←IndexThe Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam

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

Section 14 of 14

Qiyās, the fiction of closure, and the call to reconstruction

Section summary

In brief

Iqbal takes up qiyās — the fourth and final source — and through it delivers the closing verdict of the entire Reconstruction: the closure of the door of ijtihād is 'pure fiction,' sustained by intellectual laziness 'which, especially in the period of spiritual decay, turns great thinkers into idols.' He calls the Muslim world to courageously proceed with reconstruction, and names Islam's ultimate aim as a spiritual democracy grounded in the principles of Tawḥīd.

Section 13 examined the third source of Islamic law — ijmāʿ — and argued for its transformation from a theoretical concept into a functioning legislative assembly, with the ʿulamāʾ participating as contributors rather than gatekeepers, and legal education reform as the institutional precondition. Section 14 now takes up the fourth and final source — qiyās (analogical reasoning) — and through it delivers the closing argument of the entire Reconstruction: the declaration that the closure of ijtihād is a 'pure fiction,' the call for the Muslim world to 'courageously proceed to the work of reconstruction,' and Iqbal's vision of Islam's ultimate aim — a 'spiritual democracy' that the modern Muslim is uniquely positioned to build.

The section advances through four movements. First, Iqbal traces the historical controversy between the Iraqi school of Abū Ḥanīfah (which emphasised deductive analogical reasoning) and the Ḥijāzī school of Mālik and al-Shāfiʿī (which insisted on the primacy of concrete precedent). Iqbal reads this controversy not as a sectarian dispute but as a productive dialectic: the Ḥijāzī critique 'emancipated the concrete' and forced the Ḥanafī school to integrate inductive sensitivity into its deductive method, producing a school that is 'absolutely free in its essential principle and possesses much greater power of creative adaptation than any other school.' Second, Iqbal identifies the irony that modern Ḥanafī legists have 'eternalized the interpretations of the founder' — committing exactly the same error that the early critics of Abū Ḥanīfah committed with regard to concrete precedents. The essential principle of qiyās, rightly understood, is 'only another name for ijtihād.'

Third, Iqbal delivers the verdict: 'The closing of the door of ijtihād is pure fiction suggested partly by the crystallization of legal thought in Islam, and partly by that intellectual laziness which, especially in the period of spiritual decay, turns great thinkers into idols.' He cites al-Zarkashī's eighth-century observation that ijtihād is easier for later scholars than for earlier ones, given the vastly greater body of compiled material available to them. Fourth, and most powerfully, Iqbal closes the entire Reconstruction with a vision of Islam's civilisational purpose: humanity needs 'a spiritual interpretation of the universe, spiritual emancipation of the individual, and basic principles of a universal import directing the evolution of human society on a spiritual basis.' Europe has failed to provide these because 'pure thought has so little influenced men, while religion has always elevated individuals, and transformed whole societies.' The Muslim world, in possession of 'these ultimate ideas on the basis of a revelation,' has the resources to build what Europe cannot — provided it reconstructs its social life 'in the light of ultimate principles' and evolves 'that spiritual democracy which is the ultimate aim of Islam.'

This closing section brings the entire arc of the Reconstruction to its destination. The seven lectures have moved from the metaphysical foundations (Lectures I–II), through epistemology (Lecture III), the nature of selfhood and prayer (Lecture IV), the anti-classical spirit of Muslim culture (Lecture V), to the question of institutional movement (Lecture VI). The final paragraphs reveal that this entire journey was in service of a single imperative: the reconstruction of Islamic civilisation as a 'spiritual democracy' — a society constituted not by ethnic solidarity, monarchical authority, or clerical supervision, but by the free, creative, spiritually grounded self-governance of a people who have internalised the principles of Tawḥīd.

