was actualised by the Ahl ‘l-Hadith, such as Tahawi, Zayla’i, Mughlatay, and to an extent Ibn ‘l-Humam, Ayni, and Kashmiri. The faux importance to Hadith given by many later Hanafis is not to serve Hadith, but to selfishly serve its own Fiqh. This can also be gleaned by how Hanafis generally teach Hadith: much of it is geared to the defence of the school, rather than an actual study of the science of Hadith, or Sina’ah Hadithiyyah as they say. It can also be gleaned from the fact that many, many Hanafi authors in Fiqh and Usul were paupers in Hadith, carelessly citing narrations that are weak, extremely weak, and even outright baseless fabrications. This pedagogical problem is recognised by a number of contemporary authors. Prospective students of the Hanafi School should proceed with caution. (6) This is related to the fifth point. Because the school’s later writings are largely geared to the school’s defence, they are defensive in nature. This is a point nobody can deny. This has also bred a huge inferiority complex in the school in relation to other schools. It is now part of the psychological DNA of the school and is very hard to snap out – unless one ties himself to the Hadith experts within the school according to the Manhaj of the Ahl ‘l-Hadith – who are few and far between – or directly ties himself with the Mutaqaddimun of the school, i. e. , the Imams and the early Kufan school. Part of that inferiority complex is to use the Shafi’i or Hanbali Schools, or indeed any ancient Ahl ‘l-Hadith scholar for that matter, in support of the school’s position. It is also for the same reason why certain Hanafi positions in Usul are buttressed by statements from Ahl ‘l-Hadith scholars. An example that comes to mind is how both Ibn Hazm and Ibn ‘l-Qayyim’s praising assessments of the Hanafi School are used by later Hanafis to justify the school’s (alleged) position on preferring weak hadith of analogy, or how Ibn Taymiyyah’s statement is used to verify a Hanafi position by Ibn Abidin, or how some authors appeal to the likes of Bukhari or even Albani. The appeal to non-Hanafis is a common feature in the late Hanafi School, which for argumentation and debate might be fine but the constant nature seeking validation from outside the school can come across as off-putting to some.

(3) This is related to the second point. Jassas was a bona fide Mu'tazili (and not merely influenced by I’tizal, as some would claim). His teacher Abu ‘l-Hasan al-Karkhi, a Hanafi authority in both Fiqh and Usul, was a Mu'tazili. Jassas’ main Usul authority was Isa ibn Aban, was also a Mu'tazili. Hanafi judges in and around the era of Ma’mun, Mu’tazim, and Wathiq rubberstamped Mu'tazilite theology, which temporarily became state policy – the same policy that led to Ahmad ibn Hanbal being lashed in prison, Ahmad ibn Nasr al-Khuza'i's murder and headless body being crucified in central square of Samarra for years while his head was paraded miles away in all corners of Baghdad, Nu’aym ibn Hammad being thrown into a ditch without any shrouding, and Buwayti dying in prison with his hands and feet in iron chains. All of the aforementioned Hanafi Mu’tazili scholars and others, notwithstanding their piety, looked at those Hanafis who were responsible perpetrated these terrible things to the Ahl ‘l-Hadith in the Caliph’s Court – like Ahmad ibn Abi Du’ad, Bishr al-Marisi, both Hanafis – with either reverence or ambivalence (I am aware Ibn Aban wrote a refutation on Marisi; Shafi’i and Abu Yusuf also wrote refutations on Muhammad and Awza’i, respectively, so that objection is redundant one to me). It was only the political power of Abbasid caliph al-Qadir Billah in the early 5th century that really clamped down on I’tizal, and curtailed the Mu’tazili Hanafis in Iraq. There was certainly nothing organic to the Hanafi School that can be identified as being responsible for the removal of these Mu’tazilites and its embedded anti-Ahl ‘l-Hadith sentiments. Therefore, it is fact that the anti-Ahl ‘l-Hadith sentiment permeated Hanafi Usul from its very inception. One only needs to look at how Jassas himself treated Shafi’i and Malik in his al-Fusul; as for Ahmad, he rarely ever even mentions him in any of his works unless as a narrator in a chain of hadith when presenting an argument. None of this would not have been a significant issue if the later school was open about the profiles of its first Usulis’ origins, but these events and developments were brushed away under the carpet and were never properly addressed in terms of these scholars’ theological impact on the development of the school’s Usul. Prospective students of Fiqh ought to be aware of the I’tizal influence on the school and its unflattering history with the Ahl ‘l-Hadith. (4) This is related to the third point. The anti-Ahl ‘l-Hadith sentiment manifested in a number of ways, whether by nefarious intentions or outright error, the legacies of which permeated the Hanafi School and lingered on for centuries, even though later efforts to extricate the school from this are notable. One of these is the early Hanafi Usulis’ terrible position on Abu Hurayrah, inspired no doubt from the erroneous view of Ibrahim al-Nakha’i but rendered into an infamous principle, which erroneously spoke to the Ijtihadi workings of Abu Hanifah et al. Attempts to rehabilitate the image of the school on this issue are evident across many Hanafi works. Another is its horrendous position on the status of Mursal, and weak hadiths in general. This point has been a wedge against having a single platform for debate and discussion between Hanafis and non-Hanafis in later centuries, and has also been a catalyst for the pseudo-science that is Hanafi Usul of Hadith, the dangerous nature of which has been addressed elsewhere. Those looking to choose a school should be cognizant of fact such as this, whereby they would inevitably have to countenance between juggling between two sets of Usul in Hadith and be intellectually fatigued by the one concocted by the Hanafis, ostensibly all in defence of their own school and not because the science of Hadith demanded it.

