Jurisprudential Salafism (al-fiqh al-muqarrin) was a product of a revolution or reform that occurred in the Islamic sciences at the turn of the 20th century. With the technological shifts brought about by the usage of oil, geopolitical shifts towards an American international hegemony, and the collapse of the Ottoman empire – Islamic sciences fell into a crisis.
Crises occur in sciences when that science is no longer able to use its founding principles or consensus to deal with new issues. If one or two issues fall out of the scope of the science, they can be disregarded or ignored. However, the major cultural, political, religious, and intellectual shifts at the turn of the 20th century gave Muslims no choice but to confront these anomalies.
As a result, two major camps began to form. One camp adhered strictly to the consensus and findings of the last 1,400 years of Islamic scholarship, believing that doubling down was the solution to modern problems. The other camp (reformists) believed that the rules of the Islamic sciences had to be reconsidered in order to accommodate new problems.
We are concerned with the reformists.
In order for an idea to be widely considered, it only needs to be posited by one person and spread. Oftentimes, the idea itself is not as important as the scope of discourse that it opens people up to. As such, in order to widen the scope of Islamic scholarly thought and research beyond the bounds of the tradition in order to reform it and deal with anomalies – this kind of widening had to come outside of the tradition.
Jamal al-Din al-Afghani did this by presenting many new, unconventional, or even heretical ideas regarding Islamic sciences. While heretics have existed since the beginning of Islam, his innovations were unique in that they represented a systematic restructuring of the approach to Islamic studies that accommodated the modern world.
Al-Afghani taught Mohammad Abduh. Abduh took Afghani’s thought and added more traditional Islamic learning with deeper Western legal reasoning. He was granted legitimacy and a position in Egypt. This now opened the doors of discourse and discussion as to how Islam can be interpreted and what exactly constitutes ijma’ (consensus).
Rashid Rida took Abduh’s teachings and brought them even closer to normative Islam by incorporating many traditional Sunni teachings and Hadith.
Modern Salafism, in particular the fiqh of modern Salafism, comes out of this discourse. Within the reformists, those that questioned the tradition and the monopoly of traditional Islamic scholarship, some were not interested in conceding ground to Western ideologies. Their interest was in reinterpreting the source texts within the bounds of what would have been acceptable within the early generations, essentially seeking to turn back the clock of Islamic scholarship.
These Salafis were borne out of an environment created by Mohammad ibn ‘Abd al-Wah’hab and his reformist movement, which was very different than al-Afghanis. However, a synthesis emerged between: ibn Taymiyyah’s idiosyncratic approach to Islam, ibn ‘Abd al-Wah’hab’s wider reformist movement (which was focused primarily on his theological contributions), and Afghani’s re-evaluation of Islamic scholarship.
Taking ibn Taymiyyah’s critical evaluation and method of ijtihad, ibn al-Qayyim’s censure of taqlid (blind following), along with ibn ‘Abd al-Wah’hab’s theological rejection of most of the traditional scholars around him, and Afghani’s presentation that the assumptions of the Islamic sciences are unfounded or irrelevant – modern Salafis became uniquely positioned to develop their own approach to fiqh.
This approach to fiqh, al-fiqh al-muqarrin, came out of the reformed Salafi institutions such as al-Azhar in the 50s and 60s and Madina university. Their approach to fiqh was essentially to review the legal questions (masa’il), present all of the conclusions (aqwal) regarding any point of dispute (khilaf) and then attempt to gather all of the legal arguments (dalil) put forth by proponents of each position.
All of the dalil would be gathered and then analyzed. The vast majority of epistemological (usuli) considerations are just assumed by each Salafi faqih, adopted from the Hanbali madh’hab, or are widely inconsistent between the masa’il. The dalil is analyzed essentially based on arbitrary reasoning and determination as to what is “strong.” Weak ahadith, other usuli considerations, maqasid, and usul-based arguments are totally discounted. A literalist approach to textual analysis is preferred and assumed correct, usually in the Hanbali style and not the more literalist Dhahiri style.
Then, once that dalil which is considered to be strong is established, the various conclusions (aqwal) are compared to the dalil to determine which qawl is most in line with a soft-literal reading of the texts (Nusus). Where no explicit text in the Qur’an or Hadith is found, then Musannaf compilations containing the legal views of the Sahabah and Tabi’un are preferred. Then each Salafi faqih chooses the qawl they feel is closest to the literal meaning of texts determined authentic and this is presented as an objective analysis of the mas’ala. The right answer is arrived at with Sahih dalil.