Original text

(d) The Qiyās. The fourth basis of Fiqh is Qiyās, i.e. the use of analogical reasoning in legislation. In view of different social and agricultural conditions prevailing in the countries conquered by Islam, the school of Abū Ḥanīfah seem to have found, on the whole, little or no guidance from the precedents recorded in the literature of traditions. The only alternative open to them was to resort to speculative reason in their interpretations. The application of Aristotelian logic, however, though suggested by the discovery of new conditions in Iraq, was likely to prove exceedingly harmful in the preliminary stages of legal development. The intricate behaviour of life cannot be subjected to hard and fast rules logically deducible from certain general notions. Yet, looked at through the spectacles of Aristotle's logic, it appears to be a mechanism pure and simple with no internal principle of movement. Thus the school of Abū Ḥanīfah tended to ignore the creative freedom and arbitrariness of life, and hoped to build a logically perfect legal system on the lines of pure reason. The legists of Hedjaz, however, true to the practical genius of their race, raised strong protests against the scholastic subtleties of the legists of Iraq, and their tendency to imagine unreal cases which they rightly thought would turn the Law of Islam into a kind of lifeless mechanism. These bitter controversies among the early doctors of Islam led to a critical definition of the limitations, conditions, and correctives of Qiyās which, though originally appeared as a mere disguise for the Mujtahid's personal opinion, eventually became a source of life and movement in the Law of Islam. The spirit of the acute criticism of Mālik and Shāfiʿī on Abū Ḥanīfah's principle of Qiyās, as a source of law, constitutes really an effective Semitic restraint on the Aryan tendency to seize the abstract in preference to the concrete, to enjoy the idea rather than the event. This was really a controversy between the advocates of deductive and inductive methods in legal research. The legists of Iraq originally emphasized the eternal aspect of the 'notion', while those of Hedjaz laid stress on its temporal aspect. The latter, however, did not see the full significance of their own position, and their instinctive partiality to the legal tradition of Hedjaz narrowed their vision to the 'precedents' that had actually happened in the days of the Prophet and his companions. No doubt they recognized the value of the concrete, but at the same time they eternalized it, rarely resorting to Qiyās based on the study of the concrete as such. Their criticism of Abū Ḥanīfah and his school, however, emancipated the concrete as it were, and brought out the necessity of observing the actual movement and variety of life in the interpretation of juristic principles. Thus the school of Abū Ḥanīfah which fully assimilated the results of this controversy is absolutely free in its essential principle and possesses much greater power of creative adaptation than any other school of Muhammadan Law.

But, contrary to the spirit of his own school, the modern Ḥanafī legist has eternalized the interpretations of the founder or his immediate followers much in the same way as the early critics of Abū Ḥanīfah eternalized the decisions given on concrete cases. Properly understood and applied, the essential principle of this school, i.e. Qiyās, as Shāfiʿī rightly says, is only another name for Ijtihād⁵⁵ which, within the limits of the revealed texts, is absolutely free; and its importance as a principle can be seen from the fact that, according to most of the doctors, as Qāḍī Shawkānī tells us, it was permitted even in the lifetime of the Holy Prophet.⁵⁶ The closing of the door of Ijtihād is pure fiction suggested partly by the crystallization of legal thought in Islam, and partly by that intellectual laziness which, especially in the period of spiritual decay, turns great thinkers into idols.

This work of reconstruction, however, has a far more serious aspect than mere adjustment to modern conditions of life. The Great European War bringing in its wake the awakening of Turkey — the element of stability in the world of Islam — as a French writer has recently described her, and the new economic experiment tried in the neighbourhood of Muslim Asia, must open our eyes to the inner meaning and destiny of Islam. Humanity needs three things today — a spiritual interpretation of the universe, spiritual emancipation of the individual, and basic principles of a universal import directing the evolution of human society on a spiritual basis. Modern Europe has, no doubt, built idealistic systems on these lines, but experience shows that truth revealed through pure reason is incapable of bringing that fire of living conviction which personal revelation alone can bring. This is the reason why pure thought has so little influenced men, while religion has always elevated individuals, and transformed whole societies. The idealism of Europe never became a living factor in her life, and the result is a perverted ego seeking itself through mutually intolerant democracies whose sole function is to exploit the poor in the interest of the rich. Believe me, Europe today is the greatest hindrance in the way of man's ethical advancement.

The Muslim, on the other hand, is in possession of these ultimate ideas on the basis of a revelation, which, speaking from the inmost depths of life, internalizes its own apparent externality. With him the spiritual basis of life is a matter of conviction for which even the least enlightened man among us can easily lay down his life; and in view of the basic idea of Islam that there can be no further revelation binding on man, we ought to be spiritually one of the most emancipated peoples on earth. Early Muslims emerging out of the spiritual slavery of pre-Islamic Asia were not in a position to realize the true significance of this basic idea. Let the Muslim of today appreciate his position, reconstruct his social life in the light of ultimate principles, and evolve, out of the hitherto partially revealed purpose of Islam, that spiritual democracy which is the ultimate aim of Islam.⁵⁹

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13. Ijmāʿ — from idea to legislative assembly

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