Hakikat Kitabevi Publications No: 10 answer to an enemy of islam

when there was
difficulty. We, too, say that both the cases are permissible. As
explained in detail in the preceding article, the ijtihâds of imâms
belonging to a madhhab mean the ijtihâd of the imâm who
founded that madhhab. To unify them does not mean to go out of
the imâm al-madhhab’s ijtihâd. Religion reformers, in a clever way
with their own logic, write the things that are permissible and, by
putting them forward, want to have their own corrupt and
destructive thoughts be accepted as faith and ’ibâdât.
35– Rashîd Ridâ wants to clinch his ideas by repeating his
assertions. He says again:
“I do not admit qiyâs in ’ibâdât. Every Muslim who
looks at the documentary evidences and admits the
opinions accordingly is a mujtahid, too. Also those scholars
who were attached to maddhabs have disagreed with them
in some matters. Al-Baghawî, al-Awzâ’î and al-Ghazâlî
disagreed with their îmâm though they were in the Shâfi’î
madhhab, and az-Zamakhsharî disagreed with Abû Hanîfa.
After the Four Caliphs began the time of sovereign rulers;
religious teachings were corrupted.”
According to the religion reformer, there is no qiyâs in Islam;
all Muslims are mujtahids; by observing the documentary
evidences of discordant matters, they will find out the correct way;
in other words, they will employ qiyâs! His two assertions
contradict each other. If he had been able to understand the
meanings of ijtihâd and qiyâs in the books of usûl al-fiqh, he
would not have fallen into this contradiction. The Egyptian
religion reformer is rather strong in Arabic, his mother tongue,
and he is educated to some extent. Certainly, he can easily read
– 55 –
[1] See below, p. 86, for al-Imâm ash-Shâfi’î’s such comments about al-
Imâm al-a’zam.

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the books of the scholars of Ahl as-Sunna and can understand
something within his own limits. But ’ilm al-usûl al-fiqh is like a
large ocean. Being specialized in this branch of knowledge
requires having studied the eighty preliminary branches
thoroughly. A person who does not know these eighty branches,
and who even denies them, is ignorant in this branch, even if he
were very powerful in Arabic. This is the age of specialization.
Only in the field of medicine, or in physics or chemistry, many
new branches of specialization are being born. A doctor
specialized in internal diseases sometimes has to refer his patient
to a doctor specialized in neurology, who may have to send his
patient to a psychology doctor, who may have to hand over a
patient of his to a psychiatrist. The specialization branches of
physiotherapy are even greater. While there are these various
branches of specialization in science, how could it ever be right to
slight, or to go so far as to deny, the branches of specialization and
their experts in religious knowledge which is higher and more
extensive? This should never be admissible, especially on the part
of a person who speaks in the name of knowledge. It is easily
understandable that the religion reformer is very ignorant in ’ilm
al-usûl al-fiqh. It can be of no value at all if an ignoramus speaks
ill of an ’âlim, an expert. An ’âlim, not an ignoramus, can
recognize an ’âlim. The words of an ignoramus, whether
favourable or unfavourable, will not be esteemed. An ignoramus
who writes the words of scholars without understanding them and
who thus fills many pages can deceive only those who are ignorant
like him. While writing these lines, we do not ever claim to be
authorized in this exalted branch of knowledge. We see that we
are, let alone being scholars, a mere nothing in comparison with
the profound knowledge of the great scholars. We deem it
impertinence on our part to speak or write from ourselves on this
branch of knowledge. But what else could we do, while the
ignorant and the enemies of Islam have come forth and have been
moving about freely? They have been competing with one
another in attacking Islam. Not a hero gifted with perfection to
answer them has been seen. Islam has been going away,
collapsing. Lots of infinite thanks be to our Allâhu ta’âlâ that we
have been honoured with seeing a profound scholar of Islam, an
expert of this branch of knowledge, who had seen the situation
long before and had been worrying about it ever since, but had
been deprived of saying and writing about it. For this very great
endowment of His, may thanks be to our Allâhu ta’âlâ again!
– 56 –

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Even if every hair on our bodies began to speak, we could not
fulfil one-millionth of the gratitude due to this blessing of our
Allâhu ta’âlâ. Had we not heard a few facts from the treasure of
hikma and ma’rifa of that great expert in Islam, who was Hadrat
Sayyid ’Abdulhakîm-i Arwâsî, we, let alone writing books on this
sublime, very advanced and very dangerously subtle subject,
could not even dare to open our mouths. But we have deemed it
a duty, even a debt for ourselves to convey the leaks of knowledge
from that source to our brothers-in-Islam. In order to escape the
threat in the hadîth ash-sherîf,