Reclaiming Reason (part 1)
Art Harun
A couple of years ago, I had the opportunity to sit down and spoke about various aspects of Islam with a well- known ulamak in Malaysia. One particular topic of our conversation would always replay itself in my head.
I asked him of his opinion on the practice by some Muslims in Malaysia who brush their teeth using a piece of wood which was apparently used by the Prophet (peace be upon him) to clean his teeth. The Malays call this wood “kayu sugi.”
He smiled and asked me, “What is important to you, usage of the wood or the cleanliness of your teeth?” Without waiting for a reply from me, he continued, “if the usage of the wood is important to you, you use the wood and if the cleanliness of your teeth is important, you use Coldgate, as do I.” He smiled.
It got me thinking. Have the Muslims misunderstood the sunnah (the Prophet’s acts and sayings – the sayings are known as “hadiths” -, all of which are otherwise known as the “tradition”)?
If for example, we have a sunnah that the Prophet loved to ride horses and learned how to use bow and arrow, what is the real lesson which we could derive from it? Is it that the Muslims should emulate the Prophet by learning how to ride horses and use the bow and arrow or is it that Muslims should stay healthy by leading an active life and perhaps in the process also learn the art of self-defence?
In a speech delivered at the Islamic Information Service’s Outreach Award ceremony, on 3rd October 1998 in Beverly Hills, Sheikh Zaki Ahmad Yamani, posits:
“But back to how we apply Islamic Law in a modern society, a Muslim society? It’s an important issue because first we have to distinguish between Al-Sharia and Al-Fiqh al Islami – Islamic Law and Islamic Jurisprudence. Al-Sharia or Islamic Law, it’s what written in the Quran or in the Sunnah. This is obligatory, so to speak. The other part, Al-Fiqh al Islami, is a huge volume of legal opinion (sic)….. In Saudi Arabia they apply Hanbli (sic), In Iran they apply Jafri, in Yemen they apply a blend of Zaidi and Shafa’i. And so on. That is not really the Islamic Law.
What we applied 10 centuries ago or 15 centuries ago it cannot be really applied today at a time when camel was the only means of transportation.”
Judging from current trend in Malaysia, where adherence to the strict and almost literal meaning of the sunnahs is the norm, Sheikh Zaki’s statement above is astounding, to say the least. Some people may even argue that it is heresy.
Effectively, what the good Sheikh was saying is the various schools of thought and what they represent is not really Islamic Law. Thus it is not obligatory or mandatory for contemporary Muslims to subscribe a slavish adherence to the various principles which those schools propound.
Sheikh Zaki is not alone in his thinking. Contemporary Muslim jurists, such as Tariq Ramadhan has often made a case for a complete re-look and re-thinking of Syariah (Islamic code laws). Tariq Ramadhan has even gone as far as suggesting that the Muslim world should suspend the application of hudud laws until such time when a complete Islamic social justice is attained in Islamdom thereby laying a fair path for a thorough Syariah application.
Islamic history would show that in a period of almost unsurpassed intellectualism in medieval Islam (using the word “medieval” to describe this period is almost unfair as the intellectual expression of this era was anything but medieval), there were various schools of thought called the Rationalists which pursued a rationale and reasoned methodology of interpreting and applying Islamic laws. Against them were of course the Traditionists, who insisted on strict and almost literal application of the tradition and the Quran, thereby reducing Islam into a one dimensional legal code instead of a dynamic “ad-deen” (way of life) for which the Quran lays the foundation.