Replicating here for readability: Thread on choosing a Madhhab, and some information on the Hanafi School. This is in response to a question on my remark regarding which school a prospective student embarking on higher Islamic legal studies should choose, the potential pitfalls in selecting the Hanafi School, and why a prospective student should instead look at other schools as the basis of Fiqh learning. Disclaimers are at the end, though on this issue, I feel that the disclaimers are for dense simpletons who have been raised on cocktails of how great the Hanafi School is and how other schools are supposedly in its orbit and are supposedly in its debt. Thirteen reasons are offered: (1) For over a millennium, the Hanafi School has been an accumulation of scholarship, with many views, proofs, and arguments added to the school that were not present in the original school. On occasions, this is a good thing. But many a time, when these interpolations are afforded canonical status, then it can be a problem. Whereas one might firmly subscribe to the school's position, that doesn't mean one must also defend the evidence used by a later scholar in favour of that opinion. Most books conflate the evidence of the Imams with the evidence of later scholars. Most books also conflate the Fatawa of the Imam with the Takhrijat of later Mashayikh. It is a particular problem that Shah Waliyyullah highlighted. Additionally, many of the logical proofs, or analogies, that were used to buttress the position of the Imams simply fall flat. In fact, many a time, the actual evidence used by the Imams rarely gets a look in and is never employed or discussed. Discerning students with their wits about them will end up spending years on end attempting to sieve out these various elements, especially if they are brought up with the standard texts of the school. Most are not discerning and never end up doing so. (2) This is related to the first point. Most of the key Usul discussed in the books of Usul of the Hanafis are highly questionable in their ascription to the Imams. Almost all Usul are derived from the legal opinions of the Imams. The reality is almost all of the legwork for Hanafi Usul was done by Jassas. Everything is seen through the lens of Jassas. Any deviance from the understanding of Jassas is pretty much the exception that proves the rule. All Usul are built on Jassas. The question then becomes whether Jassas' understanding of Hanafi Usul should be afforded the status as something definitively espoused by the earliest Imams of the school. When signing up to the school, the question a student should ask is whether he/she is also prepared to have a later scholar like Jassas – or Dabusi, Sarakhsi, Quduri, etc. , who are centuries removed from the inception of the school – as absolute authorities of the jurisprudence of the school. Some views ascribed to the Imam Abu Hanifah can only be found with Sarakhsi, who was three centuries removed. Prospective students should be willing to reconcile themselves with such anomalies.

