←IndexThe Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam

Lecture 6: The Principle of Movement in the Structure of Islam

Section 10 of 14

Is the law of Islam capable of evolution?

Section summary

In brief

Iqbal pivots from the Turkish case study to the direct question 'Is the Law of Islam capable of evolution?' and marshals preliminary evidence — the hundred theological systems that bloomed in the classical period, the nineteen early legal schools, and the absence of any written law apart from the Qur'an before the Abbasids. Most importantly, he observes that the early schools 'gradually passed from the deductive to the inductive attitude,' introducing empirical responsiveness into legal thought.

Section 9 issued the warning that counterbalances the preceding six sections' advocacy of ijtihād: liberalism, if unchecked, becomes a force of disintegration, and Islamic reform must proceed with 'self-control and clear insight into the ultimate aims of Islam as a social polity.' Section 10 now pivots from the Turkish case study — which has occupied Sections 4–9 — to the direct examination of the question Section 8 posed: is the Law of Islam capable of evolution? This section is transitional in character: it frames the question, marshals preliminary evidence from European Orientalist scholarship, and lays out the structural observations that will govern the detailed examination of the four sources of Islamic law in Sections 11–14.

The section advances through four movements. First, Iqbal introduces the German Orientalist Max Horten's argument that the history of Islam is 'a gradual interaction, harmony, and mutual deepening' of Aryan culture and Semitic religion — and that between 800 and 1100 CE, 'not less than one hundred systems of theology appeared in Islam,' demonstrating the extraordinary elasticity of Islamic thought. Second, he cites Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje's observation that Muslim jurists simultaneously condemn each other as heretics and work to reconcile the quarrels of their predecessors — a paradox that reveals the tradition's internal dynamism beneath its apparent rigidity. Third, Iqbal makes three preliminary observations: that no written law existed apart from the Qur'an until the rise of the Abbasids; that nineteen schools of law appeared between the mid-first and early fourth Islamic centuries; and that these schools 'gradually passed from the deductive to the inductive attitude' in their interpretive efforts. Fourth, he announces the programme for the remaining sections: a discussion of the 'four accepted sources of Muhammadan Law' — the Qur'an, Sunnah, Ijmāʿ, and Qiyās — through which the possibility of further evolution will be demonstrated.

The section's most important intellectual contribution is the third observation: the claim that the early legal schools moved from deductive to inductive reasoning. This is a compressed but far-reaching argument. Deductive reasoning proceeds from general principles to specific applications; inductive reasoning proceeds from specific cases and observations to general principles. The shift Iqbal describes — from applying Qur'anic principles deductively to studying 'local conditions of life and habits of new peoples' and reasoning inductively from these conditions — is, in effect, the introduction of empirical responsiveness into legal thought. It is the jurisprudential equivalent of the shift from Greek rationalism to empirical science that Lecture V traced in the development of Muslim natural philosophy. And it is the methodological foundation of the 'evolution' Iqbal is about to argue for: law evolves not by abandoning its principles but by inductively engaging new circumstances and allowing those circumstances to generate new applications of permanent principles.

Original text

I have given you some idea of the history and working of Ijtihād in modern Islam. I now proceed to see whether the history and structure of the Law of Islam indicate the possibility of any fresh interpretation of its principles. In other words, the question that I want to raise is — Is the Law of Islam capable of evolution? Horten, Professor of Semitic Philology at the University of Bonn, raises the same question in connexion with the Philosophy and Theology of Islam. Reviewing the work of Muslim thinkers in the sphere of purely religious thought he points out that the history of Islam may aptly be described as a gradual interaction, harmony, and mutual deepening of two distinct forces, i.e. the element of Aryan culture and knowledge on the one hand, and a Semitic religion on the other. The Muslim has always adjusted his religious outlook to the elements of culture which he assimilated from the peoples that surrounded him. From 800 to 1100, says Horten, not less than one hundred systems of theology appeared in Islam, a fact which bears ample testimony to the elasticity of Islamic thought as well as to the ceaseless activity of our early thinkers. Thus, in view of the revelations of a deeper study of Muslim literature and thought, this living European Orientalist has been driven to the following conclusion:

The spirit of Islam is so broad that it is practically boundless. With the exception of atheistic ideas alone it has assimilated all the attainable ideas of surrounding peoples, and given them its own peculiar direction of development.

The assimilative spirit of Islam is even more manifest in the sphere of law. Says Professor Hurgronje — the Dutch critic of Islam:

When we read the history of the development of Mohammadan Law we find that, on the one hand, the doctors of every age, on the slightest stimulus, condemn one another to the point of mutual accusations of heresy; and, on the other hand, the very same people, with greater and greater unity of purpose, try to reconcile the similar quarrels of their predecessors.

These views of modern European critics of Islam make it perfectly clear that, with the return of new life, the inner catholicity of the spirit of Islam is bound to work itself out in spite of the rigorous conservatism of our doctors. And I have no doubt that a deeper study of the enormous legal literature of Islam is sure to rid the modern critic of the superficial opinion that the Law of Islam is stationary and incapable of development.

Unfortunately, the conservative Muslim public of this country is not yet quite ready for a critical discussion of Fiqh, which, if undertaken, is likely to displease most people, and raise sectarian controversies; yet I venture to offer a few remarks on the point before us.

1. In the first place, we should bear in mind that from the earliest times practically up to the rise of the Abbasids, there was no written law of Islam apart from the Qur'an.

2. Secondly, it is worthy of note that from about the middle of the first century up to the beginning of the fourth not less than nineteen schools of law and legal opinion appeared in Islam.³⁴ This fact alone is sufficient to show how incessantly our early doctors of law worked in order to meet the necessities of a growing civilization. With the expansion of conquest and the consequent widening of the outlook of Islam these early legists had to take a wider view of things, and to study local conditions of life and habits of new peoples that came within the fold of Islam. A careful study of the various schools of legal opinion, in the light of contemporary social and political history, reveals that they gradually passed from the deductive to the inductive attitude in their efforts at interpretation.³⁵

3. Thirdly, when we study the four accepted sources of Muhammadan Law and the controversies which they invoked, the supposed rigidity of our recognized schools evaporates and the possibility of a further evolution becomes perfectly clear. Let us briefly discuss these sources.

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9. The dangers of unchecked liberalism

11. The Qur'an as legal source and the question of women's rights

Original text

The assimilative spirit of Islam is even more manifest in the sphere of law. Says Professor Hurgronje — the Dutch critic of Islam:

1. In the first place, we should bear in mind that from the earliest times practically up to the rise of the Abbasids, there was no written law of Islam apart from the Qur'an.