To anyone who has studied fiqh seriously, this approach is highly problematic and even laughable. It suggests that the work of all of the fuqaha of the past was essentially a waste of time and the solution to fiqh was just to perform a very crude and rudimentary comparative analysis. The kind of macro-analysis performed by the fuqaha to determine maqasid, the deep logical and philosophical discussions neccesary to create Usul, the kind of methodological consistency in order to found a madh’hab, and the wide scope of disagreement within each madh’hab based on applying usul are all discarded.
Salafi fiqh is a response to the seeming failure of the fuqaha to overcome or adapt to the modernist onslaught by returning back to the era of unrestricted ijtihad. However, those performing this ijtihad simply do not understand fiqh, ijtihad, or the Shari’ah at a competent enough level to do this. While the traditionists themselves are highly problematic, the idea of comparing fiqh conclusions based on arbitrary deductions as to the strength of evidences and the strength of the argumentation and simply choosing one – not doing any of the Usuli, Maqasid, or fiqh background work to arrive at any conclusion let alone comparatively – is incredibly weak if not outright arrogant.
How fiqh should be studied:
- Maqasid al-Shari’ah – the overall governing principles of the entire Sacred Law, how to interpret the Ahkam of the Shari’. How Allah told us to understand the Way.
- Usul al-Fiqh – the interpretative structure and methodology of dealing with the texts. How do we derive rulings and understand application of the evidences.
- Furu’ al-Fiqh – understanding the rulings pertaining to individual masa’il. A person should study all of the Ahkam relevant to them in one madh’hab first, then learn all of the ahkam which are not personally relevant to them, and complete the texts of that madh’hab before studying anything comparative.
- Dalil – studying the evidences used by a madh’hab to prove their conclusions in furu’.
When a person conducts a complete study of these four and masters a madh’hab, then they begin to work backwards (what the Salafiyyah do at the beginning). Since they understand maqasid and usul, they can now evaluate dalil and come to conclusions in furu’. A higher level scholar can come to conclusions about usul. The highest level ulama can come to conclusions about maqasid.
Salafis are commonly accused of having started a fifth madh’hab, but in reality Salafis themselves have different perspectives on the four madhahib
All Salafis agree that taqlid, especially hardcore taqlid, is bad – but they disagree as to how much taqlid is acceptable and what the role of the madhahib are
There have always been ulama that didn’t really respect the study of fiqh and wanted to stick primarily to ahadith throughout history, and they have had their own disorganized and not well-respected informal madh’hab of Ahl al-Hadith
The early muhadithun that didn’t have a formal madh’hab were mujtahid so they didn’t really need to follow another mujtahid imam
Ibn Taymiyyah was a Hanbali but he was also a minor mujtahid, so he was qualified to deviate from the usul of his madh’hab, adopt some Maliki usul, and do ijtihad on these masa’il. The question is whether or not you accept that the door of ijtihad was closed by his time or not
Ibn al-Qayyim was also a Hanbali but he spoke out very harshly against taqlid
ibn ‘Abd al-Wah’hab also followed the Hanbali madh’hab, arguably closer than ibn Taymiyyah because he was a much lesser scholar than him, but he himself also disagreed with the mu’tamad of the Hanabila and would choose other views in the madh’hab
ibn ‘Abd al-Wah’hab actually forced people to follow one of the four madhahib
The idea of abandoning a madh’hab completely came during the era of the modernist Salafis, especially in Egypt
but it wasn’t popularized until Albani began spreading it under the title of Salafiyyah
so the popularization of not following a madh’hab is no more than 60 years old and not really representative of all of the Salafi movement
what was more common is Salafi ulama doing tafliq, i.e. picking various views from within other madhahib on particular issues, and doing their own tarjih, kind of like what Sayyid Sabiq did in his book Fiqh al-Sunnah
Anyways, there’s nothing wrong with being a Salafi and sticking to one madh’hab, as even Albani said the layman has to do taqlid in his Principles of the Salafi Movement. The idea of abandoning the madhahib and doing your own ijtihad comes from the modernist Salafis and was later adopted by the Albani Ahl al-Hadith-style Salafis.
It’s difficult to argue that Salafiyyah is it’s own madh’hab just because it’s so incoherent in terms of various ulama, speakers, and positions – unlike the four madhahib. The idea of not following one madh’hab makes so little sense and is so useless in learning fiqh that it’s hard to legitimize it and then say their contributions amount to a new madh’hab.
و الله اعلم