الطرق الحكمية في السياسة الشرعية ط الفوائد (1/ 399-400) ( فَصْلٌ ) قَالَ شَيْخُنَا ابْنُ تَيْمِيَّةَ رَحِمَهُ اللَّهُ تَعَالَى : قَوْله تَعَالَى : { فَإِنْ لَمْ يَكُونَا رَجُلَيْنِ فَرَجُلٌ وَامْرَأَتَانِ مِمَّنْ تَرْضَوْنَ مِنْ الشُّهَدَاءِ أَنْ تَضِلَّ إحْدَاهُمَا فَتُذَكِّرَ إحْدَاهُمَا الْأُخْرَى } ، فِيهِ دَلِيلٌ عَلَى أَنَّ اسْتِشْهَادَ امْرَأَتَيْنِ مَكَانَ رَجُلٍ إنَّمَا هُوَ لِإِذْكَارِ إحْدَاهُمَا الْأُخْرَى إذَا ضَلَّتْ ، وَهَذَا إنَّمَا يَكُونُ فِيمَا يَكُونُ فِيهِ الضَّلَالُ فِي الْعَادَةِ ، وَهُوَ النِّسْيَانُ وَعَدَمُ الضَّبْطِ ، وَإِلَى هَذَا الْمَعْنَى أَشَارَ النَّبِيُّ صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ حَيْثُ قَالَ : " وَأَمَّا نُقْصَانُ عَقْلِهِنَّ : فَشَهَادَةُ امْرَأَتَيْنِ بِشَهَادَةِ رَجُلٍ " ، فَبَيَّنَ أَنَّ شَطْرَ شَهَادَتِهِنَّ إنَّمَا هُوَ لِضَعْفِ الْعَقْلِ لَا لِضَعْفِ الدِّينِ ، فَعُلِمَ بِذَلِكَ أَنَّ عَدْلَ النِّسَاءِ بِمَنْزِلَةِ عَدْلِ الرِّجَالِ ، وَإِنَّمَا عَقْلُهَا يَنْقُصُ عَنْهُ ، فَمَا كَانَ مِنْ الشَّهَادَاتِ لَا يُخَافُ فِيهِ الضَّلَالُ فِي الْعَادَةِ ، لَمْ تَكُنْ فِيهِ عَلَى نِصْفِ رَجُلٍ ، وَمَا تُقْبَلُ فِيهَا شَهَادَتُهُنَّ مُنْفَرِدَاتٍ ، إنَّمَا هِيَ أَشْيَاءُ تَرَاهَا بِعَيْنِهَا ، أَوْ تَلْمِسُهَا بِيَدِهَا ، أَوْ تَسْمَعُهَا بِأُذُنِهَا مِنْ غَيْرِ تَوَقُّفٍ عَلَى عَقْلٍ ، كَالْوِلَادَةِ وَالِاسْتِهْلَالِ ، وَالِارْتِضَاعِ ، وَالْحَيْضِ ، وَالْعُيُوبِ تَحْتَ الثِّيَابِ ، فَإِنَّ مِثْلَ هَذَا لَا يُنْسَى فِي الْعَادَةِ وَلَا تَحْتَاجُ مَعْرِفَتُهُ إلَى إعْمَالِ الْعَقْلِ ، كَمَعَانِي الْأَقْوَالِ الَّتِي تَسْمَعُهَا مِنْ الْإِقْرَارِ بِالدَّيْنِ وَغَيْرِهِ ، فَإِنَّ هَذِهِ مَعَانٍ مَعْقُولَةٌ ، وَيَطُولُ الْعَهْدُ بِهَا فِي الْجُمْلَةِ . Our teacher Ibn Taymiyyah, may Allah have mercy on him, states, “Allah’s statement, ‘If there are not two men available, then a man and two women from those you accept as witnesses, so that if one of them errs, the other can remind her’ [Qur'an 2:282] is proof that the requirement of two women in place of one man is due to one reminding the other if she errs. This only applies in those cases where error is common, and what is meant is: forgetfulness and lack of precision. This meaning was indicated by the Prophet (ﷺ) when he said: ‘As for the deficiency in their intellect, it is because the testimony of two women is equivalent to the testimony of one man.’ He clarified that this deficiency in their testimony is due to the weakness in their intellect, not due to a deficiency in their religion. From this, it is understood that the integrity of women is on par with the integrity of men, but their intellect is less than that of men. Therefore, for testimonies where there is no usual fear of error, they are not equivalent to half of a man. Furthermore, their testimony is accepted independently in matters that they observe with their own eyes, touch with their own hands, or hear with their own ears, without needing to exercise intellect, such as childbirth, the cry of a newborn, breastfeeding, menstruation, or defects under clothing. Such matters are not usually forgotten, nor do they require the use of intellect to be known, unlike the meanings of statements they hear, such as acknowledgment of debt or similar matters, which are intellectual concepts that are subject to long-term memory.” (Ibn al-Qayyim, al-Turuq al-Hukmiyyah, vol. 1 pp. 399-400)

Daryabadi with this gem on women's testimony

S. Hatim's book, previously reviewed by Dr. ZC

The book in question

سئل شيخنا المحدّث الشريف حاتم العوني عن الكتاب المرفق فأجاب بما يلي : وقفت على كتاب د/ فهد الفهيد الذي يرد فيه على كتيبي (مفهوم شرك العبادة) والذي سماه بـ(نقض كتاب مفهوم شرك العبادة)، وهو في أكثر من ٨٠٠ صفحة . وكما كنت أتوقع : عجز عن الإتيان بتعريف للعبادة يفرق بين العبادة التوحيدية والعبادة الشركية ، واستكثر من النقل بلا فقه ، وحاد عن عامة ما ذكرته في كتابي بأمور لا علاقة لها بالإشكال العلمي ، ووقع في تناقضات عجيبة لا تقع من طالب علم . وأما تقديم سماحة المفتي وفقه الله وتقديم معالي الوزير الشيخ صالح آل الشيخ (وفقه الله)، فما زاد إلا تأكيدا على أنني أخالفهما علميا في هذه المسألة ، وهو أمر يعرفه عني القاصي والداني ، فما كان يُنتظر إلا أن يقدما له . ومسائل العلم يُعرف صوابها من دليلها ، والحمد لله أن كتابي على صغر حجمه قد حوى من الاستدلال بالآيات والأحاديث الصحيحة وفق فهم أئمة الإسلام ما يبين الصواب من الغلط ، وهو على صغر حجمه احتاج لأكثر من ٨٠٠ صفحة من الرد البعيد عن حقيقة الرد ، وسيبقى الحق منصورا ببراهينه ، لا بغير ذلك من كل أمر أجنبي عنها !

^ rescheduled to 11am London with apologies

Live access only for non-subscribers: https://legacy.institute/product/advanced-hanafi-usul-al-jassas/ Topic: TLI - Advanced Hanafi Usul: Al Jassas : Lesson 39 : Sunnah 6/8 : Mursal Sunday 20 Oct 2024 10:00am London The Legacy Institute is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting. https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87340704154?pwd=9X6eqbB0C4WTNMP5pfd1KGqtBMsOQb.1 Meeting ID: 873 4070 4154 Passcode: 624440